Yuan substantially undervalued: IMF official
JULY 28,10
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Chinese currency is substantially undervalued, a senior IMF official said Wednesday, despite Beijing's action to let the yuan trade more freely.
I think the staff view on the currency is that that the renminbi (yuan) remains substantially below the level that is consistent with medium-term fundamentals, said Nigel Chalk, who recently led an International Monetary Fund mission to China for annual consultations on Chinese policies.
Israel, green group dispute Jordan River's safety
Wed Jul 28, 6:07 am ET
JERUSALEM – The Israeli government and environmentalists are sparring over the safety of a site on the Jordan River where John the Baptist is said to have baptized Jesus.The green group Friends of the Earth-Middle East says the site known as Qasr el-Yahud is unsafe for baptism because of the amount of sewage pumped into the famous river from Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.The government said on Tuesday that tests show the water's pollution levels are less than a tenth of the accepted standard and the site is perfectly safe. It says about 100,000 Christians visit it every year.Israel is building sewage treatment plants that are supposed to end the Israeli waste flow into the river by next year.The Jordan River has dramatically shrunk as its waters have been diverted for agriculture and drinking.
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.(TR 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).
States agree new funding, schedule for nuclear fusion plan
JULY 28,10
CADARACHE, France (AFP) – The European Union and six states backing a multi-billion-dollar nuclear fusion project said Wednesday they had reached a deal on the financing and timetable for the experimental reactor.An explosion in costs had cast a cloud over the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which aims to make the nuclear fusion process that fuels the sun a practical energy source on Earth.ITER, based at Cadarache in southern France, was set up by the EU, which has a 45 percent share, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the US to research a clean and limitless alternative to dwindling fossil fuel reserves.ITER's governing council reached the deal after a two-day meeting in Cadarache at which Europe pledged to provide additional financing of a maximum 6.6 billion euros (8.5 billion dollars), it said in a statement.It also formalised a decision to abandon its goal of 2018 to obtain the first plasma and set November 2019 as its new target.
Nuclear fusion entails forcing together the nuclei of light atomic elements in a super-heated plasma, held in a doughnut-shaped chamber called a tokamak, so that they make heavier elements and in so doing release energy.We are now entering a decisive phase in the ITER project,said Evgeny Velikhov of the ITER governing council.The meeting also named Japanese physicist Osamu Motojima as ITER's new director-general, to replace his compatriot Kaname Ikeda.The total estimated bill for the EU has doubled to 7.2 billion euros (9.2 billion dollars), with the overall cost now reckoned to be around 15 billion euros.
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,(WORLD SOCIALISM) 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 WED JULY 28,2010
09:30 AM -1.25
10:00 AM -13.77
10:30 AM -22.10
11:00 AM -16.72
11:30 AM -17.10
12:00 PM -22.40
12:30 PM -13.39
01:00 PM -0.69
01:30 PM -23.00
02:00 PM -14.91
02:30 PM -37.88
03:00 PM -43.21
03:30 PM -43.48
04:00 PM -39.81 10,497.88
S&P 500 1106.13 -7.71
NASDAQ 2264.56 -23.69
GOLD 1,163.50 +5.50
OIL 76.82 -0.68
TSE 300 11,696.60 -20.10
CDNX 1410.62 +14.36
S&P/TSX/60 683.89 -0.94
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -9 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -25 points at low today.
Dow +1 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,160.00.OIL opens at $77.03 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -74 points at low today so far.
Dow +11 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -74 points at low today.
Dow +11 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,260.90 (NOT AT CLOSE)
CRUDE OIL +7.3 MILLION BARRELS
GASOLINE +100,000 BARRELS
DISTILLATE INVENTORIES +938,000 BARRELS
REFINERY UTILIZATION
Brussels worried about falling support for EU in Iceland
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today JULY 28,10 @ 09:27 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union formally launched negotiations with Iceland on Tuesday over the north Atlantic island's accession to the bloc even as negative opinion towards the EU mounts, a development that has not gone unnoticed in Brussels and other national capitals.I'm concerned by the current lack of broad public support for European Union membership in Iceland, said enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele speaking to reporters alongside Icelandic foreign minister Oessur Skarphedinsson after talks were opened.This shows that there's a need for more objective information about the EU and its policies, he added.The worry echoes those coming from France. Ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday France's Europe minister, Pierre Lallouche said that Paris strongly backed the island's adhesion, but wondered if Iceland felt the same way.We are in favor, of course, but I don't have the impression based on the polls that the Icelanders are that much in favor, he said.That's obviously the whole problem. We aren't going to force them.A recent opinion poll put opposition to joining the EU club at 60 percent. Analysts say that the sharp drop in support is a product of the perception that Brussels has sided with the UK and the Netherlands in their dispute with Reykjavik over the fall-out of the collapse of Icesave, an Icelandic online bank.
After the Icelandic Icesave internet bank collapsed in 2008, depositers in the UK and the Netherlands were compensated by their governments to the tune of €3.8 billion. The Hague and London now are demanding Reykjavik pay them back.The government has agreed to do so, but the terms are considered onerous by a majority of the population. Under the terms of the agreement the loan will be paid back over 15 years with interest, with estimates suggesting every household will have to contribute around €45,000.The European Commission for its part has repeatedly described the dispute as strictly bilateral, but the most recent meeting of EU premiers and presidents, the European Council, made the issue a common concern of the entire bloc, as the commission would do well to remember, according to one EU diplomat.Separately, fishing is shaping up to be less of a stumbling block to negotiations than perhaps had been feared, if hints from the commission are a good gauge of discussions.Mr Skarphedinson on Tuesday proposed that his country's fishing waters be offered a special status within the EU, a specific management area, which only domestic fishermen could access.Iceland is worried that its stocks, which in comparison to the EU's heavily overfished waters have been more sustainably managed, would be threatened by a sharing of its waters with EU member states.Mr Fuele, for his part, while noting that the EU could not offer any permanent such status, the possibility of one for a limited period could be on the table. Many member states have won exceptions to EU rules upon entry, from Sweden's sale of snus tobacco to Spain's bull-fighting.
EU population over half-a-billion
MATEJ HRUSKA Today JULY 28,10 @ 10:07 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union's population reached the half-a-billion mark at the beginning of 2010, with immigration pushing it up higher than the net increase would have been following the year's births and deaths, new figures from the EU's statistics agency, Eurostat, showed on Tuesday (27 July).The EU's population as of January 2010 was estimated to be 501.1 million, compared to 499.7 million last year. The EU gained an additional 1.4 million residents, with 900,000 immigrants entering the bloc atop a natural increase - the net boost after births and deaths are taken into account - of 500,000.Overall, the population increased in nineteen member states and decreased in eight, with the largest relative increases observed in Luxembourg (up 17.2 per 1.000 inhabitants) and the largest decreases in Lithuania (down 6.2 per 1.000).When compared to the previous year, the number of children born per 1000 people slightly fell during the 2009 while the number of deaths remained constant. Net migration fell more significantly, Eurostat said.
