DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
European Commission staff to be briefed on diplomatic service
HONOR MAHONY Today OCT 19,09 @ 08:00 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission will on Monday (19 October) give its first major internal briefing on the implications of Europe's proposed new diplomatic service.The briefing will be given by Catherine Day, secretary general of the commission and in charge of conducting the commission's negotiations with member states on what the diplomatic service should look like.It's a chance for staff who are concerned about what it means for their jobs to hear something about it,said an EU official.The talk is meant to shed some clarity on who should be part of the service and what exactly its scope will be, with discussion on the issue hotting up as member states press to get the Lisbon Treaty, which contains the proposal, into place next year.[The staff question] is one of the key elements of any agreement that will be made,said the official referring to the discussions between member states and the commission.The diplomatic service is designed to back up the proposed new EU foreign minister with expert advice and analysis.It will involve some of the around 6,000 European Commission staff who work on external relations in Brussels and its 123 delegations abroad, plus the staff of the council secretariat, under the charge of the member states, as well as experts seconded directly from national services.But it is not clear how much of the external relations staff from the commission will be involved in the service, with staff working on trade, enlargement and development issues also implicated.It is also not clear how big the service should be; what the ratio of staff numbers should be and where the service should be housed.These tricky questions go to the heart of the nature of the Union - putting up for discussion the balance between member states themselves as well as the balance between a national government-driven foreign policy and a more communitarian policy.
The Lisbon treaty itself is vague on the matter saying only that the service will be agreed by member states after a proposal by the foreign ministers. The commission needs to give its agreement while the European Parliament should be consulted.This vagueness has already unleashed a power tussle between the main EU institutions. While member states would rather have a separate entity with its own budget line, the parliament is keen for the service to be part of the commission's structure and be funded by the EU budget, something that would give MEPs more say and oversight.The assembly's constitutional affairs committee is due to vote on a report on the issue on Monday evening (19 October).The draft report, by German centre-right German MEP Elmar Brok, urges balance between the numbers of staff from member states, the council and commission; calls for the service to be incorporated into the commission's administrative structure and for budgetary oversight.Although they do not actually have much say over the matter, MEPs are willing to play hardball with the powers they do have to try and get their way.UK Liberal MEP Andrew Duff recently told EUobserver that MEPs will fail to appoint the new EU foreign minister if their demands are not met.The EU foreign minister will be part of the European Commission. The members of the commission are subjected to hearings by the MEPs before taking up their posts while the entire commission is subject to a vote in parliament before it comes into place.
Slovakia may seek Czech-style opt-out on Lisbon-The Slovak flag seen though a droplet of water (Photo: formulaphoto)ANDREW RETTMAN Today OCT 19,09 @ 06:35 CET
Slovakia may also seek an opt-out from part of the Lisbon Treaty if the Czech Republic gets an exemption designed to prevent ethnic Germans expelled after World War II from claiming back their property.Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico explained the decision on Czech national TV on Sunday (18 October).We will not leave Slovakia in a situation of uncertainty if we feel that one of the seceding countries of former Czechoslovakia has negotiated an exception,he said.For us the Benes Decrees are such an important part of the rule of law, that we cannot allow for Slovakia to be left in any kind of legal uncertainty.Slovak foreign minister Miroslav Lajcak reinforced the message in a separate TV appearance. Anything which is to be arranged for the Czech Republic has to be approved by everybody, which means by us as well. We would not agree to something that would leave us at a disavantage,he said. The Benes Decrees are a set of laws enacted by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile between 1939 and 1945 which led to the deportation of 2.6 million ethnic Germans after the war. The country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in a peaceful process in 1993.Czech President Vaclav Klaus last week made his signature of the Lisbon Treaty conditional on his country securing an opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a section of the pact which he says could be used by German plaintiffs to challenge the expulsions.The multiplication of last-minute amendments to Lisbon is a headache for EU leaders who had hoped to use an upcoming summit in late October to decide on appointments for a new set of senior posts in Brussels. It has also raised questions of whether an amended text will have to be re-ratified by the 27 EU states.Mr Klaus in an interview with Czech daily Lidove Noviny on Saturday lowered the stakes on re-ratification by saying he would be happy with an Irish-type legal guarantee.Ireland's guarantees, that Lisbon will not affect taxation or abortion law, did not require re-ratification because they have no legal force until they are added to the next EU treaty, due when Croatia or Iceland joins the union.
The train has already travelled so fast and so far that I guess it will not be possible to stop it or turn it around, however much we would wish to,Mr Klaus said, referring to the Lisbon Treaty's entry into life.
STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Deaths from Philippine storms nears 1,000: govt OCT 19,09
MANILA (AFP) – The death toll from two devastating storms that struck the Philippines over the past month has risen to 858, with ensuing disease outbreaks killing 89 others, the government said Monday.The latest National Disaster Coordinating Council toll is up from 818 on Sunday.It said Tropical Storm Ketsana left 420 dead and 37 missing when it flooded 80 percent of Manila on September 26, a disaster the government said affected 4.35 million people.Some areas are still flooded three weeks later and 189,000 people remain in evacuation centres, it added.
Typhoon Parma hit the northern Philippines on October 3 and lingered as a tropical storm for a week, triggering landslides that killed 438 people and leaving 51 missing mostly in mountain communities.The government agency said Parma affected 4.16million people, including more than 32,000 who remain at evacuation centres.The health department said leptospirosis, a bacterial disease that can lead to kidney failure and is caused by exposure to animal urine in flood waters, later killed at least 89 people.Even as the northern Philippines tries to recover from the twin disasters, another typhoon is threatening more devastation for the area.Civil defence officials have put rescue teams on standby and stockpiled relief goods with Typhoon Lupit, packing winds of 175 kilometres (109 miles) an hour, forecast to start bringing bad weather to the region by Wednesday.
Philippine economy falls victim to twin storms by Mynardo Macaraig Mynardo Macaraig – OCT 19,09
MANILA (AFP) – Powerful storms that claimed nearly 1,000 lives in the Philippines have also taken a heavy toll on the nation's economy, with the impoverished Southeast Asian nation expected to take years to recover.The twin storms that pounded the main Luzon island with record rains over the past month caused billions of dollars in damage, and the government has said it will have to go further into debt to fund the reconstruction effort.This crisis is by no means over. In some ways the hard work is just starting, the United Nations' humanitarian chief, John Holmes, warned last week as he toured some of the devastated areas of the nation's capital.
Indeed, just ending the flooding that still consumes whole districts on the outskirts of the capital, Manila, will take months, officials say, and tens of thousands of business people and farmers have lost their livelihoods. Related article: Storm toll nears 1,000.Tens of millions of dollars are going to have to be spent on repairing roads, bridges and other vital infrastructure across Luzon, while badly damaged hospitals and schools will also have to be repaired or rebuilt.
Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said the government's budget deficit may balloon to 300 billion pesos (6.4 billion dollars) this year to meet the damage bill, up from a deficit target of 250 billion pesos before the storms.The Philippines sold one billion US dollar bonds on Friday to raise much-needed funds, and President Gloria Arroyo said last week the government would have to raise more money in the coming months.Teves also warned economic growth this year could fall to 0.4-1.4 percent because of the storms, from an earlier forecast of 0.8-1.8 percent, although the downgraded target has yet to be made official.Tropical storm Ketsana dumped the heaviest single day of rains in more than four decades on Manila and surrounding areas on September 26, killing 420 people and causing nearly 100 more deaths from ensuing disease outbreaks.Typhoon Parma hit northern Luzon exactly a week later and hovered over the region for a week as a tropical storm, triggering landslides and floods that left at least 438 people dead.The government said the storms caused at least 22.83 billion pesos in damage to agriculture and infrastructure.But it acknowledged that was a conservative assessment which did not include the thousands of homes and businesses that were devastated.In one flooded Manila district, fruit vendor Rey Rendaya, 52, represented countless other small businessmen when he said the flooding would push him further into debt.This business has no insurance and the capital I used to open this up was from a loan shark,Rendaya said as he hammered into place a rusted corrugated tin roof that he salvaged from the flood debris.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of farmers north of Manila -- one of the country's rice bowls -- are equally distressed after losing their rice crops just days ahead of harvest.The Philippines, already the world's biggest importer of rice, will have to buy more to cover the storm-induced shortfall, according to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap.Nevertheless, there are some reasons for optimism. One of the strongest is that the nation's vital export sector was largely spared.There weren't that many industries that were hit, said the head of the country's export industry association, Sergio Ortiz-Luis. Of particular relief was that the factories pumping out electronic products, which account for half the nation's exports, were not badly affected, according to Ortiz-Luis.Meanwhile, government planners are looking to the fertile regions of the Visayas in the central Philippines and Mindanao in the south, both of which escaped the storms unscathed, to make up for the reduced output in Luzon.The Philippines is also counting on its old economic saviour -- the nine million Filipino workers overseas who remit money back home to help relatives and friends.Because of the storm damage, a lot of remittance companies have experienced a strong inflow of dollars back to the Philippines,said Nestor Aguila of DA Market Securities.Before the storms hit, remittances for the first eight months of 2009 had already risen 3.7 percent year-on-year to 11.34 billion dollars, according to official figures.
Rising seas threaten Shanghai, other major cities By ELAINE KURTENBACH, Associated Press Writer – OCT 19,09
SHANGHAI – This city of 20 million rose from the sea and grew into a modern showcase, with skyscrapers piercing the clouds, atop tidal flats fed by the mighty Yangtze River.Now Shanghai's future depends on finding ways to prevent the same waters from reclaiming it.Global warming and melting glaciers and polar ice sheets are raising sea levels worldwide, leaving tens of millions of people in coastal areas and on low-lying islands vulnerable to flooding and other weather-related catastrophes.Shanghai, altitude roughly 3 meters (10 feet) above sea level, is among dozens of great world cities — including London, Miami, New York, New Orleans, Mumbai, Cairo, Amsterdam and Tokyo — threatened by sea levels that now are rising twice as fast as projected just a few years ago, expanding from warmth and meltwater. Estimates of the scale and timing vary, but Stefan Rahmstorf, a respected expert at Germany's Potsdam Institute, expects a 1-meter (3-foot) rise in this century and up to 5 meters (15 feet) over the next 300 years.Chinese cities are among the largest and most threatened. Their huge populations — the Yangtze River Delta region alone has about 80 million people — and their rapid growth into giant industrial, financial and shipping centers could mean massive losses from rising sea levels, experts say.The sea is steadily advancing on Shanghai, tainting its freshwater supplies as it turns coastal land and groundwater salty, slowing drainage of the area's heavily polluted flood basin and eating away at the precious delta soils that form the city's foundations.Planners are slow in addressing the threat, in the apparent belief they have time. Instead, Shanghai has thrown its energies into constructing billions of dollars worth of new infrastructure: new ports, bridges, airports, industrial zones, right on the coast.By no means will Shanghai be under the sea 50 years from now. It won't be like the 'Day After Tomorrow' scenario, says Zheng Hongbo, a geologist who heads the School of Earth Science and Engineering at Nanjing University.