More than 5.3 million children were born in 2009 across the EU. Ireland was again reported as the country with the highest birth rate (16.8 per 1,000 inhabitants), followed by the UK (12.8 per 1,000) and France (12.7 per 1,000).At the other end, Germany, although still the most populous country, still holds the record for the lowest birth rate in the EU with only 7.9 births per 1,000 inhabitants, followed by Austria (9.1) and Portugal (9.4).The highest natural growth in population was registered in Ireland, ahead of Cyprus and France. Ten member states had a negative natural growth, with the largest declines in Bulgaria and Latvia, Hungary and Germany.Over 60 percent of the increase in the EU population came from immigration. Luxembourg welcomed the most new inhabitants per capita (13.2 per 1,000), followed by Sweden (6.7) and Slovenia (5.8). Ireland, once a popular immigration destination for jobseekers, has returned to its traditional pattern of being a nation of emigrants, recording the highest net outflow (down 9.0 per 1,000).
EU cautiously backs Ukraine's gas reform
VALENTINA POP Today JULY 28,10 @ 09:27 CET
EUOBSERVER / ODESSA – The EU commission has cautiously welcomed a new law on the Ukrainian gas sector as a first step in a series of reforms that could reduce the country's dependence on Russian gas imports and see more foreign investments flowing into the embattled economy.The recently adopted gas law is a positive starting point. It should be followed by effective reforms, including the implementation of new legislation on public procurement and independent energy sector regulation," EU energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Tuesday (27 July) in Odessa, a Ukrainian port on the Black Sea coast.International lenders and the EU have pushed for reform in Ukraine's energy sector, with the country's economy avoiding collapse last year only due to foreign aid.Some 80 percent of Russia's gas exports to Europe transit Ukraine through its pipeline system. There were two major gas supply disruptions in 2006 and 2009 following pricing rows between Moscow and Kiev, giving the EU a strategic interest in the former Soviet country.Last year, the EU commission pledged financial aid, together with the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, pending the passage of this gas law which was blocked in the Parliament amid bickering between the ruling parties.The country's energy minister, Yuri Boyko, thanked the EU for its input into the new legislation, which is inspired by the bloc's energy regulating framework adopted in 2003. The EU has since adopted another legislative package with a greener focus, such as energy saving measures in buildings.
Energy efficiency a foreign concept
In Odessa, however, energy efficiency is a foreign concept. In hotel rooms, visitors find the air conditioning switched fully on, while the heater in the bathroom – plugged to the public gas heating system – is also on. Gas is cheap and it shows.
According to statistics from the International Energy Agency, Ukraine is four times more energy-consuming than EU countries in relation to the gross domestic product. Russia, famously known for its waste of energy, is only three times more energy-consuming.The incentives are all wrong. Ukraine buys more gas than it needs, because the politicians are elected depending on those purchases,says Valery Borovyk, head of Alliance New Energy of Ukraine, a group promoting energy efficiency.Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president, earlier this year signed up for cheaper Russian gas in return for a 20-year lease on a military port of Sevastopol where Moscow keeps its Black Sea fleet.Industrial and private consumers alike get subsidised gas, rather than state aid targeting only households with low incomes. Murky traders often purchase the gas at low internal prices only to sell it abroad for lucrative profits.Meanwhile, a recently passed gas reform law only touches upon the smart use of energy. Offshore oil and gas exploitation in the Black Sea, a terminal for liquified natural gas and two more nuclear plants are the priorities of the government when it comes to reducing energy dependence: And there is still the concern that Ukraine's big asset - the transit pipelines to Europe - will no longer be needed if Russia goes ahead with its South Stream pipeline through the Black Sea. Moscow already has pipelines under construction in the Baltic Sea.We are aware of the alternatives to bypass Ukraine, but we have to ensure our own security, Mr Boyko said.Experts speaking at the conference had little sympathy for Ukraine's troubles. It is Ukraine's own choice to buy Russian gas at subsidised prices, instead of going for the market price, said John Roberts, an energy analyst from Platts. He admitted that a sudden increase in gas prices would have hit the population in the short term, but in the longer run it would have allowed Ukraine more leverage in negotiating with Russia as a commercial partner, not a recipient of subsidies.
Cameron angry over opposition to Turkish EU membership
HONOR MAHONY 27.07.2010 @ 17:33 CET
On his first visit to Turkey since becoming British prime minister, David Cameron gave a compliment-laden speech to the EU hopeful, backing the country's desire to become a regional power and paying tribute to its relatively strong economy.The UK has traditionally been very supportive of Turkey becoming a member of the European Union but Mr Cameron's speech was nevertheless notable for its implicit criticism of France and Germany for their oft-stated opposition to the poor and predominantly Muslim country ever fully entering the club.When I think about what Turkey has done to defend Europe as a Nato ally and what Turkey is doing now in Afghanistan alongside European allies, it makes me angry that your progress towards EU membership can be frustrated in the way it has been, he said.I believe it's just wrong to say Turkey can guard the camp but not be allowed to sit inside the tent, he added.Mr Cameron said that Turkey's accession could help improve the EU's global standing, drive economic growth and influence Middle East security.Turkey opened membership negotiations in 2005. But progress has been painfully slow both due to reticence on the part of key EU member states as well as its own refusal to honour a customs agreement with EU member state Cyprus, which Turkey does not recognise.To date, 13 of the 35 legislative have been opened while eight areas have been frozen due to the Cyprus stand-off.
The laboured negotiations have frustrated both the Turkish population and the government and led some to speculate that Turkey, feeling spurned, is seeking to become a regional power instead of EU membership. Ankara does not deny the former but says it is still interested in being part of the EU.Mr Cameron also criticised those who view the history of the world through the prism of a clash of civilisations and view Turkish EU membership as a threat because its Muslim population.They think Turkey has to choose between East and West and that choosing both is not an option, he said.The polarised and the prejudiced were two of three type of opponents to Turkish EU membership suggested Mr Cameron. Protectionists constitute the third group.The British leader also took up a theme that Ankara has been pushing of late - that the EU, with its many depressed economies, cannot afford not to have Ankara on board.I ask myself this: Which European country grew at 11 percent at the start of this year? Which country will be Europe's second-largest economy by 2050? Which country in Europe has more young people than any of the 27 countries in the EU? Which country in Europe is our number one TV manufacturer - and second only to China in the world in construction and contracting? Mr Cameron said.
The speech however contained little criticism about human rights and democracy issues, asking Turkey only to push forwards aggressively with EU reforms. Human rights campaigners have long raised concerns about the rights of the country's Kurdish minority, while civil liberties groups note the country has still a long way to go to extinguish its military's interventionist approach to domestic politics.