Scientifically, though, this is a problem whether we like it or not,says Zheng, pointing to areas along Shanghai's coast thought to be shrinking due to erosion caused by rising water levels.Chinese legend credits Emperor Yu the Great with taming floods in Neolithic times by dredging new river channels to absorb excess water. In modern times, the city has been sinking for decades, thanks to pumping of groundwater and the construction of thousands of high-rise buildings.Today, Shanghai's engineers are reinforcing flood gates and levees to contain rivers rising due to heavy silting and subsidence.We used to play on the river banks and swim in the water when I was growing up. But the river is higher now,says Ma Shikang, an engineer overseeing Shanghai's main flood gate, pointing to homes below water level near the city's famed riverfront Bund.Twice daily, the 100-meter (330-foot-wide) barrier, where the city's Suzhou Creek empties into the Huangpu River, is raised and lowered in tandem with the tides and weather, regulating the city's vast labyrinth of canals and creeks.The 5.86-meter (19-foot) high flood gate is built to withstand a one-in-1,000 years tidal surge; the highest modern Shanghai has faced so far was 5.72 meters (nearly 19 feet), during a 1997 typhoon.Levees along the Bund and other major waterways are 6.9 meters (nearly 23 feet) high, providing better protection than in Miami, New York and many other cities. But they still would be swamped if hit by a surge like Hurricane Katrina's 8.5-meter (28-foot) onslaught.Shanghai is considering building still bigger barriers — like those in London, Venice and the Netherlands — to fend off potentially disastrous storm surges, most likely at the point 30 kilometers (18 miles) downstream where the deep, muddy Huangpu empties into the Yangtze.Sang Baoliang, deputy director of the Shanghai Flood Control Headquarters, has been to see the Thames Barrier, which protects London, and the Deltaworks series of storm barriers and dams in the Netherlands, where two-thirds of the population lives on land below sea level, much of it reclaimed from the sea.
Like many Chinese officials, some of whom deem the topic too sensitive to discuss, Sang is cautious about what China might do. We are studying this, but it is extremely complicated,said Sang, as shots from surveillance cameras at dozens of flood gates flashed on a full-wall screen. If the research determines that indeed the sea level will rise further, then we will need to build the walls higher. But this is still under research,he said. Such projects usually require several decades of planning and construction, and with sea levels rising, they likely will have to be adjusted, given the unknowns of climate change.Nobody — no municipal or provincial government, and no central government agency — is preparing adaptation plans for Shanghai or the Yangtze Delta,says Edward Leman, whose Ottawa-based consultancy Chreod Ltd. has published research on the issue.They must begin now, as investments and decisions made today will have a major impact in the coming years.
Nearly a quarter of mankind lives in low-lying coastal areas, and urbanization is drawing still more people into them. The tendency of coastal and port locations to become playgrounds for architects and developers has become a global phenomenon in recent decades,says Gordon McGranahan, director of the human settlements group at the International Institute for Environment and Development, an independent think tank in London.McGranahan helped author a 2007 report by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development that put the number of people living in areas vulnerable to such flooding at 40 million people, with trillions of dollars of homes and other assets at risk. By the 2070s, the number could rise to nearly 150 million, it says.Extreme weather will aggravate the already precarious situation for many: in September, Tropical Storm Kestana left 80 percent of the Philippine capital, Manila, under water. Newspaper photos showed much of Haikou, on China's southern coast, flooded, as Vietnam evacuated more than 350,000 people from the storm's path. In years to come, some Pacific islands, like tiny Tuvalu, are expecting complete inundation. Vietnam's environment ministry estimates that more than a third of the Mekong Delta, where nearly half the country's rice is grown, will be submerged if sea levels rise by 1 meter (39 inches).Impoverished Bangladesh is spending billions of dollars on dikes and storm shelters, while seeking international aid to help it adapt to flooding that could force up to 35 million of its people to relocate by 2050.Though much of its land is arid, China likewise has millions of people living in densely populated tidal flats and coastal valleys who already must be evacuated during typhoons. Many of the country's biggest cities are threatened, the OECD report says.What has been specific to China has been the enormous coastward migration, unfortunately just at a time when it would have been better not to settle low-elevation coastal areas,McGranahan said.
Traces of former sea walls show that much of today's Shanghai, which sits between a flood basin and the sea, was under water or marshland until the 7th or 8th century AD. Over thousands of years, ancient settlements expanded and withdrew as water levels ebbed and rose.In the future, communities unable to move may instead end up adapting buildings and infrastructure to accommodate higher water levels, says Hui-Li Lee, a landscape architect who is working on several projects in the region. There are many things we cannot account for, but if we know an area is going to flood, then we have to plan for that,Lee said.When we look at a map, we have to think that 30 years later or 50 years later everything will be below sea level.(This version CORRECTS UPDATES with Multimedia note, drops incorrect reference to story being for immediate use; SUBS graf 33, In the future, to delete extraneous words. Multimedia: An interactive looking at the potential flooding problems of a dozen coastal cities will be available in the science/cities-flood folder. AP Television is also available.)
Hurricane Rick weakens in Pacific, still dangerous OCT 18,09
MIAMI – Forecasters say Hurricane Rick has weakened in the eastern North Pacific but is still a dangerous storm and could veer into resorts at the tip of the Baja California Peninsula by midweek.The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla., says as of Sunday night, winds were down to 145 mph (230 kph). It makes it a Category 4 storm. The peak winds as a Category 5 were 180 mph (285 kph).Forecasters say a hurricane watch may be required for parts of southern Baja California on Monday.The eye was centered about 410 miles (660 kilometers) south of Cabo San Lucas as of 11 p.m. EDT Sunday.More weakening is expected over the next couple of days.Large swells will cause potentially dangerous surf along the southern Baja California coast and west-central coast of Mexico.
Rick churns toward Mexico as major storm in Pacific Sun Oct 18, 11:50 am ET
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Hurricane Rick churned up Mexico's Pacific coast as a top Category 5 storm on Sunday and looked set to hit resorts on the Baja California peninsula by mid-week, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.A Category 5 storm ranks at the top of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale and can cause catastrophic damage.Interests in southern Baja California and the southwest coast of Mexico should monitor the progress of this extremely dangerous hurricane,the center said in a statement.Rick could lose some strength over the next few days but will remain very dangerous, the center said.Rick, the seventh hurricane of the eastern north Pacific season, was about 500 miles south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of near 175 mph with higher gusts.The center projected the hurricane turning toward the Mexican coast on Tuesday, slamming into Baja California on Wednesday morning and then heading into the mainland.Pacific storms pose no threat to Mexico's large oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico, but the Baja California peninsula is popular with U.S. tourists for its resorts in the Los Cabos area.(Reporting by Robin Emmott, Editing by Sandra Maler)
Pacific El Nino equals Atlantic hurricane calm: experts by Juan Castro Olivera – Sun Oct 18, 3:55 am ET
MIAMI (AFP) – The Pacific's El Nino ocean-warming phenomenon has resulted in an especially calm Atlantic hurricane season -- a welcome respite for Caribbean and southeastern US residents still smarting from a 2008 pounding.There have only been two hurricanes in the 2009 Atlantic season, which runs from June 1 to late November 30, but normally peaks in September and October.Hurricane Bill reached powerful Category Four intensity on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale in mid-August. It bypassed most of the Caribbean and the US east coast, making landfall in southeastern Canada and causing modest damage.Hurricane Fred formed in the Atlantic in early September, but petered out over the ocean before making landfall.We were expecting very little activity this season,said Lixion Avila, a weather expert at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.This happens when the El Nino phenomenon is present in the Pacific, the water warms up there, and that leads to hurricanes forming there and not in the Atlantic.Every three to six years, water currents shift along the equator in the Pacific and the ocean warms a few degrees, a phenomenon dubbed El Nino -- Spanish for the boy,a reference to Christ the infant because the warming is usually noticed around Christmas.The El Nino effect was powerfully demonstrated on Saturday after warm waters prompted Hurricane Rick to roar to top Category Five status as it barreled up Mexico's Pacific coast.This hurricane season "could end with no impact against the US nor the Caribbean,noted William Gray, a hurricane expert at Colorado State University who has been forecasting hurricanes for 25 years.
El Nino conditions in the Pacific result in a higher vertical wind shear over the Atlantic region, which is considered to be unfavorable to hurricane formation and intensification,said Shuyi Chen, a meteorology and oceanography professor at the University of Miami.Less Atlantic hurricanes however do not necessarily mean weaker hurricanes that stay in the ocean, Chen warned.In 1992, we had a strong El Nino condition,said Chen.Although there were less hurricanes overall, Andrew was a Cat-5 major hurricane that made landfall in Florida and near New Orleans,she said.
Hurricane Andrew, which ripped across southern Florida in 1992 before slamming into Louisiana, was blamed for 65 deaths and caused more than 30 billion dollars in damage, including massive wreckage to Homestead Air Force Base.The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast in May said there could be between four and seven hurricanes, and between nine and 14 tropical storms in the 2009 season.There have been eight tropical storms and two hurricanes so far.The calm weather is a godsend for Cuba and Haiti, two countries that suffered mightily from the effects of the 2008 storms.Three hurricanes and a tropical storm tore through Cuba last year, killing people, flooding buildings and destroying crops.Two hurricanes and two tropical storms struck Haiti, already the poorest country in the Americas. Landslides and flooding killed some 1,000 Haitians, and widespread flooding caused millions of dollars in damage. In the United States last year, Tropical Storm Fay ravaged Florida, while hurricanes Gustav and Ike slammed the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, killing 60 people and causing some 20 billion dollars in damage.
EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH
GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Moderate quake hits Indonesia Sun Oct 18, 5:16 am ET
JAKARTA (AFP) – A moderate, 5.8 magnitude quake struck off Indonesia's Sulawesi island Sunday, seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued.The quake struck at 3:23 pm (0823 GMT) 89 kilometres (55.3 miles) northeast of the city of Kendari and southeast of Sulawesi province, at a depth of 60 kilometres (37.2 miles), said the Indonesian Meteorology and Climatology Agency.Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire,where the meeting of continental tectonic plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.A 7.6 magnitude earthquake jolted the country last month, killing more than 1,100 people and leaving an estimated half a million homeless.
OBAMA CONTROLS THE MEDIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLR5jHlytRg&feature=player_embedded
Thatcher adviser: Copenhagen goal is One World Government Sunday, 18 October 2009 12:14 News from Jerusalem Global warming to be used as pretext for change
A former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher says the real purpose of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on Dec. 7-18 is to use global warming hype as a pretext to lay the foundation for a one-world government.At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed,Monkton told a Minnesota Free Market Institute audience on Thursday at Bethel University in St. Paul.Your president will sign it. Most of the Third World countries will sign it, because they think they're going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regimes from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won't sign it,he told the audience of some 700attendees.I read that treaty and what it says is this: that a world government is going to be created. The word government actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to Third World countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, climate debt – because we've been burning CO2 and they haven't. We've been screwing up the climate and they haven't. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government is enforcement.In an hour and a half lecture illustrated by slides featuring scientific data on a wide range of climate issues, Monkton refuted claims made by former Vice President Al Gore in his movie and book entitled An Inconvenient Truth,as well as scientific arguments made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Monckton argued that President Obama will sign the Copenhagen treaty at the December meeting, without seeking a two-thirds ratification of the treaty by the Senate, or any other type of Congressional approval.So, thank you, America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free,he continued.But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your humanity away forever.But I think it is here, here in your great nation, which I so love and I so admire – it is here that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, at the fifty-ninth minute and fifty-ninth second, you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty, that purposeless treaty. For there is no problem with the climate and, even if there were, an economic treaty does nothing to [help] it.Moncton is a well-known critic of the theory of anthropogenic causes for global warming who has argued repeatedly that global warming hysteria is an ideological position of the political Left advanced in the interest of imposing global taxes on the United States in the pursuit of international control of the U.S. economy under a one-world government to be administered by the U.N.Monkton's lecture can be viewed online and his slides also can be accessed on the Internet.
Where’s the global warming?