While Mr Cameron's speech is important symbolically for Ankara, it is unclear whether Mr Cameron who intends to be the strongest possible advocate of its membership can change much on the ground in Brussels.Each stage of the negotiations process, excepted to take several years, has to be agreed by all EU member states.
WERE FOR PRO AMERICANS ISRAELI
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138831
TORAH SCROLL WELCOMED
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138812
Arabs Riot Over Jerusalem King's Garden Project
by Hana Levi Julian JULY 28,10
Hundreds of Arab demonstrators rioted Tuesday in Jerusalem over the city government's plans to demolish 22 Arab homes that were built without permits.At least 200 Palestinian Authority Arabs were involved in the violence, according to an AFP news photographer. Eyewitnesses said that some of the rioters were hurling rockets at police and border guard officers, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the mob.No arrests were made, according to a police spokesperson. Local Arab officials eventually convinced the demonstrators to disperse. Five protesters were reportedly injured in the melee.The city's project to upgrade the crumbling, crowded Arab neighborhood into an archaeological park has inflamed passions among the local residents, many of who built their homes without permits.Another 66 similarly-built illegal structures in the King's Garden area, also known as the Al-Bustan neighborhood, would be allowed to remain and under the plan would be retroactively legalized.The neighborhood is located in a part of the city known internationally as the so-called Holy Basin, which houses the site of ancient Jerusalem during the time of the Biblical kings David and Solomon. The area was restored to Israel during the 1967 Six Day War in a move not recognized by the international community.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Are Israelis Leaning Right? Two Polls May Indicate Answer is Yes
by Eli Stutz ULY 28,10
Follow Israel news on and .
Two separate polls may indicate that the Israeli public is leaning increasingly to the right of the political spectrum. Poll #1: Israelis Largely Against Unilateral Withdrawal-A Geocartography telephone poll broadcast on Israeli Television's Channel 1 yesterday showed the following results:62% Israeli Jews oppose additional unilateral withdrawals. 21% were in favor.Results to the following additional questions appeared to confirm the trend:Was the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip the right thing to do? Yes 25% No 54% Since the disengagement, has your support for the settlers changed? Increased 39% Reduced 14% No change 32% Would there be a civil war if another unilateral withdrawal was carried out?
Yes 50% Maybe 18% No 21% Would you support another unilateral withdrawal?
Yes 21% No 62% Did the disengagement strengthen or weaken Israel's deterrence?
Weakened 55% No impact 28% Strengthened 8%
The poll was broadcast during a program marking five years from the Israeli evacuation of the Gaza Strip. Poll #2: Israeli Daily 'Yisrael Hayom' Surpasses Yediot
In a TGI survey published this morning, the Israeli Daily Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today) readership slightly surpassed that of the long-time leader Yediot Aharonot on weekdays, with both reaching approximately 35% of the Israeli public. Yisrael Hayom was established by Sheldon Edelson, who is associated with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The paper was established with the self-proclaimed mission of providing a balanced voice, an alternative to the mainstream media. Though not stated openly, this is likely a reference to the left-leaning dailies Yediot, Ma'ariv and Ha'aretz. The paper's principles, which appear on each edition's page two are to:
-Tell the truth straight and simple.
-To support the rule of law.
-To be fair and balanced.
-To check the facts and if found to be in error, to correct them.
-To remember that we are Israelis.
The poll indicated that the Ma'ariv daily continues to decline at 12.5%, after falling from 13.6% during the previous six months, and 14.4% from a year ago. Ha'aretz also continued to decline, with 6.4% of readership, down 7.5% from a year ago.Arutz Sheva's weekly B'Sheva newspaper reached 5.9% of the public, leading competitor Makor Rishon at 2.8%.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
PA Government Shakeup Planned Next Week
by Hana Levi Julian JULY 28,10
The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is allegedly headed for a major shakeup next week; Prime Minister Salam Fayyad may be tasked with forming a new government.Fatah parliament speaker Azzam Al-Ahmad told the Bethelehem-based Ma'an news agency on Tuesday that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is conducting talks with all of the PA factions in Judea and Samaria to discuss the structure of the new government.
However, although Abbas is setting up the structure of the new government, it is Fayyad, or possibly another politician that will be tasked with forming a new coalition, according to Al-Ahmad.He added that regardless of who becomes prime minister or what the composition of the new government will be, it will remain affiliated to Fatah and strictly follow Fatah party policies.New PA government elections were originally scheduled for January, but were postponed by Abbas, who rescheduled the polls for early June, and then reportedly deferred them indefinitely. Likewise the current government shakeup, which was first considered in February, according to media reports, and then again proposed by Fayyad in April just before the launch of indirect talks with Israel.
Fayyad: Future Leader or Victim?
Fayyad, who majored in economics during his university years in the United States, also worked for the World Bank and has built a network of contacts that has served him well in the global arena.He was hand-picked by the Bush administration to build the PA government's economic and administrative infrastructure in hopes of preparing it to accept the responsibility of national leadership, should a final status agreement be inked with Israel.However, Fayyad is not a member of Fatah – in fact, he is an independent, and not necessarily subject to the whims of the old guard that surrounds Abbas and his cronies, a status that might eventually cost him his life.
According to a senior PA intelligence agent recently quoted by Arab activist and writer Fadi Elsalameen, there are elements in both Fatah and the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization that are quietly plotting to kill the PA prime minister.The agent, identified only as J, explained to Elsalameen, Fatah wants the Ministry of Finance, and Fayyad refuses and threatens to resign every time they bring this up. No one has loyalty to him.The writer, who runs the PalestineNote.com web site, observed, The fact that Fatah and Hamas could disagree on every national agenda item, but agree on the elimination of Fayyad, is sinister and telling. If Palestine is to be established as a legitimate state, dirty backroom dealings to squeeze out an inflexible political element must come to an end.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
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.
Worst floods in a decade in China, 30,000 trapped By CHI-CHI ZHANG, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 28, 7:58 am ET
BEIJING – Floods caused by heavy rains in northeastern China stranded tens of thousands of residents without power Wednesday, as the worst flooding in more than a decade continued to besiege areas of the country.Floods this year have killed at least 823 people with 437 missing and have caused tens of billions of dollars in damage, the State Flood Control and Drought Prevention reported. More heavy rains are expected for the southeast, southwest and northeast parts of the country through Thursday.About 30,000 residents in Kouqian town were trapped after torrential rains drenched the northeastern province of Jilin on Wednesday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Water began flooding the town after the nearby Xingshan Reservoir and the Wende and Songhua rivers overflowed.Flooding has hit areas all over China. In Wuhan city in central Hubei province thousands of workers sandbagged riverbanks and checked reservoirs in preparation for potential floods expected to flow from the swollen Yangtze and Han rivers, an official with the Yangtze Water Resources Commission said Wednesday. He was surnamed Zhang but refused to give his full name, as is common with Chinese officials.Right now, the Han river in Hubei province is on the verge breaching warning levels, Zhang said.The Han is expected to rise this week to its highest level in two decades, Xinhua reported.
Though China experiences heavy rains every summer, flooding this year is the worst in more than a decade, as the flood-prone Yangtze River Basin has seen 15 percent more rain than in an average year, Duan Yihong, director of the National Meteorological Center, said in a transcript of an interview Wednesday posted on the Xinhua website.Rains should begin to slow down in August, but it is hard to predict now what exactly will happen, said Duan. We have to be vigilant and closely monitor the weather ... do a better job of forecasting.Thousands of rescuers in central China's Henan province searched for survivors Wednesday after a bridge collapsed from heaving flooding in the Yi River over the weekend, killing 37 people with 29 missing, Xinhua reported.Floods have also put China's massive Three Gorges Dam to the test. On Wednesday morning, the dam's water flow reached 1.96 million cubic feet per second (56,000 cubic meters), the biggest peak flow this year with the water level reaching 518 feet (158 meters), Xinhua said, about 10 percent less than the dam's maximum capacity.Chinese officials for years have boasted the dam could withstand floods so severe they come only once every 10,000 years. The dam is the world's largest hydroelectric project and was also built to end centuries of floods along the Yangtze River basin.
Tropical Cyclone Birth Predicted with Supercomputer OurAmazingPlanet Staff
LiveScience.com Ouramazingplanet Staff livescience.com – Tue Jul 27, 2:50 pm ET
It's the heart of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, the ripest time for tropical cyclones to develop over these waters. But predicting whether or not a storm system will grow into a hurricane is difficult. A new supercomputer model has taken a leap forward in this effort though, reproducing and predicting the birth of an Indian Ocean typhoon (also called a hurricane or cyclone) five days before it became a fully formed storm. Cyclone Nargis, as it was named, hit the country of Myanmar on May 2, 2008, with its more than 105-mph (165-kph) winds and powerful storm surge killing more than 100,000 people in the Southeast Asian country - one of the 10 deadliest cyclones on record. To save lives from the high winds, flooding and storm surges of tropical cyclones, forecasters need to give as much advance warning as possible and the greatest degree of accuracy about when and where a storm will occur, scientists say.Bo-wen Shen of the University of Maryland used NASA's Pleiades supercomputer and atmospheric data to simulate the birth of Nargis in the warm Bay of Bengal waters. (Tropical storms get their start from warm water evaporating off the surface of bodies of water.) This effort could help scientists better understand how to predict the formation of these killer storms particularly in this region, where the meteorology and monitoring of cyclones is hampered by a lack of data.To do hurricane forecasting, what's really needed is a model that can represent the initial weather conditions - air movements and temperatures, and precipitation - and simulate how they evolve and interact globally and locally to set a cyclone in motion, Shen said.
The boosted brain power of the supercomputer allowed scientists to run improved simulations of storms with more fine-scale data, which allows for more accurate and fine-tuned predictions. After running the simulation, Shen and his colleagues could compare what the model predicted would happen with the storm to the actual observations of Nargis. They found that the simulation was able to predict the birth of the storm five days before it formed. [See the model's predictions in this video.]While the results are encouraging, this one study isn't enough to prove the overall accuracy of the model.Shen's model worked for one cyclone, but it doesn't mean it'll work in real-time for future storms, said study co-author Robert Atlas, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, Fla. The research model Shen and predecessors at NASA have developed sets the stage for NOAA's researchers to hone and test the new capability with their own models.
POISONED WATERS
REVELATION 8:8-11
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood:(bitter,Poisoned) and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.(poisoned)
REVELATION 16:3-7
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.(enviromentalists won't like this result)
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they(False World Church and Dictator) have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
Oil pipeline leak pollutes major Michigan river By TIM MARTIN, Associated Press Writer - JULY 28,10
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. – Southern Michigan residents are learning that devastating oil spills aren't limited to the Gulf Coast.Crews were working Wednesday to contain and clean up an estimated 877,000 gallons of oil that coated birds and fish as it poured into a creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River, one of the state's major waterways.
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm toured the area by helicopter Tuesday night and said she wasn't satisfied with the response to the spill. The leak in the 30-inch pipeline, which was built in 1969 and carries about 8 million gallons of oil daily from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario, was detected early Monday.There needs to be a lot more done, Granholm said.There are not enough resources on the river right now.
Granholm declared a state of disaster in Calhoun County and potentially affected areas along the river, which eventually bisects the city of Kalamazoo and meanders to Saugatuck, where it empties into Lake Michigan. Officials don't believe oil will spread past a dam upstream of Kalamazoo. The cause of the spill is under investigation.Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge Inc.'s affiliate Enbridge Energy Partners LP of Houston initially estimated that about 819,000 gallons of oil spilled into Talmadge Creek before the company stopped the flow.But state officials were told during a company briefing Tuesday that an estimated 877,000 gallons spilled, said Mary Dettloff, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment.On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer, D-Mich., said Enbridge was slow in alerting federal authorities of the spill.
Enbridge has said it was detected between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. Monday. Schauer released documents saying the incident was not reported to the National Response Center until about 1:30 p.m. There were calls to area fire departments late Sunday complaining about the bad smell of natural gas, the documents said.A message seeking comment was left Wednesday morning with Enbridge, which had scheduled a news conference for later Wednesday morning.As of late Tuesday, oil was reported in at least 16 miles of the Kalamazoo River downstream of the spill. Company officials said the spill appeared to be contained and oil wouldn't likely drift much more downstream.Enbridge crews and contractors are using oil skimmers and absorbent booms to minimize its environmental impact.This is our responsibility, Enbridge's president and chief executive Patrick D. Daniel said Tuesday evening in Battle Creek.This is our mess. We're going to clean it up.Many area residents were surprised to learn that a pipeline was so close to the Great Lakes river.I just can't believe they allowed that to happen, and they're not equipped to handle it, said Owen Smith, 53, of Galesburg. Smith lives near the river and stopped at several points far upstream on Tuesday to see what might be headed his way.The air was pungent with the smell of oil, but health officials said they so far were satisfied with the results from air quality tests. Groundwater testing was expected to begin soon.Still, health officials warned residents to stay away from the river, saying it should be closed to fishing and other recreational activities, and irrigation. No injuries or illnesses have been reported, but a few households near the spill had been evacuated.Enbridge said it had about 200 employees and contractors working on the spill, and a center was being set up to help ducks, geese and other wildlife that were coated with oil.Local, state and federal agencies also were involved, and the National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation.
Schauer said Tuesday he discussed the spill with President Barack Obama. Schauer called the spill a public health crisis, and said he plans to hold hearings to examine the response. Obama has pledged a swift response to requests for assistance, White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said.The river already faced major pollution issues. An 80-mile segment of the river and five miles of a tributary, Portage Creek, were placed on the federal Superfund list of high-priority hazardous waste sites in 1990. The Kalamazoo site also includes four landfills and several defunct paper mills.Associated Press Writer David Runk in Detroit contributed to this report.