As evidence mounts that the United States is headed toward a cooling cycle that may last decades, global alarmists within the Obama administration remain resolved to push cap-and-trade legislation through Congress on the increasingly dubious theory that man-made carbon emissions are creating global warming.In what has to be seen as increasingly bad news for global warming alarmists, scientific evidence is mounting that temperatures in the United States have cooled at a rate that would be projected to lower temperatures 7.3 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century.Source. U.S. National Climate Data Center and www.c3headlines.com.Maybe Obama’s Science Czar is Right: Is a New Ice Age on the Horizon? WND has reported White House science czar John Holdren's prediction that one billion people will die in carbon-dioxide induced famines in a coming new ice age by 2020.Even though Holdren's current position is that the U.S. needs to enact cap-and-trade to slow global warming, Holdren predicted in a 1971 textbook co-authored with Paul Ehrlich that global over-population was heading the Earth to a new ice age unless the government mandated urgent measures to control population, including the possibility of involuntary birth control measures such as forced sterilization.Holdren's prediction that one billion people would die from a global cooling eco-disaster was announced by Malthusian population alarmist Ehrlich in his 1986 book entitled,The Machinery of Nature.Holdren based his prediction on a bizarre theory that human emissions of carbon dioxide would produce a climate catastrophe in which global warming would cause global cooling with a resultant reduction in agricultural production resulting in widespread disaster.
On pages 273-274 of The Machinery of Nature,Ehrlich explained Holdren's theory by arguing some localities will probably become colder as the warmer atmosphere drives the climactic engine faster, causing streams of frigid air to move more rapidly away from the poles.(Emphasis in original text.)The movement of the frigid air from the poles caused by global warming could reduce agricultural yields for decades or more –a sure recipe for disaster in an increasingly overpopulated world,Ehrlich wrote.wnd
Freedom’s Destruction By Constitutional De-Construction
Timothy Baldwin Chuck Baldwin Live Octobere 18, 2009
During the Constitutional Convention, from May to September 1787, delegates from the colonies were to gather together for the express purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation to form a more perfect union (NOT a completely different union!). The men that met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were under direct and limited orders from their states to attend the Federal Convention explicitly to preserve the federation and State rights and to correct the errors of the existing federal government for the limited purposes of handling foreign affairs, commerce among the states and common defense.If the meaning of the Constitution can change over time, why did the Constitution’s framers spend nearly five months debating which words should be placed in the Constitution? Yet, during that private and secret convention, there were men who proposed that a national system be established in place of their current federal system, destroying State sovereignty in direct contradiction to their orders. (Jonathan Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution as Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, vol. 1, 2nd ed., [Philadelphia, PA, JB Lippincott, 1891], 121) Of course, the public was not aware of this fact until years after the ratification of the Constitution, when the notes taken in the convention were printed and released to the public.
Indeed, those who proposed such a national system of government (e.g., Alexander Hamilton, John Dickinson and James Madison) would not have the people of the states aware of this proposal for fear of outright rejection of the Constitution and for fear that they would remove their delegates from the convention altogether, giving no chance of success for the ratification of a new Constitution. It was hush-hush for good reason. In fact, Alexander Hamilton was so tactful on the subject that he did not even present his nationalistic notions as a constitutional proposal, but only as his ideas of what America should be. (Ibid., 123) Despite these proposals, in the end, it was a federalist system that prevailed–a union of states and not a union of people, whereby the states retained complete and absolute sovereignty over all matters not delegated to the federal government. The states were indeed co-equal with the federal government. So, what was it about the national system that was rejected during the convention? The most notable proposal reveals the underlying foundation for all national principles: that is, the national government possesses superior sovereignty to force the states to submit to the laws made by the national government and to negate any State law it deems repugnant to the articles of union. This supreme power was proposed (but rejected) as follows during the Federal Convention: the to-be national government should possess the power to negative all laws passed by the several states contravening, in the opinion of the national legislature, the articles of union, or any treaties subsisting under the authority of the Union.(Ibid., 207) Hamilton, and his like, would have loved it had this national principle of supreme sovereignty been accepted by the delegates. Thankfully, it was not accepted. In fact, as the convention progressed, what became apparent to those who advocated for this national form of government is that their ideas would never be accepted and ratified.History proves with absolute certainty that a national government and its assuming principles were rejected, not only by the framers of the US Constitution, but also by those who sent delegates to the Federal Convention and who ratified the US Constitution at their State conventions. More important than the limited powers of the federal government, the people of the states rejected the nationalist doctrine that the federal government had the power to negate State laws that it deemed contrary to the Constitution. (John Taylor, New Views of the Constitution of the United States, [Washington DC, 1823], 15)
So, how is it that while the people of the states expressly forbade the federal government from interfering with the internal affairs of the states the federal government can now control nearly every facet of life within the states and the states supposedly can do absolutely nothing about it? Most attorneys who think they know so much about America’s history and the US Constitution would say, The United States Supreme Court is given the power to say what the Constitution means and that over the years, they have interpreted Congress’ power to reach the internal affairs of a State.It is the living Constitution idea, simultaneously coupled with nationalistic doctrine, which proclaims that the actual meaning of the Constitution can change over time, and that such change is constitutional and does not deny the people their freedom protected under the compact of the Constitution. Interestingly, the living Constitution idea is only used when it promotes a constitutional construction that expands and empowers the federal government and neuters the State governments. The living Constitution idea (advanced by the British Parliament) in fact is the very notion that caused America’s War for Independence. (Claude Halstead Van Tyne, The Causes of the War of Independence, Volume 1, [Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922], 235, 237)The ludicrous proposition of a living Constitution begs numerous critical questions involving the very foundation of a free society, not the least of which is this: If the meaning of the Constitution can change over time, why did the Constitution’s framers spend nearly five months debating which words should be placed in the Constitution? More than that, why would the framers be so emotionally, mentally, intellectually and intensely involved in the question of what form of government we will have: national or federal?
How can it be that the judiciary branch of the federal government, which is not even politically responsible to the people or the states whatsoever (and only ever so slightly to the other federal branches), has the sole and complete power to say that the states have no power to interpret and comport to the US Constitution as they deem constitutional, when that same power was expressly rejected to the national government during the convention? After all, Hamilton and Madison both admit throughout the federalist papers that the states have complete and absolute sovereignty regarding the powers retained by them and granted to them by the people of each State, just as any foreign nation would. Both Hamilton and Madison admit that the only check on power is another independent power and thus, the only real power that could check federal power was State power. They even expected that the states would use their sovereign and independent power to the point of being the voice and, if necessary, the ARM of the people to implement a common defense against the federal government.Both Hamilton and Madison admit that the federal government can never force the states out of existence and can never strip them of their rights and powers possessed prior to the ratification of the US Constitution, except as delegated to the federal government. They even refer to the states’ right of self-defense in this regard to resist federal tyranny. Was this mere bait and switch rhetoric to get the people of the states to ratify what they thought was a pure federal system? How can the states possess the absolute sovereign power to check federal tyranny when they are bound to submit to the federal government’s interpretation of the Constitution? The two positions are necessarily incompatible with each other. To say that you have power, so long as I say you have power is to deny your power altogether.Quite obviously, in no place does the Constitution grant to the federal government (in any branch) superior sovereignty over the states. Instead, the Constitution requires ALL parties to it (State and federal) to comply with the Constitution, as it is the supreme law of the land. All the framers agreed that federal government and federal law do not equal the supreme law of the land.Both the federal government and the federal laws are bound by the terms to which all must comply. Thus, all parties must be watching each other to ensure each is complying with the compact. And as was admitted by even the most ardent nationalist (i.e., Daniel Webster) of America’s earlier history, each party to a COMPACT has the sole right to determine whether the other party has complied with the compact.But over the years, a political idea contrary to our original federal system was adopted–not through open discussion and consent, but by fraud and force. This position states that whatever the federal judiciary rules equates to the “supreme law of the land” and the states must comply therewith, regardless of whether the federal law usurps the power the states retained under the Constitution. What the nationalists were unable to obtain through honest and open debate during the conventions they have obtained through the erroneously construed supremacy clause of the Constitution. What the federal government was denied through constitutional debate and ratification the nationalists have procured through masquerade, subterfuge and trickery.
America has been duped into accepting a national government, not by interpolation, but by deceptive construction.If the federal government has the power to usurp its powers without a countermanding power checking its encroachments, where is the genius in our framers’ form of government? Was this form of government the form that best secured our happiness and freedom? And if our framers in fact bequeathed to us a federal system, whereby the states were co-equal with the federal government in sovereignty and power regarding their powers, then where comes the notion that we now have a national system, whereby the states are mere corporate branches of the federal government? Where were the constitutional debates on that subject? Where was the surrendering of sovereignty by the states, which can only be done through expressed and voluntary consent? Where was the right of the people to establish the form of government most likely to effect their safety and happiness? Do we just accept the fact that our form of government can change over time without express and legal action being taken to effect that change? God forbid!In 1776, the colonies rejected the European (nationalist) form of government. In the UNITED STATES, the people of the states ardently believed that their freedoms would be best protected if each of their agents (State and federal) possessed equal power to check the other against encroachments of power and freedom. This was the more perfect union of the US Constitution. How could the founders have suggested that the US Constitution was a “more perfect union” as a nationalist system, when the nationalist system was the very system they seceded from and rejected? That is nonsense!Ironically, the very document that was designed to perpetuate these principles of federalism has in fact been de-constructed to destroy those same principles, leaving us with the very form of government that our framers and the Constitution’s ratifiers rejected. In the end, if the people of the states do not once again reject this national form of government and assert and defend the principles of federalism–the principles upon which America was founded–then this supposed federal power of constitutional construction will in fact be our freedom’s destruction.
Obama Mind Control Offensive Straight Out of UNESCO Eugenics Playbook
Jurriaan Maessen Infowars October 18, 2009
Get ready, TV viewers, for the mass media onslaught prepared for you by the social engineers.As reported by Big Hollywood’s John Nolte yesterday, the long-expected mind control offensive will take full effect from October 19 to 25. Over 60 network television shows will spotlight the power and personal benefits of service.All roads, Nolte writes, funnel into one place: online volunteer portals, including Serve.gov, where if you plug in health care all kinds of Planned Parenthood openings pop up along with a video dispelling those ugly myths knocking ObamaCare.It comes as no surprise that the offensive is especially directed at programs that enjoy the highest ratings in the country. Listed by initiator, the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), as Campaign Elements for the coming mass media offensive are: to organically create and produce as many stories as possible about service and volunteerism and connect them in the plots of network dramas, comedies and reality shows.Ideally, states the EIF press release,storylines will touch on one or more of the key issues that have outlined as the country’s priorities for services:
-Education and children
-Health and well being
-Environmental conservation and reduced energy consumption
-Economic development and financial security
-Support for military families
By connecting characters and storylines to broad themes around service and/or providing messaging through the casts, a picture will be painted of what service and volunteering can look like today, and inspire viewers.These mass mind control tactics do not fall out of the clear blue sky. The scientific arm of the New World Order, Unesco, has engaged their target audiences with the very same tactics in the course of the last decades, describing the exact same key issues mentioned above. So confident are they that they actually published a playbook on how to integrate family planning messages into existing media formats, especially programs favoured by the general public.In the 1973 document for Unesco called Mass Media, Family Planning and Development: Country Case Studies on Media Strategy the authors advise the creation of a family planning communication resource unit for every UN-member state (this includes the United States), coordinating media strategies in such a way as to effectively embed family planning and planned parenthood messages in the bloodstream of mass media. Just like the current initiative by the EIF, Unesco figured that the most effective way to get the message across is to weave the message subtly into TV drama plots, feature films and other available instruments of propaganda (including TV personalities):Personality shows, the 1973 report mentions, can be useful in the reinforcement phase. (…) A well known personality who demonstrates an interest in family planning, or remarks on the success of the campaign, can often add credibility to the family planning message. (…) Jingles and spot announcements, jokes and quick comments, can be included in the programmes, which will then have the effect of keeping the subject of family planning firmly in mind.Just like the offensive planned by the EIF, the Unesco people realised the ideal platform to parade their messages on is primetime television, when the audiences are most massively and passively present:Advertising on television will be in the evenings, between popular programmes, when a broader audience (both male and female) is expected.