TSX urged to do more to prevent conflicts of interest
Tue Jul 27, 12:06 pm ET
TORONTO (Reuters) – The Toronto Stock Exchange falls short of global listing standards and should do more to manage potential conflicts of interests in how it regulates listed companies, according to report published on Tuesday.The report from the Canadian Foundation for the Advancement of Investor Rights (FAIR Canada) singled the TSX out as the only one of eight major exchanges in its review that did not have specific measures in place to root out potential problems.The TSX should implement safeguards to minimize the risk that conflicts will affect the administration of listings regulation, as well as address the perception that they could do so, the investor and shareholder advocacy group said in the report.The TSX's current approach is not best practice, and lacks basic safeguards that one would expect to see in place.Toronto-based FAIR Canada urged the TSX to consider shifting listings regulation to a regulator like the Ontario Securities Commission or the Investment Regulatory Organization of Canada, a self-regulatory group that oversees investment dealers and trading on Canadian debt and equity marketplaces.Alternatively the exchange could set up an independent regulation subsidiary or a separate listings regulation department, FAIR Canada said.
The Toronto exchange is operated by the TMX Group. FAIR Canada said it was only exchange of the eight it reviewed where listings are tasked to a unified department that is also responsible for regulatory oversight.It noted that the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and other U.S. markets have in-house, arms-length regulatory units that monitor for trading abuses and ensure that listed companies meet their minimum requirements.TSX has only one domestic competitor, the Canadian National Stock Exchange. Alpha Group, an alternative trading system partly owned by dealer units of Canada's big banks, recently filed for exchange status to try to compete for listings.If Alpha introduces listing requirements that do not match those of the TSX, this may lead to lower standards in the name of a level playing field, with the result that Canada could face a race to the bottom in exchange listed regulation, said Ermanno Pascutto, executive director of FAIR.Exchanges have long faced criticism that they cannot police listings and trading that they rely on for revenue properly.TMX Group, which runs the TSX and the junior TSX Venture Exchange, dominates Canada's listings business. The report said the business line made up 26 percent of revenue last year.The TSX has said it does not believe there are any conflicts of interest between its listings regulation and its other businesses.
(Reporting by Jennifer Kwan; Editing by Janet Guttsman)
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they (MUSLIMS) have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,(JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, PALESTINIANS,JORDAN) and the Hagarenes;(EGYPT)
7 Gebal,(HEZZBALLOH,LEBANON) and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA,ARABS,SINAI) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
DANIEL 11:40-43
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Al-Qaida No. 2 slams France's push to ban veils By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 28, 6:55 am ET
CAIRO – Al-Qaida's No. 2 has slammed France's push to ban the Islamic full-face veil and urged Muslim women to be holy warriors in the defense of their headdress against the secular Western crusade in a new audio message released Wednesday on militant websites.In the 47-minute recording, Ayman al-Zawahri said the drive by France and other European nations to ban the veil amounted to discrimination against Muslim women.Every single woman who defends her veil is a holy warrior ... in the face of the secular Western crusade, he said.France, with all its power and clout, can't touch the head-cover of a nun, but it can assault any face-veiled woman.Al-Zawahri also urged Muslims in Europe to support their women in resisting the Western ban on the veil.We must call upon our girls, our sisters and our mothers to put on the veil. We must support them and defend them.France, Belgium and Spain are debating legislation that would ban the veil. Other nations in Europe too have struggled to balance national identities with growing Muslim populations with cultural practices that clash with their own.Al-Qaida's deputy leader also eulogized the network's No. 3 official, Mustafa al-Yazid, who was killed along with his family in a U.S. strike in Pakistan in May.
Al-Yazid's killing was among the hardest blows to al-Qaida since the U.S. campaign against the terror network began.He was the group's prime conduit to Osama bin Laden and played a key role in the day-to-day running of the organization, with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning, as U.S. officials said after his death.Al-Zawahri praised what he called al-Yazid's achievements in Afghanistan and claimed that although killed al-Qaida militants in Iraq outnumber U.S. soldiers 100-to-1, it is the U.S. that is withdrawing its troops from Iraq.The Americans are leaving and the Mujahedden ... are the ones staying, he said.U.S. combat forces are scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of next month, and the rest by the end of 2011.He said the latest terror attacks against the United States, including a May 1 attempted car bombing in New York city's busy Times Square, were in response to the presence of foreign troops in Muslim nations like Iraq and Afghanistan.Leave our land and enjoy security in your countries, al-Zawahri said.In his audiotape, al-Zawahri also talked about a wide range of topics in the Middle East such as democratic reforms in his native Egypt. He said that holy war was the only way to achieve reforms, not peaceful calls for reforms or elections.Change is not coming with ElBaradei ... or yelling in demonstrations, he said, alluding to former U.N. nuclear chief and Egyptian diplomat Mohammed ElBaradei who returned to Egypt this year after decades abroad, declaring that he would seek change in his native country.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in Egypt later this year and presidential elections in 2011. President Hosni Mubarak, in office since 1981, has not yet said whether he will run for a sixth, six-year term. Al-Zawahri also addressed Yemenis, urging them to wage attacks against U.S. targets and the Yemeni government.Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh, he said, was ready to do anything to appease America.Are you waiting for American soldiers to tour the streets of San'a in their tanks before you wage holy war against them? He asked. U.S officials worry that militants of an al-Qaida offshoot have found refuge in Yemen's remote, lawless areas and could be plotting attacks against American and other Western targets from there.
EU's Ashton wants Iran talks soon, nuclear focus
JULY 28,10
ROME (Reuters) – Stalled talks between Iran and world powers should begin again as quickly as possible but must focus on Tehran's nuclear program, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Wednesday.I've made it clear...that we would like those talks to resume quickly and that we would be very clear that the issue on the table is Iran's nuclear weapons capability and approach, Ashton told reporters at a conference in Rome.That is the issue. All other issues can be discussed later.Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil producer, says its uranium enrichment program is aimed at peaceful energy generation. But, given Tehran's history of hiding sensitive nuclear activity from U.N. inspectors and continued restrictions on their access, many countries believe its enrichment activity is ultimately intended to yield nuclear weapons.Western analysts say Iran has stockpiled enough enriched uranium to fuel 1-2 atom bombs, but probably remains a few years away from the ability to build a deliverable nuclear weapon, allowing time for diplomacy to rein in its atomic program.Talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- as well as Germany (P5+1), meant to address concerns about Tehran's uranium enrichment, stalled last October, leading to a toughening of international sanctions.Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili wrote to Ashton on July 6 calling for a resumption of talks, which Tehran has since said could take place after the end in mid-September of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Ashton, representing the P5+1, welcomed Jalili's gesture.But given Iran's long-time refusal to put what it calls its inalienable right to nuclear energy up for negotiation, Western officials are wary of Iranian efforts to dodge the main issue in talks, buying time for advances in enrichment.They have not been encouraged by conditions raised by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for further talks. He has said further countries must be involved, the parties must say whether they seek friendship or hostility with Iran and they must express a view on Israel's alleged nuclear arsenal.(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Iran to pay for new babies to boost population By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 27, 4:39 pm ET
TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new policy on Tuesday to encourage population growth, dismissing Iran's decades of internationally-acclaimed family planning as ungodly and a Western import.The new government initiative will pay families for every new child and deposit money into the newborn's bank account until they reach 18, effectively rolling back years of efforts to boost the economy by reducing the country's once runaway population growth.Those who raise idea of family planning, they are thinking in the realm of the secular world, Ahmadinejad said during the inauguration ceremony.The plan is part of Ahmadinejad's stated commitment to further increase Iran's population, which is already estimated at 75 million. He has previously said the country could support up to 150 million.The program would be especially attractive to the lower income segments of the population formed the backbone of Ahmadinejad's support in the 2005 and 2009 elections.Throughout his tenure, the president has promoted populist policies in Iran, where 10 million people are estimated to live under the poverty line.It is unclear, however, where the funds would come from as the government is already having trouble paying for basic infrastructure projects.Starting in the early 1970s, Iran waged a successful family planning campaign across the country, including banners in public health care centers reading two children are enough.
It was reversed after the 1979 Islamic revolution only to be brought back 10 years later when the population ballooned and the economy faltered.Throughout the 1990s, Iran reduced population growth by encouraging men and women to use free or inexpensive contraceptives, as well as vasectomies. The government brought down the country's population growth rate from its 1986 height of 3.9 percent to just 1.6 percent in 2006.Ahmadinejad caused public outcry, however, when shortly after he was elected in 2005 he said two children per family were not enough and urged Iranians to have more.Under the new plan each child born in the current Iranian year, which began March 21, will receive a deposit of $950 in a government bank account. They will then continue to receive another $95 every year until they reach 18. Parents will also be expected to pay matching funds into the accounts.Under the initiative's rules children can withdraw the money at the age of 20 and use it for education, marriage, health and housing.Iran's official unemployment rate is about 10 percent, but estimates say there are 3 million unemployed people of working age in the country.Following the 1980s baby boom, some 26 million Iranians are between the ages of 15 and 30.
Explosion rocks Japanese tanker near Persian Gulf
Wed Jul 28, 6:05 am ET
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – An explosion, possibly caused by an attack, damaged an oil tanker Wednesday near the mouth of the Persian Gulf, Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines said.The company said the blast on its tanker M. Star caused one minor injury but did not cause an oil leak.The ship was damaged due to an explosion from a suspected attack from the outside in the waters off Oman, near the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, the company said.The strait leads into the Persian Gulf past Oman and Iran, and is a transit point for about 40 percent of oil shipped by tankers worldwide.We believe it's highly likely an attack, Mitsui spokeswoman Eiko Mizuno said.There is nothing that can explode in that part of the vessel.She said a crew member noticed a flash of light right before the explosion, raising the possibility of an attack.Yuki Shimoda, an official at Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said the ministry was not immediately suspecting an attack, but added that the possibility cannot be ruled out.The ministry said in a statement the tanker was carrying 270,000 tons of oil, and was heading toward Japan's Chiba Port near Tokyo from Das island in the United Arab Emirate. It said the tanker is registered in the Marshall Islands.No Japanese vessels have suffered pirate attacks in the area, the ministry said.The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said it's investigating the explosion.We've heard about it. We're still in the process of trying to get details, said Commander Amy Derrick-Frost.
LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
Pressure mounts for direct Mideast talks
by Joseph Krauss – Wed Jul 28, 6:52 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – International calls for direct Middle East peace talks mounted on Wednesday ahead of a key meeting of Arab ministers as the Palestinians stuck to their demand for guarantees on borders.Arab foreign ministers were to meet in Cairo on Thursday to decide whether to endorse moving to face-to-face negotiations after nearly three months of US-mediated indirect talks that the Palestinians say have made no progress.The ministers were expected to back Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who has said he will only go to direct negotiations if he is given assurances they will succeed where past talks have collapsed into violence.We do not reject negotiations, but we want negotiations on a clear foundation that will lead to an independent Palestinian state, he told AFP earlier this week.Specifically, he wants the 1967 borders separating Israel from the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem as the starting point of the negotiations and for Israel to freeze all settlement activity in both territories.It is clear that the Netanyahu government does not want this, he said, referring to Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads a right-wing coalition deeply opposed to giving up east Jerusalem.Israel annexed the Arab half of the city after capturing it in the 1967 Six Day War in a move not recognised internationally. The Palestinians view east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.Netanyahu has repeatedly said he is willing to meet with Abbas to discuss all the core issues of the decades-old conflict, and he and other top officials have accused the Palestinians of dodging direct talks.Everything is open for discussion... But it is impossible in advance to agree on a specific agenda on the 1967 lines, settlements or (Palestinian) refugees, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday.Clearly, it's going to be a long and complex negotiation process, he added, speaking to reporters alongside visiting Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.
Moratinos echoed his remarks, saying if you want to make peace, if you want to make a final settlement, you need to meet directly.Washington has also stepped up pressure on the two sides, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking at the weekend by telephone with Netanyahu and her counterparts from Jordan and Qatar.We have a full-court press under way to see if we can move to direct negotiations, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said Tuesday.We're hopeful that the parties will reach this point but I can't pinpoint a particular day on the calendar.
Netanyahu and Abbas met separately with Jordan's King Abdullah II this week, and both have received a string of phone calls from European leaders urging direct negotiations.Abbas has meanwhile faced internal pressure to hold off on direct talks from his own secular Fatah movement and their bitter rivals in the Islamist Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction.Earlier this month Fatah said there was a lack of credibility and confidence in the indirect talks that could undermine direct negotiations.And on Tuesday senior Hamas leader Salah al-Bardawil warned a return to direct talks would only serve the Zionist occupation.We warn (Abbas) of the consequences of returning to negotiations, either with Arab cover or under pressure from America, because this will deepen the divide and put our cause on the the brink of collapse, he said. Abbas's talk of a clearly defined reference as a condition for restarting direct talks with the enemy confirms that Fatah has committed a huge error by negotiating for the last 20 years without one,he added.
PERSECUSSION,BEHEADINGS
JESUS PERSECUTED BIGTIME
PSALMS 14:1
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
ISAIAH 53:4
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
MATTHEW 9:34
34 But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.
JOHN 8:41
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
JOHN 10:20
20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?
PHILIPPIANS 2:10-11(JESUS GETS REVENGE)
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.(JUDGEMENT SEAT OF CHRIST AND FOR SINNERS, THE GREAT WHITE THRONE FINAL JUDGEMENT).