The commercials can be played into record request programmes, women’s programmes, at programme junctions, before and after news breaks, popular serials and plays. The message should be simple, sympathetic, catchy.Feature films are considered perhaps to be the most effective tools in conveying the message to unsuspecting audiences:(…) There are two ways in which the family planning message can be included in feature films. The first is for the family organization to commission a film specifically for the campaign. (…) if it is to be successful, well known and popular actors must be chosen, and the scripting and direction has to be professionally executed. Another method is for the family planning theme to be introduced into feature films which are already planned and prepared by local commercial production companies. In this case, the family planning organizers must be aware of the possible ways in which the theme can be subtly incorporated, as producers are not likely to respond to a suggestion which involves the total re-thinking of the plot. (…) Suitable opportunities can be found in love stories, in stories based on conflicts between men and women (…).In a 1994 United Nations conference called Family Planning Communications Strategies Examined, the participants marvelled at the success they had in third world countries, embedding population reduction messages into fictional formats:The meeting featured case studies and presentations by communication practitioners and covered a wide range of subjects, such as: the use of folk tradition and drama to organize community action in Egypt; the use of micro-communications to encourage acceptance of family planning in the Philippines; the use of traditional and modern media in Ghana; and the use of songs to propagate family planning messages in Latin America. The success in India and Mexico of radio and television soap operas and films on family planning subjects was also discussed.
After the success the eugenicists had in the developing countries around the world in the last decades, convincing people to cut down on the number of children to save the planet, the same strategies are now being implemented in the developed world. It is obvious that the Entertainment Industry Foundation has now been designated as the family planning communication resource unit within the U.S., dedicated to put a spell on the population for the globalists and their age-old plan of reducing the world’s population.
SIGNS IN THE SUN, MOON AND STARS
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
NASA photos show moon strike created plume Sun Oct 18, 1:56 am ET
LOS ANGELES – NASA's much-hyped mission to hurl a spacecraft into the moon turned out some worthwhile data after all, scientists said.New images show a mile-high plume of lunar debris from the Cabeus crater shortly after the space agency's Centaur rocket struck Oct. 9.We were blown away by the data returned,Anthony Colaprete, the mission's chief scientist, said in a report Friday from the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., which managed the launch.The team is working hard on the analysis, and the data appear to be of very high quality.In media coverage before the impact, many observers said they were disappointed at the lack of spectacle.But scientists said the mission was carried out for a scientific purpose, not to put on a fireworks display for the public,said space consultant Alan Stern, a former NASA associate administrator for science.By creating the debris cloud, scientists were able to use the $79-million Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite to sample and study the dust. The LCROSS itself crashed into the same crater four minutes after the Centaur's impact, right on schedule, while its companion spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, was flying in lunar orbit 50 miles above the site to gather still more data.But Michio Kaku, a professor at the City College of New York and host of Sci Q Sundays on the Science Channel, said NASA may be jumping the gun in calling the results a smashing success,acting in response to public criticism of the mission.
To be a spectacular success, we had to find large quantities of underground ice," Kaku told The Associated Press Saturday. He said scientists still have more work to do to analyze the data for the presence of ice or water.They got beautiful pictures of the event, but that's not why we spent $79 million,Kaku said.Ice on the moon is more valuable than gold.The crashes created a man-made crater about one-fifth the size of a football field, Brown University geologist and LCROSS scientist Peter Schultz told The AP.Colaprete said it was too early to say what the plume contained but that several clues, including the temperature of the flash created by the crash, will help scientists find out in coming weeks.Finding significant amounts of water on the moon would be a major discovery, making eventual colonization easier than it would be if settlers had to transport water from Earth.On the Net:NASA's LCROSS site: http://www.nasa.gov/lcross
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
CNBC VIDEOS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839263/site/14081545/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false
HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS MON OCT 19,2009
09:30 AM +8.28
10:00 AM +1.44
10:30 AM +48.98
11:00 AM +88.12
11:30 AM +102.03
12:00 PM +100.67
12:30 PM +104.22
01:00 PM +101.95
01:30 PM +101.12
02:00 PM +108.30
02:30 PM +116.91
03:00 PM +110.94
03:30 PM +96.96
04:00 PM +96.28 10,092.19
S&P 500 1097.91 +10.23
NASDAQ 2176.32 +19.52
GOLD 1061.40 +9.90
OIL 79.27 +0.74
TSE 300 11,538.39 +33.63
CDNX 1338.77 +7.20
S&P/TSX/60 687.28 +2.31
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +13.90%
S&P +20.42%
Nasdaq +36.76%
TSX Advances 738,declines 787,unchanged 257,Volume 437,395,058.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 494,Declines 472,Unchanged 344,Volume 247,833,069.
Dow +5 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -1 points at low today.
Dow +102 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,049.60.OIL opens at $78.21 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -1 points at low today so far.
Dow +102 points at high today so far.
DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 2,503,declines 1,021,unchanged 121,New Highs 368,New Lows 50.
Volume 1,870,271,917.
NASDAQ Advances 1,519,declines 991,unchanged 158,New highs 117,New Lows 09.
Volume 634,870,974.
TSX Advances 711,declines 517,unchanged 226,Volume 149,281,124.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 337,Declines 328,Unchanged 299,Volume 93,773,045.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -1 points at low today.
Dow +121 points at high today.
Dow +0.96% today Volume 186,243,476.
Nasdaq +0.91% today Volume 1,892,106,157.
S&P 500 +0.94% today Volume N/A
RATING CARBON
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jr4MDd9dAw&feature=player_embedded
ENDGAME EUGENICS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM6US0Qk5_8&feature=player_embedded
SWINE FLU DISCUSSION 1 OF 10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT2R12nXgi8&feature=player_embedded
NEW CHINA ETF LAUNCHES
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1300143684&play=1
COMMENT ON FED
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1300143665&play=1
ON THE ECONOMY VIDEOS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1300035027&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1300042242&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1300052590&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1300055094&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1300072080&play=1
Russia and Iran Now OFFICIALLY Talking of Dumping Dollar for International Trade Washington’s Blog Sunday, Oct 18th, 2009
After the Independent reported that Middle Eastern oil producers, plus China, Japan and France have all agreed to start trading oil using a basket of currencies – instead of the dollar – starting in 9 years, spokesmen for those governments denied it.The Independent’s reporter explained why the governments were denying the rumor.
But now the governments themselves are starting to admit that they are switching out of the dollar.For example, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is ready to consider using the Russian and Chinese national currencies instead of the dollar in bilateral oil and gas dealings. As Russia’s newspaper RIA Novosti writes:Russia is ready to consider using the Russian and Chinese national currencies instead of the dollar in bilateral oil and gas dealings, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.The premier, currently on a visit to Beijing, said a final decision on the issue can only be made after a thorough expert analysis.
Yesterday, energy companies, in particular Gazprom, raised the question of using the national currency. We are ready to examine the possibility of selling energy resources for rubles, but our Chinese partners need rubles for that. We are also ready to sell for yuans,Putin said.And Iran’s Press TV reports that Iran wants to completely drop the dollar from its foreign exchange:Since October 2007, Iran has received 85 percent of its oil revenues in currencies other than the US dollar and Tehran is determined to find a substitute for the US dollar for the rest of its 15 percent of oil revenues, the report added.This story is confirmed by the Tehran Times, which notes:As I have repeatedly noted, many countries have been moving out of the dollar for years. The process is simply accelerating.In line with this plan, Iran has informed Japan that it should use the yen instead of dollars to pay for the oil it buys from the Islamic Republic.In addition, Iran has decided to open a bourse for oil and gas transactions in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, especially the euro.
The world's future is being decided this weekend-We must agree to halt deforestation and curtail air travel now if the Copenhagen summit is to succeed OCT 18,09
Nicholas Stern The Observer, Sunday 18 October 2009 Article historyEnergy and environment ministers from the world's major economies are meeting in London today to try to accelerate crucial negotiations over an international treaty on climate change.Strong progress has been made in the past few weeks, with Japan, for example, announcing that it will cut its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 25% by 2020 relative to levels in 1990.But there are still major obstacles and some doubt whether a strong global deal can be hammered out in time for the United Nations's conference on climate change in Copenhagen, now just seven weeks away.Agreement can be reached if governments now focus on the key issue: the required overall reduction in emissions, with rich countries taking the lead through strong, binding targets and financial support for developing countries. Numbers are important to this, so let me explain why.Global emissions of greenhouse gases in 2010 are likely to be about 47bn tonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent (they may have exceeded 50bn tonnes without the global economic slowdown). Countries around the world have been designing programmes that could reduce annual emissions to about 49bn tonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent in 2020, compared with 55 to 60bn tonnes under business as usual.
However, to have a reasonable chance of cost-effectively limiting a rise in global average temperature to no more than 2˚C, beyond which scientists regard as dangerous to go, annual emissions must be reduced to below 44bn tonnes by 2020, well below 35bn tonnes in 2030 and well below 20bn tonnes by 2050.Put another way, today's average world emissions per capita are nearly 7 tonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent each year, with big variations between countries: for instance, the United States emits about 24 tonnes per head while the figure for India is below 2 tonnes.By 2050, the global population is projected to rise to 9 billion, so average per head emissions will have to be lower than 2 tonnes per year on average. For rich countries, this will require a cut in annual emissions by at least 80% by 2050.But given that China's emissions are 6 tonnes per head and growing, and that today's developing countries will be home to 8 billion people in 2050, it is clear that they must also be at the heart of the action on climate change.So we must find a further cut of 5bn tonnes on top of current intentions for 2020. This is achievable. For example, greater efforts on tackling deforestation could reduce emissions cost-effectively by at least another 2.5bn tonnes. International shipping and aviation could further reduce the global total by at least half a billion tonnes.The rich countries could also reduce the global total by more than a billion tonnes if they implement their conditional high-ambition commitments – the European Union, for instance, will increase its cuts by 2020, relative to 1990 levels, from 20% to 30% if there is a strong global deal.Developing countries could also make a similar contribution through finding improved ways of achieving economic growth while lowering their emissions per unit of output. In both rich and poor countries, there is great potential both from energy efficiency and new low-emissions technologies.
All of this can be achieved in the next decade with carefully designed policies. Indeed, if we set out strongly on this road we will create a new era of prosperity and growth. Innovators are full of ideas and investors see the opportunities. They now need confidence in strong international policy.
Many developing countries have already drawn up detailed plans for making the transition to a low-carbon economy and have taken significant steps forward in the last few weeks.For instance, Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, announced last month at a United Nations summit in New York that his country will cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by a notable margin by 2020 compared with levels in 2005.Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, last weekend outlined a series of important measures that his country intends to take across a wide range of sectors, including the goal of obtaining a fifth of its energy from solar, wind and hydro sources by 2020.Rich countries must give their backing to these plans by providing developing countries with $100bn a year by the early 2020s, for measures to reduce emissions (much of which could be delivered by the operation of carbon markets), and a further $100bn to help them adapt to the effects of climate change that cannot now be avoided. Developing countries are likely to doubt the credibility of such commitments unless the rich countries also set an intermediate target of $50bn per year by 2015.These sums must be over and above current commitments on official development assistance. They may appear large, but $200bn represents around 0.5% of the current gross domestic product of the rich countries, and is tiny compared to the risks that can be avoided by an international agreement. And it will not be possible to overcome poverty in poor countries without also tackling the threat of climate change: the global deal must be founded on a clear understanding that these two issues are closely bound together.An ambitious deal on climate change that is effective, efficient and equitable is within our grasp, but only if our political leaders remain focused on the core common goals and maintain their determination to reach agreement.Lord Stern is chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and IG Patel professor of economics and government at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Cap and Trader Demands Carbon Derivatives Bubble
Kurt Nimmo Infowars October 18, 2009
In The Guardian, Nicholas Stern argues for poverty, misery, and the latest bankster scam. He says the rich countries not only have to reduce emissions significantly but also tax their not-so rich populations and give the money to developing countries. Current efforts to reduce carbon emissions are not enough, according to Stern.By 2050, the global population is projected to rise to 9 billion, so average per head emissions will have to be lower than 2 tonnes per year on average. For rich countries, this will require a cut in annual emissions by at least 80% by 2050,he writes.Lord Stern, who is chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, says a reduction in carbon emissions can be realized through the operation of carbon markets.In other words, between now and 2050, the rich countries (or their populations anyway) will have their standards of living reduced significantly. They will be forced under international treaty to fork over $100 billion a year to developing nations.Stern suggests high-ambition commitments, including a rollback of international shipping and aviation. He says a the transition to a low-carbon economy will create a new era of prosperity and growth.
Lord Stern, who is chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, says a reduction in carbon emissions can be realized through the operation of carbon markets.Carbon markets and trading are another bankster bubble scheme.This system would create whole new classes of financial assets, which financial firms could securitize, derivatize, and speculate on,writes Eoin O’Carroll for The Christian Science Monitor.Many critics are pointing out that this new market for carbon derivatives could, without effective oversight, usher in another Wall Street free-for-all just like the one that precipitated the implosion of the global economy.Wall Street is already on the move. The Center for Public Integrity noted in February that banks have been sending climate change lobbyists to Washington in earnest and are attempting to get the American Clean Energy and Security Act rammed through Congress. It passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 219-212 in June. It now moves to the Senate.The American Clean Energy and Security Act is about profits, not environmental remediation,writes Stephen Lendman.Its emissions reduction targets are so weak, they effectively license pollution by creating a new profit center to do it.Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, insurance companies like AIG and private equity firms had virtually no reps on Capitol Hill working on global warming policy in 2003; by last year, they had about 130 climate lobbyists, the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis of Senate lobbying disclosure forms shows. About 20 additional lobbyists worked for firms and organizations wholly dedicated to carbon marketing last year,writes Marianne Lavelle.
It is estimated that the carbon market and its securitized, derivatized, and speculated financial assets will ultimately be worth trillions a year to Wall Street and the bankers. It will inflate a massive bubble designed to burst like all the bubbles that came before it.If you think the housing and credit bubble diminished your financial security and your community, or the bailouts, or the rising gas prices did as well, hold on to your hat for what’s coming. Carbon trading is gearing up to make the housing and derivative bubbles look like target practice,warns Catherine Austin Fitts.Carbon markets can and will be manipulated using the same Wall Street sleights of hand that brought us the financial crisis,notes Rep. James Sensenbrenner. Dennis Kuchinich cited Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone article on the Goldman Sach’s bubble machine. Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they are about to do it again.Goldman Sachs is confident Obama and Congress will pass cap and trade legislation. On October 12, The New York Times reported that Goldman Sachs has completed a $12 million carbon offsets transaction, described as the largest deal of its kind in the United States. The transaction reflects growing confidence in a regulated carbon market in the United States, even though the concept is still the subject of much debate in Congress,according to the newspaper.Finally, Lord Stern is hardly a neutral observer merely concerned with climate change and the fate of the planet. On June 16, 2008, Dow Jones Financial News Online announced that Stern is set to launch a rating service for carbon credits in an attempt to boost investment in the nascent market.
A Sick Twist: Is population control rationale being used in the climate change and healthcare debates? The Freeman Institute Sunday, Oct 18th, 2009
Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.(1)The quote above is from the book Ecoscience published in 1977. In this book is detailed a plan for a planetary regime that would regulate the global population. According to the authors, this regime would be empowered to create specific compulsory population-control laws in order to accomplish this aim.What specific population-control laws did they have in mind? For starters, the authors propose that this regime should have the power to:
1. Compel inferior mothers to either give up their children or have abortions.
2. Sterilize the population through putting sterilants into their water and food supply. According the authors of Ecoscience this would be okay as long as pets or livestock are not harmed.
3. Forcibly implant a long-term sterilizing capsule which would only be removed with official permission.It is clear that the above methods will be successful at curtailing the population if implemented. There is just one problem: How will they convince the people to go along with the program? Their solution is to demonize people that have too many children as having irresponsible resource-consumption patterns. They, therefore, need to be compelled to behave more responsibly in order to save the planet and to spread the earth’s finite resources more equitably. An additional rationale is that since government already regulates marriage, why not family size? Despite these rationales for population control, it is clear that many people are not likely to be convinced. Therefore, how will such unpopular measures be enforced? In the end, the only way the authors foresee fulfilling their dream will be through the creation of a planetary regime and international police force.
I don’t know about you, but these proposals are beginning to sound to me like the sick vision of some early twentieth century eugenicist. Who could come up with such a heinous plan? In fact, one has to look no further than one of the co-authors of Ecoscience, namely, President Obama’s top science and technology advisor, John Holdren. John Holdren and his two co-author’s totalitarian vision for our future is frightening enough, but now he holds the keys to our future through his advisory position with President Obama. If President Obama or the international community wanted to implement some sort of population control measure they have a blueprint in hand. And, unfortunately, I believe the implementation is already underway.How, you ask? Let us just take a second and examine the ideas and methods that have been used since the book’s publication and by the Obama administration.It was not long ago that the idea of man-made climate change was not taken seriously. We Americans made a mockery of the kooky Europeans who had deluded themselves into a global warming hysteria. But, not long after, here we sit on the verge of subjecting ourselves to the very same global cap and trade system that we had previously derided. And guess what? The very same method for tackling the current global warming crisis is the one that had been outlined by Holdren 30 years ago to tackle the population crisis.The only way a proposed cap and trade system will be successful is by, you guessed it, restricting the American people’s resource-consumption patterns. Not surprisingly, Holdren maintains that his ancient blueprint was inconsequential and has had nothing to do with the Obama Administration’s current resource restriction model for dealing with climate change.
In addition, despite the fact that the government has yet to make the leap from regulating marriage to directly regulating the number of resource-consuming children, the climate change legislation will accomplish this goal indirectly. Indeed, as climate taxes reverberate through the economy and so-called gas guzzling SUVs are made impossibly expensive, housing heating bills rise, inflation propagates, and the general cost of living skyrockets, so will come the demise of population-sustaining families. This trend will be further exacerbated by President Obama’s support for the Federal Reserve’s monetary expansionist policies, which will lead to massive inflation and devaluation of the dollar. More and more people will find it more difficult to pay for ever-expanding bills with ever-shrinking valueless dollars. This will lead to more couples having reservations about the cost of starting and providing for large families. Indeed, generous family sizes will become ever-increasingly a thing of the past and with it, the so-called infestation of the earth with children.Finally, as part of the health care debate, President Obama has made repeated claims that his plan will not include rationing. As usual, the truth is quite the opposite. Once again resource-consumption patterns will have to be restricted in order for the government to stay within its health care budgetary restraints. Those with the highest consumption patterns will become the targeted group, namely, the elderly. In a recent article in the UK Times Online is described the familiar story of Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, who fortunately is still alive despite being placed on the Liverpool care pathway plan.(2) According to the Times, the plan once reserved for patients who do have only days to live is now being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying. Indeed, this death program denies medical care, nutrition, and even water to patients that are not dying and in the case of Hazel still alive nine months later. This example is by no means unique. I have personally witnessed in the U.S. an increased pressure being injected into the medical establishment to push elderly patients into DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) status and even hospice. The rationale for such a trend has been that we physicians should be aware that medical resources are finite and therefore should be distributed to those that will see the most benefit. This doesn’t always include the elderly. Sound like a resource-consumption model to you? Once physicians have fully embraced this rationale we will not be far off from the very same UK death plan here in the U.S.In a final sick twist, as Holdren and Obama are able to indirectly restrict the number of children through climate taxation and dispose of the elderly through health care rationing so will they have, unbeknownst to the majority of the rest of us, accomplished their original eugenics inspired population-control dream.Adam Murdock, M.D. is the founder of The Freemen Institute, www.freemeninstitute.com
References:1. Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment. Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich, John P. Holdren; W. H. Freeman, 1977. 1052 pgs. Pertinent Pages: 837, 786-8, 838, 917, 942-3.
2. Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve. Times Online. October 11, 2009.
Milk farmers to get controversial EU aid of €280 million-A recent protest by farmers in Brussels (Photo: EUobserver)VALENTINA POP Today OCT 19,09 @ 16:23 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The EU commission on Monday proposed a special milk fund worth €280 million to ease the troubles of the dairy sector and to put an end to the continuous protests of farmers in the past months, including in Luxembourg where agriculture ministers were meeting.EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said her pockets were emptied and compared herself to a bird whose "feathers are plucked alive" after having been forced to give in to demands of 21 of 27 member states and furious milk farmers, who have protested everywhere the ministers have met in the past few months.The €280 million emergency aid would be allocated to member states according to their milk production,with national authorities then being responsible for actually paying the farmers, she explained.A recent drop has pushed milk prices below the production costs, scrapping European dairy producers some €10 billion by the end of the year, according to Copa and Cogeca, the European farmers' associations.But Ms Fischer Boel warned that the €280 million granted to dairy farmers meant no money would be left for other agricultural sectors if they were suddenly confronted with an emergency. French wheat farmers last week set tires on fire on the famous Parisian boulevard, les Champs Elysees, to protest that grain prices have fallen below the cost of production.
Asked what she would tell other farmers who would want a similar aid, Ms Fischer Boel replied she would simply say that it's been a priority of 21 member states to get funds for the dairy sector.The commissioner also cast doubt on the efficiency of the scheme, which still needs the approval of the EU's finance ministers next month, by pointing out that in concrete terms, one farmer would get less than €1,000.To the question if this aid was enough, Ms Boel answered I just tried to fulfil the political criteria of the €300 million requested by 21 member states.French farm minister Bruno Le Maire and his German counterpart Ilse Aigner have been spearheading the demands for this special milk fund, while the UK and the Netherlands have opposed it.Ms Fischer Boel said the market conditions were already improving, with butter prices going up 18 percent above the intervention threshold, but admitted that there was a delay between the increase of industrial prices and the increase in prices at the farm gate.The EU plans to phase out milk quotas by 2015 and limit national authorities in propping up the prices. Ms Fischer Boel said she was happy that none of the agriculture ministers had raised any demands to scrap these long-term plans. However, in an interview with French daily Les Echos, Mr Le Maire said that Brussels should abandon liberalisation of the milk sector.Last month, the commission announced it would grant member states temporary exemptions from EU state aid rules, allowing them to pay each farmer up to 15,000 euros in emergency relief. That decision followed the dumping by angry Belgian farmers of three million litres of milk on fields.But the European Milk Board (EMB), a lobby group on behalf of EU's milk producers, said in a statement that it didn't call for more subsidies, but flexible production regulation.It makes no sense when ministers talk about money, which then flows into the milk sector in the form of subsidies with little impact,said Sieta van Keimpema, vice-president of the EMB. "Flexible production controls represent no extra burden to the taxpayer and can be an effective way of creating milk prices which are fair both to producers and consumers,she added.The lobby group on Monday organised yet another round of demonstrations outside the building where agriculture ministers were gathering.