WE ARE CHRISTIANS WE WILL BE TREATED THE SAME.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5 (WHY WE ARE PERSECUTED BY THE WORLD)
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
MATTHEW 5:10-12
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
MATTHEW 24:9
9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
JOHN 15:18-20
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me (JESUS) before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
REVELATION 6:9-11
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain(BEHEADED) for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
REVELATION 20:4
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Police find 8 severed heads in northern Mexico
Tue Jul 27, 7:52 pm ET
MEXICO CITY – The severed heads of eight men were found left in pairs along highways in the northern Mexico state of Durango, state prosecutors said Tuesday.The bodies had not yet been located, but the victims appeared to have been between 25 and 30 years old, officials said.Durango has been the scene of brutal turf battles between drug gangs. Prosecutors said over the weekend that officials at a Durango prison let drug cartel gunmen to leave penitentiary and lent them guns and vehicles to carry out executions.Also Tuesday, prosecutors in the central state of Puebla reported that three federal police agents were shot to death on a highway in a confrontation with gunmen. The assailants escaped.In the northern border state of Chihuahua, prosecutors said a second cousin of Gov.-elect Cesar Duarte was shot to death by attackers in the city of Parral. The victim, lawyer Alberto Porras Duarte, was slain while waiting in a vehicle outside his office.One of Duarte's nephews was killed earlier this month in the Chihuahua state capital in what appeared to be a failed kidnapping attempt. The state has been the scene of some Mexico's bloodiest drug violence.In the border state of Tamaulipas, army officials reported Monday that they had captured nine Guatemalan citizens during patrols against drug trafficking organizations and seized seven grenades and two guns from the suspects.A day earlier, troops in Tamaulipas detained 11 people believed to work for the Zetas drug gang and seized five rifles.Almost 25,000 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the cartels in late 2006.
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.
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Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
OATH KEEPERS UNDER ATTACK
THIS GUY IS CALLING FOR A GLOBAL BANK TO PAY CARBON TAXES TO.I BELIEVE THIS BANK OF THE WORLD WILL BE THE IMF,POLICEMAN OF THE IMF WILL BE THE BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS.ITS GOOGLE I KNOW NOW THAT PUTS MY LINKS ON THE BOTTOM BY DOING SOMETHING INSIDE MY COMPUTER BECAUSE WHEN I DONE THIS ENERGY CARBON TAX SCAM STORY A DOWNLOAD STARTED ON MY COMPUTER AUTOMATICALLY TO COVERUP THE CAP & TRADE SCAM WHICH THE GOVERNMENT WILL TRY TO BRING IN TODAY IN AMERICA.TRY TO AVOID GOOGLING GO TO START PAGE INSTEAD.GOOGLE IS A CIA GOVERNMENT TRACKER OF ALL INDIVIDUALS WORLDWIDE.THE CAP & TAX SCAM BILL WILL PROBABLY BE CALLED THE POWER ACT TODAY,CHANGE THE NAME,RAM THROUGH THE TAXES TO COVER $46 TRILLION TO THE ENERGY COMMITTEE AT AMERICANS EXPENCE.
The Big Green Buy Christian Parenti July 27, 2010-THE NATION.
In the wake of the BP oil spill, some captains of industry have begun calling for government leadership to spur a clean-energy revolution. In June billionaire software mogul Bill Gates visited Washington and encouraged lawmakers to pony up public subsidies to triple clean-tech R&D funding from $5 billion to $16 billion annually. Gates explained to the Washington Post that much of what is touted as free-market innovation was born of government subsidies: The Internet and the microprocessor, which were very fundamental to Microsoft being able to take the magic of software and having the PC explode, were among many of the elements that came through government research and development.And on his website Gates wrote, When it comes to developing new sources of energy, and ways to store that energy, I believe the federal government needs to play a more active role than it does today.
Gates's acknowledgment of the need for government intervention is welcome, but he and many others are stuck on innovation. The fixation on new game-changing technology is omnipresent. Think of the metaphors we use: a green Manhattan Project or a clean-tech Apollo Program. It recalls Tocqueville's observation that the American lives in a land of wonders, in which everything around him is in constant movement, and every movement seems an advance. Consequently, in his mind the idea of newness is closely linked with that of improvement.Yet according to clean-tech experts, innovation is now less important than rapid large-scale implementation. In other words, developing a clean-energy economy is not about new gadgets but rather about new policies.An overemphasis on breakthrough inventions can obscure the fact that most of the energy technologies we need already exist. You know what they are: wind farms, concentrated solar power plants, geothermal and tidal power, all feeding an efficient smart grid that, in turn, powers electric vehicles and radically more energy-efficient buildings.But the so-called price gap is holding back clean tech: it is too expensive, while fossil fuels are far too cheap. The simple fact is that capitalist economies will switch to clean energy on a large scale only when it is cheaper than fossil fuels. The fastest way to close the price gap is to build large clean-tech markets that allow for economies of scale. So, what is the fastest way to build those markets? More research grants? More tax credits? More clumsy pilot programs? No. The fastest, simplest way to do it is to reorient government procurement away from fossil fuel energy, toward clean energy and technology—to use the government's vast spending power to create a market for green energy. After all, the government didn't just fund the invention of the microprocessor; it was also the first major consumer of the device.
Call it the Big Green Buy. The advantage of this strategy is that it is something Obama can do right now, without waiting for Congressional approval to act. As such, it amounts to a real test of his will to make progress in the fight against climate change.Consider this: altogether federal, state and local government constitute more than 38 percent of our GDP. Allow that to sink in for a moment. The federal government will spend $3.6 trillion this year. In more concrete terms, Uncle Sam owns or leases more than 430,000 buildings (mostly large office buildings) and 650,000 vehicles. The federal government is the world's largest consumer of energy and vehicles, and the nation's largest greenhouse gas emitter. Add state and local government activity, and all those numbers grow by about a third again.A redirection of government purchasing would create massive markets for clean power, electric vehicles and efficient buildings, as well as for more sustainably produced furniture, paper, cleaning supplies, uniforms, food and services. If government bought green, it would drive down marketplace prices sufficiently that the momentum toward green tech would become self-reinforcing and spread to the private sector.