Iceland agrees payback deal on lost deposits
ANDREW WILLIS Today OCT 19,09 @ 09:18 CET
Iceland has reached a deal to pay back the UK and Dutch governments the roughly €4 billion lost when its financial sector crumbled a year ago. The thorny issue has held up badly needed funding from the International Monetary Fund and also threatened to derail Iceland's application to join the EU.An understanding has been reached with the UK and the Netherlands,the Icelandic government said in a statement Sunday (18 October).The payback deal relates to an online high-interest account called Icesave that was formerly run by Landsbanki, one of three Icelandic banks that collapsed last October. Hundreds of British and Dutch citizens lost their deposits in the account, forcing the UK and Dutch governments to step in and compensate their citizens.The new agreement still needs to be approved by the Icelandic parliament that raised a series of objections to a previous draft payback plan.The Icelandic lawmakers did eventually agree to the previous proposal but only after adding a list of amendments to delay the annual amount to be paid back and placing an expiry date on the payments that could have left part of the sum unpaid.
The UK and Dutch governments in turn raised a number of objections, with the new deal announced over the weekend an apparent compromise between the two sides. Under the new terms, annual payments will not exceed six percent of the increase in GDP when measured against the 2008 level.However it returns a previous Icelandic government promise to payback any outstanding debts at the end of the 2024 timetable, a key UK and Dutch government demand.The proposal must now be voted on by the Icelandic parliament. Many opposition MPs remain fiercely opposed to the deal which they feel will saddle the country's citizens with debt levels for years to come.And the issue remains extremely unpopular among Icelandic citizens who feel they are paying the price for the reckless behaviour of the country's bankers.A recent poll also showed that a majority of Icelanders want the government to end its co-operation with the IMF.
Former communist states improve in green energy
VALENTINA POP Today OCT 19,09 @ 09:31 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Despite a wide-spread belief that former communist states are not keen on adopting green initiatives, some of the EU's member states in the east are forging ahead with renewable energy policies, according to a representative from energy giant General Electric.Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic are particularly active in the field of renewable energy although Poland is lagging behind, says Rod Christie, General Electric president for central and eastern Europe, Russia and the CIS countries.There is more wind generation in Romania, who only started two years ago, than there is in Poland who started 4-5 years ago.Romania has implemented legislation, has a very good wind resource and we've seen what's now the largest onshore wind farm outside of the US being constructed there,he told this website.A 600-megawatts (MW) wind farm in southern Romania is set to be fully operational in 2011. The €1.1 billion investment which includes 240 wind turbines produced by General Electric was made by the Czech power group CEZ.Despite the recent political crisis and the recession projected to reach eight percent of the GDP this year, Romania's situation is set to improve, Mr Christie believes.
There appears to be more financing coming into the market. So there are some more projects we'll be announcing probably in the near future, as customers start to get their financing in line,he said.Apart from Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic have also quickly adopted a legal framework allowing smaller independent generators –for instance using biogas – to get on the national grid.Some of that has been supported out of EU's structural funds,Mr Christie adds.One project aimed at capturing and storing the CO2 emissions of a coal plant in Poland will also be funded by the EU's so-called recovery package for 2009-2010 – a funding scheme for green projects aimed at boosting the economy during the crisis. But Mr Christie argues that the potential for the so-called clean coal technology in Poland is much bigger and still undeveloped.Poland would be a great place for clean coal. But it is not moving that way.He said the main hurdle in Poland is the lack of political will to implement schemes which encourage the industries to invest in renewable energy.
Another problem is cumbersome bureaucracy making it difficult to get a permit to build a power plant and to use the land which is often split up, especially in southern Poland.
Czech regional authorities against renewables
There are similar problems in the Czech Republic at the regional level, says Martin Mikeska, a Prague-based expert with the Central and European Bankwatch Network, an umbrella of environmental NGOs in the region.He confirmed that the Czech legal framework is good in terms of stimulating companies to invest in green sources of electricity such as wind farms or solar panels.But the bad part is that some of the local and regional governments have their own policies, especially concerning wind and photovoltaic energy, which are not in line with the national policy of supporting renewables,he said.A few small wind farms are already installed in the Czech Republic, but the regional authorities are putting a break on connecting these to the grid, Mr Mikeska explained. A recent court decision ruled against this behaviour however and called on the local government to change legislation and bring it in line with national legislation.
Investors waiting for more clues about consumers By STEPHEN BERNARD, AP Business Writer – Sun Oct 18, 5:01 pm ET
NEW YORK – After getting worrisome signs about consumers from bankers' earnings reports, investors will be looking at a broad range of companies this week for further insights into the outlook for the economy.Consumer-focused companies including Apple Inc., McDonald's Corp., appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. and toy maker Hasbro Inc. are among those reporting results during the week. Airlines, drug companies and more big banks are also scheduled to release their earnings.The market is so focused on companies' third-quarter results and their outlooks for the coming months that economic data like the September existing home sales report expected this week isn't likely to move the market much.Right now earnings are critical, said Channing Smith, a vice president at Capital Advisors in Tulsa, Okla. Earnings, revenues give us a better picture of what's happening. If the economic data turns out well, its just the cherry on the sundae.Investors got a surge of optimism from results in the early part of last week and bought stocks enthusiastically, betting that the reports still to be released by hundreds of companies would also point to a recovering economy. The buying Wednesday sent the Dow Jones industrials over 10,000 for the first time in a year.On Thursday and Friday, though, the news from Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. gave investors a reality check, as both banks reported billions of dollars in loan losses because consumers are struggling to pay their bills. They also reiterated warnings that the losses will continue.
Meanwhile, General Electric Co. said Friday its financial services business was weighed down by credit card and commercial real estate losses. Commercial real estate defaults are the latest wave of loans to start defaulting en masse.That spate of bad news brought the market's rally to a halt, and the Dow, down as much as 151 points on Friday, closed with a loss that day of 67.Despite that end-of-week slide, the Dow still rose 1.3 percent for the week, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 1.5 percent. The tech-dominated Nasdaq composite index rose 0.8 percent.
The fear in the market is that consumers will not only keep adding to banks' losses, but that their inability to spend beyond the necessities will curtail sales at other companies.That is making investors particularly anxious to see how businesses in general are making their money. Traders are trying to determine if year-over-year or even quarter-over-quarter earnings increases are due to cost cutting or really due to market expansion,said Walter Gerasimowicz, CEO of Meditron Asset Management in New York. And, if companies are seeing their sales pick up, is that improvement likely to continue in the fourth quarter and beyond.Since the stock market tends to trade based on expectations six or nine months into the future, the concern on Wall Street remains whether investors who have sent stocks soaring since early March might have been ignoring or underestimating the many problems in the economy. If companies' own expectations match investors', that is likely to reassure investors and keep them buying. But any more doses of reality are likely to put the rally on hold for at least a while.While investors aren't concentrating on economic data right now, they will be interested in what the Federal Reserve has to say about where the economy is now and where it's like to be in the near future.Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is scheduled to give two speeches during the week. Bernanke speaks Monday at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Asia Economic Policy Conference and Friday at a Fed conference in Boston on financial regulation and supervision after the credit crisis.The Fed is scheduled to release its beige book report on Wednesday, which breaks down economic activity on a regional basis.
Among the other reports expected are the Commerce Department's September housing start data on Tuesday. The report is expected to show housing starts rose to annual rate of 610,000 in September from 598,000 the previous month, according to economists polled by Thomson Reuters.Another housing report comes from the National Association of Realtors, which releases its existing home sales numbers from September on Friday. Economists forecast sales rose to an annualized rate of 5.3 million from 5.1 million in August.A private research group releases data on leading indicators, which project economic activity for the next three to six months. The Conference Board's index is likely to show continued signs of growth.
Economy in for painful recovery: report OCT 18,09
LONDON (AFP) – Britain's recovery from recession will be slow and painful, with growth unlikely to hit one percent in 2010, a report out Monday warned.The recovery will be a drawn out, bumpy ride, according the influential Independent Treasury Economic Model (ITEM) Club economic forecasting group of auditors Ernst and Young.
The club said the emergence from recession would be hampered by world economic uncertainties, government tax increases and lending restrictions.The outlook for the next 12 months is certainly looking more positive than the last year, said Professor Peter Spencer, chief economist to the ITEM Club.But it is going to be a bumpy ride, particularly once the government starts to cut back.Policy will begin to tighten in early-2010 with the restoration of valued added tax to 17.5 percent; an end to the stamp duty holiday on housing; an increase in national insurance contributions; the introduction of the new 50 pence tax (50 percent upper tax rate) and a programme of spending restraint.But these measures only provide a fraction of the extra income needed to close the government deficit.The forecast sees an anaemic gross domestic product (GDP) performance next year following an uncertain recovery in the second half of this year.
GDP growth struggles to reach one percent in 2010,the report said.The weakness of domestic demand puts downward pressure on the Consumer Price Index, but this is offset by downward pressure on the exchange rate, helping to rebalance the economy in subsequent years.The ITEM Club forecast comes ahead of Friday's official figures for July to September, which are expected to show that Britain's worst recession in decades has finally ended, with a quarter of positive GDP.Britain's recession began in the second quarter of 2008.We have come a long way since this time last year, Spencer said.But with consumers repaying debt and fiscal policy inevitably tightening in the UK... it is difficult to see any serious potential for a sustained recovery in domestic demand.There could still be substantial pain to come for corporates and consumers. For a sustainable recovery the UK economy needs world trade to pick up and there is still not much sign of that happening.
HERES WHY SATANS THE GOD OF OUR MONEY SYSTEM,HIS HEAD WAS PUFFED BY MAKING BIG BUCKS AND HIS PRIDE GOT HIM BOOTED OUT OF HEAVEN.JUST LIKE THE NEW AGE NEW WORLD ORDER EUGENICIST NUTCASES TODAY BECAUSE THEY ARE RICH THEY CAN KILL ALL EARTHS POPULATION THEY BELIEVE.GOD HAS TO DESTROY THE MONEY SYSTEM TO GET THE RICH NUTCASES ATTENTION THAT JESUS RULES AND CONTROLS ALL,NOT NEW AGE ,NEW WORLD ORDER NUTCASES WHO THINK THEIR GOD AND CONTROL ALL.
EZEKIEL 28:1-26
1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
3 Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5 By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;
7 Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8 They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9 Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10 Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
20 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
21 Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,
22 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.
23 For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
24 And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
25 Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.
26 And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.
ISAIAH 14:1-32
1 For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
2 And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.
3 And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve,
4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
5 The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.
6 He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.
7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.
8 Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.
9 Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
10 All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.
21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
22 For I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the LORD.
23 I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts.
24 The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
25 That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.
26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
27 For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
28 In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden.
29 Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.
30 And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy remnant.
31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times.
32 What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the LORD hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it.
$23.7 TRILLION ,IT MUST BE $30 TRILLION THE FED AND TREASURY HAS GIVIN TO THE WORLD BANKS TO CONTROL THE EARTH BY NOW,THE 23.7 TRILLION IS AT LEAST 2 MONTHS OLD..
2009 federal deficit surges to $1.42 trillion By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer - Sat Oct 17, 7:29 am ET
WASHINGTON – What is $1.42 trillion? It's more than the total national debt for the first 200 years of the Republic, more than the entire economy of India, almost as much as Canada's, and more than $4,700 for every man, woman and child in the United States.It's the federal budget deficit for 2009, more than three times the most red ink ever amassed in a single year.And, some economists warn, unless the government makes hard decisions to cut spending or raise taxes, it could be the seeds of another economic crisis.Treasury figures released Friday showed that the government spent $46.6 billion more in September than it took in, a month that normally records a surplus. That boosted the shortfall for the full fiscal year ending Sept. 30 to $1.42 trillion. The previous year's deficit was $459 billion.As a percentage of U.S. economic output, it's the biggest deficit since World War II.The rudderless U.S. fiscal policy is the biggest long-term risk to the U.S. economy, says Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard professor and former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund.As we accumulate more and more debt, we leave ourselves very vulnerable.Forecasts of more red ink mean the federal government is heading toward spending 15 percent of its money by 2019 just to pay interest on the debt, up from 5 percent this fiscal year.President Barack Obama has pledged to reduce the deficit once the Great Recession ends and the unemployment rate starts falling, but economists worry that the government lacks the will to make the hard political choices to get control of the imbalances.
Friday's report showed that the government paid $190 billion in interest over the last 12 months on Treasury securities sold to finance the federal debt. Experts say this tab could quadruple in a decade as the size of the government's total debt rises to $17.1 trillion by 2019.Without significant budget cuts, that would crowd out government spending in such areas as transportation, law enforcement and education. Already, interest on the debt is the third-largest category of government spending, after the government's popular entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare, and the military.As the biggest borrower in the world, the government has been the prime beneficiary of today's record low interest rates. The new budget report showed that interest payments fell by $62 billion this year even as the debt was soaring. Yields on three-month Treasury bills, sold every week by the Treasury to raise fresh cash to pay for maturing government debt, are now at 0.065 percent while six-month bills have fallen to 0.150 percent, the lowest ever in a half-century of selling these bills on a weekly basis.The risk is that any significant increase in the rates at Treasury auctions could send the government's interest expenses soaring. That could happen several ways — higher inflation could push the Federal Reserve to increase the short-term interest rates it controls, or the dollar could slump in value, or a combination of both.The Congressional Budget Office projects that the nation's debt held by investors both at home and abroad will increase by $9.1 trillion over the next decade, pushing the total to $17.1 trillion decade under Obama's spending plans.The biggest factor behind this increase is the anticipated surge in government spending when the baby boomers retire and start receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits. Also contributing will be Obama's plans to extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone except the wealthy.The $1.42 trillion deficit for 2009 — which was less than the $1.75 trillion that Obama had projected in February — includes the cost of the government's financial sector bailout and the economic stimulus program passed in February. Individual and corporate income taxes dwindled as a result of the recession. Coupled with the impact of the Bush tax cuts earlier in the decade, tax revenues fell 16.6 percent, the biggest decline since 1932.
Immense as it was, many economists say the 2009 deficit was necessary to fight the financial crisis. But analysts worry about the long-term trajectory.The administration estimates that government debt will reach 76.5 percent of gross domestic product — the value of all goods and services produced in the United States — in 2019. It stood at 41 percent of GDP last year. The record was 113 percent of GDP in 1945.Much of that debt is in foreign hands. China holds the most — more than $800 billion. In all, investors — domestic and foreign — hold close to $8 trillion in what is called publicly held debt. There is another $4.4 trillion in government debt that is not held by investors but owed by the government to itself in the Social Security and other trust funds. The CBO's 10-year deficit projections already have raised alarms among big investors such as the Chinese. If those investors started dumping their holdings, or even buying fewer U.S. Treasurys, the dollar's value could drop. The government would have to start paying higher interest rates to try to attract investors and bolster the dollar. A lower dollar would cause prices of imported goods to rise. Inflation would surge. And higher interest rates would force consumers and companies to pay more to borrow to buy a house or a car or expand their business. We should be desperately worried about deficits of this size, says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. The economic pain will be felt much sooner than people think, in the form of much higher interest rates and much higher rates of inflation. If all that happened rapidly, it could send stock prices crashing and the economy tipping into recession. It could revive the pain of the 1970s, when the country battled stagflation — a toxic mix of inflation and economic stagnation.
Paul Volcker, then the chairman of the Federal Reserve, responded by raising interest rates to the highest levels since the Civil War in a determined effort to combat a decade-long bout of inflation. His campaign pushed banks' prime lending rate above 20 percent in 1981 and sent the country into what would be the longest post-World War II downturn before the current slump. Unemployment jumped to a postwar high of 10.8 percent in December 1982. The battle against inflation, though, was won.Most economists say we have time before any crisis hits. In part, that's because the recession erased worries about inflation for now. In its effort to stimulate the economy, the Fed cut a key interest rate to a record low last December and is expected to keep it there possibly through all of next year. Demand for loans by businesses and consumers is so weak that low rates are not seen as a recipe for inflation.Some hold out hope that Congress and the administration will act before another crisis erupts.Robert Reischauer, a former head of CBO, said that in an optimum scenario, Congress will tackle the deficits next year. A package of tax increases and spending cuts could be phased in starting in 2013 and gradually grow over the next decade.The administration has pledged to include a deficit-reduction plan in its 2011 budget, which will go to Congress in February.Stanley Collender, a budget expert at Qorvis Communications and a former staff aide to House and Senate budget committees, cautions that unless investors show nervousness about the debt, the budget debate next year could feature more posturing between the two parties than any real action to fix the problems.But Alan Greenspan, who led the 1983 commission that made changes to avert a crisis in Social Security, said in an interview that he was optimistic that politicians will eventually work out a solution.I have always been a great supporter of Winston Churchill's statement about the United States,Greenspan said.The United States can be counted on to do the right thing, after having tried all other conceivable alternatives.
ElBaradei: Iranian nuclear threat hyped Sunday, 18 October 2009 06:59 News from Jerusalem Outgoing IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
Mohamed ElBaradei, outgoing chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, maintains that the danger in Iran's nuclear program is hyped, and the only way to resolve issues with Teheran is through talks. Negotiations should also eventually lead the Middle East to be a nuclear-free zone, he believes, thus ending the imbalance in Israel's not signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.The threat in Iran's nuclear program is exaggerated. I do not think that we will wake up tomorrow and discover that Iran has a nuclear weapon,he said in an interview with the Austrian Die Presse published on Sunday.[US] President Barack Obama has understood that negotiation is the only possible solution with Iran… Iran wants to discuss not only the nuclear issue, but also the entire palette of problems with the US. Iran can play an important, central role in the Near East; in Afghanistan or also in Iraq,the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate continued.The greatest danger in the region, according to ElBaradei, comes from the possibility of an Israeli airstrike on Iran's nuclear facilities.Bombing Iran is not the solution. An Israeli attack would turn the entire region into a fireball,he said.We should ask ourselves, why countries develop nuclear weapons. They promise power and prestige. Israel says it cannot tolerate an Iran in possession of nuclear weapons. But when you talk now with Arab leaders, they say they cannot tolerate a nuclear Israel.The solution: We need to ensure a lasting peace in the region, and the entire Middle East must become a nuclear-free zone. That, however, takes time. But we must also remember the imbalance in the fact that a country, namely Israel, remains out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while other countries are bound by the contract.jpost
Europe's Jews get a political lobby Sunday, 18 October 2009 18:11 News from Jerusalem European Jewish Congress
Europe once had 80 to 90 percent of the world's Jews, until the 20th century's calamities brutally cut that figure down to the current estimate of 10%. Two very different societies - Israel and the United States - have replaced Europe as home of the major centers of Jewish life.But Europe's Jews are apparently no longer satisfied with accepting this verdict of history. They are increasingly organized and increasingly vocal. And now they have a lobby.The inauguration in Brussels of a new branch office of the European Jewish Congress last week marks a dramatic development in European Jewish political activism, believes EJC president Moshe Kantor.In Europe we see both too much tolerance - for example, toward the Iranian regime's genocidal ambitions - and too little when it comes to Europe's religious and ethnic minorities, Kantor says.The office in Brussels will be charged with triggering important processes in legislation, legal issues and research to advance tolerance. The goal is not to talk about tolerance, but to [engage] in a wide spectrum of real action,he adds.According to Raya Kalenova, the director of the new office, it will also focus on educating against anti-Semitism and for reconciliation between the three great monotheistic religions.The message of the new Jewish presence in the heartland of European government is that Europe's Jews are European citizens with European values,Kalenova explains.
The opening of the Brussels office on Wednesday seemed to suggest the organization already possessed the ability to reach the highest echelons of European politics. In attendance at the celebratory cocktail reception and dinner were Europe's most senior officials, including European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Commission Vice President for Justice, Freedom and Security Jacques Barrot, and some 50 MEPs.Israel also sent a high-ranking representative, in the person of National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau.According to observers, however, it is too early to tell whether the new office will be influential or significant.A comparison with the United States may be instructive, some argued. Mainstream American Jewish organizations maintain lobbies in Washington, but rarely are they influential if they don't represent the broad consensus of American Jews.Among the most powerful of the Jewish advocacy lobbies is the Washington office of the Jewish Federations of North America, which is focused almost exclusively on making US tax policy favorable to charitable giving. This is because American Jewish life does not exist outside its non-profit institutions, which include all its synagogues, schools, old-age homes and charities.Also in keeping with the wide consensus of the American Jewish community, Jewish groups in Washington have been instrumental in developing civil rights legislation and in advocating in broad terms for American support for Israeli security. But they shy away from dealing with issues that lack an overwhelming Jewish consensus, such as the Afghan deployment, sex education or international trade policy.
What, one might ask, are the consensus issues of European Jewry?
Asked about the European Jewish constituency,Yossi Lempkowicz, founder of the European Jewish Press, a pan-European news agency based in Belgium, noted that it is not easy to pin down such issues of consensus.Europe's Jews are citizens of Europe, he says.They care about many different issues as Europeans,not in clearly defined Jewish blocs.For example, there is disagreement on the question of the expansion of Europe, or on [the rights of states to limit the wearing of] the Muslim veil,he says.
Furthermore, domestic issues affecting the daily life of Europe's Jews - taxation, law enforcement, regulations on religious life - are not handled at the European level, but in each country's national institutions.An even greater obstacle to European Jews' ability to conduct political advocacy is their extreme diversity. One may fairly ask if Jewish Latvians, Belgians and Italians can really share an overarching agenda that can be represented in pan-European institutions.In a sense, this question of a Jewish agenda for Europe is a microcosm of the larger question of European identity.What does it mean to be European? asked one attendee at the reception. Is this an authentic popular identity or, as some complain, an invention by activist bureaucrats? Another layer of complexity lies in the EJC's own structure, which is also the umbrella for many communities outside the EU, including Russia, Macedonia and Norway. Can EJC Brussels have a position on EU-Russian energy spats? Or can it oppose Russia's Iran policy within EU institutions without harming the political situation of the Russian Jewish organizations ostensibly represented in the Brussels office? All these issues will have to be resolved in the new office's first months of operation. It is not likely to be an easy task, and there are no guarantees of success.Yet, according to many participants, the mere existence of the new office is a telling symbol of a nascent European Jewish consciousness that is emerging alongside the development of a broader European identity.jpost
Egypt warns Hamas it won't wait over unity deal by Mona Salem – Sun Oct 18, 2:34 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt warned Sunday it would not wait forever for Palestinian factions to agree a unity deal after the Islamist movement Hamas postponed signing the accord with its Fatah rivals.Egypt is not prepared to wait forever,foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told Al-Arabiya television.Cairo has been trying for several months to help end the division between the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas since June 2007, and the West Bank, where Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas holds sway.The signing of the unity agreement was to be held in Cairo on October 26.
But Hamas said the delay was also partly the result of differences with Abbas's Fatah movement over the Goldstone commission's report on the devastating Israeli offensive on Gaza at the turn of the year.The document prepared by Egypt is not a document (meant for) negotiations. The negotiations lasted several months,Zaki said.
Egypt has received comments from all factions and has discussed them with everyone at the highest level, including with Hamas, which sent the head of its political bureau to Cairo for more details.It is therefore surprising to hear... now that Hamas still has reservations about when the draft agreement should be signed,the foreign ministry spokesman said.Earlier, an Egyptian official accused Hamas of bad faith over its refusal to sign up to the unity deal on schedule.Egypt was surprised by Hamas's procrastination when it said it could not come to Cairo on the planned date,the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper quoted the unnamed official as saying.The delay to reconciliation and the fact that Hamas has stirred up such a terrifying atmosphere in the Palestinian territories shows that Hamas lacks good faith and has its own agenda,the official said.Egypt announced on Friday that, at the Islamists' request, its mediators had indefinitely postponed their deadline for Hamas to sign the unity deal.A Hamas official said the Islamist movement delayed sending a delegation on Sunday to give its response to the proposed agreement because Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who negotiated it, was out of the country.
Suleiman had been accompanying President Hosni Mubarak on a European tour that lasted several days, and returned on Sunday afternoon.Senior Hamas official Mohammed Nasr blamed what he said was an inconsistency between the Egyptian plan and what Hamas and the other factions had agreed on.All that we ask is that what we had agreed on is consistent with the Egyptian paper,the Damascus-based leader told Al-Jazeera television.We do not want to add anything new.The agreement provides for the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections in June next year and the reinstatement of 3,000 members of the former Fatah-led security apparatus in Gaza.It would be implemented by a joint committee appointed by presidential decree and made up of members of Fatah, Hamas and other factions.Persistent tensions between Hamas and Fatah came to the boil in June 2007 when the Islamists ousted their rivals from the Gaza Strip after a week of deadly street clashes, cleaving the Palestinians into two hostile camps.
States weigh campaign rules for the Internet age By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer - Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:02PM EDT
MADISON, Wis. - To promote his recent campaign for mayor of St. Petersburg, Fla., Scott Wagman bought an ad that popped up online when anyone ran a Google search for his opponents' names.He was hardly the first to employ the tactic, which didn't stop a rival campaign from complaining the ad did not have a paid for by disclaimer. The Florida Elections Commission ordered Wagman to remove it and pay a $250 fine, even though the required disclaimer was longer than the 68 characters allowed in the text of the ad, which wasn't paid for until someone clicked on it.Wagman is fighting the complaint, and his case adds to an ongoing debate about how old media rules governing campaign spending should apply to the new media of the Internet age. When does a blog connected to a campaign need to disclose its allegiance? Does a candidate's personal Facebook page need a disclaimer if it is updated by a staffer? Can a campaign-related tweet — a message posted on social media site Twitter — even be regulated? Policing this is going to be a tremendously difficult thing, let alone writing the rules," said Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonprofit group in Helena, Mont.
Citing the Wagman case, Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board this month ordered staff to draft guidelines outlining the circumstances under which the public needs to know who is paying for an online ad or Web site. Several political experts said Wisconsin appears to be one of the first states where regulators are drafting such guidelines, and they expect others to follow.Many states currently require political ads to include disclaimers saying who paid for them, although some exempt small items such as bumper stickers, buttons and T-shirts where a disclaimer is impractical. Paul Ryan, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, said text messages and small pay-per-click online ads might become the campaign buttons of the Millennium Era.So far, the Federal Elections Commission has taken a mostly hands-off approach, as campaigns still spend far more money reaching voters through television, radio and direct mail. The commission ruled in 2006 that campaign regulations do not apply to most Internet activity, except for paid political advertising on someone else's Web site. Bloggers are exempt as long as they write voluntarily and are not paid by a campaign.In California, the state's Fair Political Practices Commission has formed a task force to study the issue and make recommendations. Gubernatorial candidates there are facing questions about whether they must report Twitter Inc.'s recommendation of their Twitter feeds as in-kind campaign donations, a scenario not covered by the state's current rules.These are some of the types of issues we're going to be looking at,said the commission's executive director, Roman Porter.The retired judges on the Wisconsin board, mostly in their 60s, seemed divided during a recent meeting when discussing regulating Internet communication while also protecting free speech rights. At times, they puzzled over what they are and how they work.I've been in government for 45 years and this is the first meeting I've ever been to where we've discussed tweets and widgets,said board member William Eich. Widgets are applications that can be embedded on Web sites and PC desktops, displaying news from a campaign or a blog.
Board lawyer Shane Falk said he believed the pay-per-click ads on Facebook and Google need not have disclaimers as long as the sites they link to do. Based on its discussion, the board may require other sites, including Facebook pages for campaigns and candidates, to have them.Wagman's ads on Google and Facebook touted his background as a businessman and endorsements from local leaders, said Brian Bailey, president of Rearden Killion Communications and a campaign consultant. He's optimistic the Florida commission will reverse itself when it issues a final decision on whether to fine Wagman, who lost in last month's crowded primary for St. Petersburg mayor.Bailey said other states should approve similar guidelines before the 2010 election cycle, saying they will otherwise be inundated with complaints about online campaign activity.States are really going to have to deal with this,he said.It would be easy for candidates in partisan races to attack the opponents for breaking rules and throw a wrench into the campaigns. I think voters would get really turned off by it.
China could bend on Iran nuke sanctions: experts by Pascale Trouillaud – OCT 18,09
BEIJING (AFP) – China has repeatedly said it opposes sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, but Beijing could make concessions to protect its wider interests, especially in terms of Sino-US ties, experts say.Of the six major world powers working to defuse the standoff with Tehran, Beijing and Moscow have so far formed a united front, rejecting sanctions and pushing for further negotiations despite intensifying pressure from Washington.Their commercial interests could be a factor in their decision-making, experts say -- China and Russia are the two countries with the biggest stakes in Iran's natural gas sector.Iran also is the number three source of crude oil for energy-hungry China, and trade between the two countries has exploded in recent years, amounting to 28 billion dollars in 2008, according to official figures.While US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unsuccessfully tried to persuade Russia to support new sanctions against the Islamic republic during a visit to Moscow last week, one of her deputies was here trying to win Beijing's support.If we are to make real progress on sending a consolidated message to Iran, we are going to need the support of China,US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters.Xu Tiebing, a professor of international relations at Communication University of China, said Beijing would not support new sanctions as long as there is not sufficient evidence showing that Iran is using its technology to develop weapons.But, despite its protestations, China has supported three previous UN Security Council resolutions on Iran's contested atomic programme.
And experts say it could further soften its position, even though nearly 14 percent of China's oil imports come from Iran and several Chinese firms are in line to secure lucrative gas contracts there, notably in the South Pars field.Iran's vice oil minister Hossein Noqrehkar-Shirazi has said Chinese firms are ready to invest 48-50 billion dollars in oil and gas ventures, but Beijing has not signed any major contracts yet.The Chinese do not understand what the Iranians want to do, said Michal Meidan, a researcher at the Paris-based Asia Centre.They are not going to pour money into the country before seeing what happens with the sanctions, she said, adding that Beijing would be hard-pressed to vote against UN sanctions and calling a veto unthinkable.China's burgeoning ties with Iran, compared with its political and economic links to Washington, still carry very little weight, Meidan said.A vote by Beijing in Tehran's favour within the UN would run counter to many of its interests with the United States and Europe, and Iran in the end is not really one of its major partners,she said.In the worst case scenario, the Chinese would abstain... but I think what they will try to do is modify the text of an eventual resolution and make the most of the negotiations before any discussions (on a resolution).Of course, this will all depend on what the Russians do,Meidan added.
The five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany are currently in talks with Iran in a bid to end the standoff.Samuel Ciszuk, an analyst at IHS Global Insight, agreed that China was unlikely to use its veto but would instead try to water down any UN text targeting Tehran. Looking over the last few years, China has not stuck up for Iran, Ciszuk said.China needs energy but they also need the market for their products in the West,he added.There is a lot of interest in keeping relations with the developed economies on a good footing.He said Chinese firms such as state-owned energy giants CNPC, CNOOC and Sinopec were the only players in the starting blocks in Iran and had been clever in moving in where Western companies previously had a stake.It is not just South Pars -- it is South Azadegan, it is North Pars,Ciszuk said, while noting the companies haven't really started investing money... they are almost as careful as Western companies.As for the possibility raised in Washington of sanctions on fuel deliveries to Iran, experts say the impact of such a move would be minimal for China, as the transactions were mainly spot contracts.Meidan said the 30,000-40,000 barrels a day at stake, according to a Financial Times report, would only mildly affect Chinese traders.
I WRITE NEWS ABOUT AND PUT NEWS ARTICLES ABOUT ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM PERTAINING TO BIBLE PROPHESY HAPPENINGS.JOEL 3:20 But Judah (ISRAEL) shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.(THATS ISRAEL-JERUSALEM WILL NEVER BE DESTROYED AGAIN)-WE CHRISTIANS ARE ALL WAITING PATIENTLY FOR THE PRE-TRIBULATION RAPTURE TO OCCUR.SO WE CAN GO TO JESUS AND GET OUR NEVER DYING BODIES.SO WE CAN RULE OVER CITIES OURSELVES.WHILE JESUS RULES FROM DAVIDS THRONE FOREVER IN JERUSALEM.
IMPORTANT LINKS
- MARK LEVIN (TRUTHS)
- ISRAEL365 NEWS
- THE GATEWAY PUNDIT
- TIMES OF ISRAEL NEWSFEED
- JERUSALEM POST NEWS
- HOLY TEMPLE MYTH 3
- HOLY TEMPLE MYTH 2
- HOLY TEMPLE MYTH 1
- MY 12 YR BAN ON GAY FLAG IN OWENSOUND
- MY 7 YR PEACE TREATY SITE
- MY MOHAWK HARNESS PREDICTIONS
- MY NHL HOCKEY STATS SITE
- MY YOUTUBE SITE
- MY TWITTER SITE
- SHOTS ARE GENE THERAPY.
- LAURA-LYNN TYLER THOMPSON
- REBEL NEWS
- NTEB
- FOX NEWS
- CBN NEWS
- JAN MARKELL
- J D FARAG
- BEHOLD ISRAEL-AMIR TSARFATI
- JACK VAN IMPE
- ISRAEL RADIO
- LATEST MUSLIM SCAM READERS DIGEST
- NEW WORLD ORDER BY ME
- WOKE CULTURE IS MAOISM IN CANADAS CHARACTERISTICS
- BIOLOGICAL WEAPON COVID STARTED IN 1965.
- DESTINY OF NATIONS.
- ELIJAH & MOSES PREACH 3 1/2 YEARS
- THE LAST GENERATION
- FROM NEBUCHADNEZZAR TO TODAY.
- ISRAEL-JERUSALEM TOGETHER FOREVER
- WW3 THE WAVES.
- EU'S 10 POINT PEACE PLAN.
- WAR IN HEAVEN REV 12
- 2024 CANADA PREDICTIONS.
- ISRAEL BIRD MIGRATION.
- 2-STRONG MAN BEHIND THE SPIRIT.
- ISRAEL DEFEATES ALL ENEMIES.
- I ASKED AI LEADER QUESTIONS.
- ISRAEL AND EUS HISTORY TO END OF TRIBULATION.
- ABORTION IS MURDER OF A GENERATION OF CHILDREN.
ALLTIME
-
COMMUNIST NAZI PROSTITUE PUPPET MEDIA OF CANADA IN KAHOOTS WITH COMMUNIST-NAZI LIBERAL LEADER TRUDEAU TO DESTROY TRUCKERS. THE PROPAGANDA PR...
-
JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN S...
-
DEFEATING DEMONIC SPIRITS (PART 2) RELATED PART 1 http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2006/08/defeating-demonic-powers.html GIFTS OF THE SPIR...