The good news is that despite our sclerotic, largely right-wing Congress, government agencies are turning toward procurement as a means to jump-start clean tech and cut emissions.Perhaps the most important move in this direction came in October 2009, when President Obama quietly signed Executive Order 13514, which directs all federal agencies to increase energy efficiency; measure, report, and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from direct and indirect activities; conserve and protect water resources through efficiency, reuse, and stormwater management; eliminate waste, recycle, and prevent pollution; leverage agency acquisitions to foster markets for sustainable technologies and environmentally preferable materials, products, and services; design, construct, maintain, and operate high performance sustainable buildings in sustainable locations.The executive order also stipulates that federal agencies immediately start purchasing 95 percent through green certified programs and achieve a 28 percent greenhouse gas reduction by 2020. The stimulus package passed in 2009 included $32.7 billion for the Energy Department to tackle climate change, and some of that money is now being dispersed to business and federal agencies.Already some federal agencies are installing energy management systems and new solar arrays in buildings, tapping landfills to burn methane and replacing older vehicles with plug-in hybrids and soon some all-electric vehicles. But it is the green procurement part of the executive order that is most interesting.Government has tremendous latitude to leverage green procurement because it requires no new taxes, programs or spending, nor is it hostage to the holy grail of sixty votes in the Senate. It is simply a matter of changing how the government buys its energy, vehicles and services. Yes, in many cases clean tech costs more up front, but in most cases savings arrive soon afterward. And government—because of its size—is a market mover that has already shown it can leverage money-saving deals.
Currently, the price gap relegates clean tech to boutique status: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom owns an electric car; SF City Hall has three electric-vehicle charging stations; nationwide there are about 55,000 electric vehicles and 5,000 charging stations. Groovy.However, back on Planet America the asphalt transportation arteries are clogged with 250 million gasoline-powered vehicles sucking down an annual $200–$300 billion worth of fuel from more than 121,000 filling stations. Add to that the cost of heating and cooling buildings, jet travel, shipping, powering industry and the energy-gobbling servers and mainframes that are the Internet, and the US energy economy reaches a spectacular annual tab of $2–$3 trillion.The clean-tech price gap is partly the result of old dirty tech's history of subsidies ($72.5 billion between 2002 and 2008), but it is also the result of the massive economies of scale that the fossil fuel industry enjoys. In other words, gas pumps and gasoline are cheaper when you buy in bulk.Closely associated with the price gap is another concept, which clean-tech developers call the valley of death. This is the time in a technology's life cycle when capital dries up, the time between a technology's initial invention and its successful application as a moneymaking commodity.A report by Ernst & Young found that a typical technological innovation—like the flatscreen TV or the cellphone—costs about $20–$100 million to invent but about $1 billion to deploy at competitive prices. Between government subsidies and capital markets, there is often enough financing available to invent new gadgets or buy into a mature and profitable business. But there is a dearth of capital for new companies trying to cross that gap between victory in the lab and victory in the market.Smith Electric Vehicles, of Kansas City, is one company that would benefit immensely if government started robust green procurement. Currently Smith, the US affiliate of a British firm that has been making electric delivery trucks for eighty years, turns out about twenty units a month. The vehicles—flatbeds, refrigerator trucks, basic box-style delivery trucks—all require components that Smith buys on the open market.If we could buy gear boxes in batches of a hundred rather than ten at a time, they could be cast to our specifications rather than each one machined. That would immediately cut the cost by 30 to 40 percent, says Smith CEO Bryan Hansel. Similar savings would be available for other inputs like steel chassis, cabs, drive shafts, suspensions and wiring harnesses, all of which are purchased from the same suppliers used by diesel- and gas-powered vehicle makers.
In March Smith received a $32 million Energy Department grant that will help it offset the cost of its trucks. But what would really give it a boost is an order of 1,000 trucks a year for the next ten years, from, say, the Defense Department or the Postal Service or the General Services Administration (GSA). If that happened, Smith's plans to open twenty more small manufacturing facilities around the country would shift into high gear.We have approached the DoD about nontactical vehicles, like trucks that are used on bases here in the US. They bought four of our vehicles for testing. So we're hopeful,says Hansel. The Defense Department has 160,000 nontactical vehicles, many of which are suitable for electrification.In other respects, the military is one of the most avid adaptors of clean technology. Of all the energy the federal government consumes, 80 percent is used by the Defense Department. The cost of delivering fuel to forward operating areas can be as high as $400 a gallon, by some estimates. And according to an Army Environmental Policy Institute report, 170 soldiers died and many more were horribly maimed just protecting fuel in combat zones during 2007. For purely strategic reasons the military is trying to free itself (at least a bit) from its clumsy and very long fossil fuel tether.Thus the military is experimenting on a large scale with green technology. Fort Irwin, in California, is building a 500 megawatt (that is big) solar power plant and is on track to become self-sufficient in electricity use within a decade. Fort Leavenworth is undergoing an energy retrofit that a Pew report described thus: energy efficiency improvements are made by a private-sector firm at no upfront cost to the Army, with resulting savings shared by the base and the contractor.The list goes on, but unfortunately most of the changes are relatively small scale.Government procurement, particularly the military's, would become significantly greener if two recently introduced bills became law. The Department of Defense Energy Security Act of 2010, introduced by Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, would require the department to derive a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. And—good news for Smith Electric Vehicles—the bill also calls, rather ambitiously, for a full-scale conversion of the military's nontactical vehicle fleet to electric, hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles by 2015.
A similar bill, introduced by Democrat José Serrano of New York, would require the Postal Service to purchase at least 20,000 electric vehicles by 2015. That goal is reasonable, and the USPS is a perfect place to start, as most of its vehicles travel in loops of less than 20 miles each day and always park in the same garage. Thus, even current battery technology is sufficient. Many other government fleets fit the same profile: they have regular routes of less than 100 miles a day and use the same parking spot each night, so they are easy and cheaper to charge because the price of juice drops at night.Right now a vehicle from Smith is about 20 percent more expensive than a standard gas or diesel truck. But the cost per mile to run an electric truck is about one-third the cost per mile of a gas- or diesel-powered one. Hansel says that with enough large orders his product will reach cost parity with dirty-tech options. When that happens, large private-sector fleets, like UPS, FedEx, Staples and Frito-Lay, will start buying electric vehicles simply because it will be the cheaper option.In anticipation of that day, Nissan is releasing the 2011 Leaf, a fully electric plug-in car. It plans to make 90,000 of them. Chevy is coming out with the Volt—10,000 of them. Will this first generation of EVs really have a market, and sufficient charging options? Who knows? But you can be sure they would if Big Government made the Big Green Buy.Buildings also use lots of energy. The US Green Building Council reports that buildings account for about 36 percent of America's total energy use and emit roughly the same proportion of greenhouse gases. But if properly constructed and managed, many buildings could actually generate energy for their own use, for vehicles or to put back into the grid.The government's building manager—its janitor, if you will—is the GSA. The GSA constructs, repairs and manages federal buildings; it buys the supplies and keeps the heat and AC on; and it buys and maintains much of the government's nonmilitary vehicle fleet. It also acts as a purchaser and contractor of sorts for most other federal agencies. The GSA is about as dull an agency as you can imagine. It has pocket-protector and brown shoes written all over it. But in the age of climate change, its brief has taken on vital importance. The implications of Executive Order 13514 have put the GSA, along with the military, at the cutting edge of the Big Green Buy.We're taking this very seriously,says Martha Johnson, administrator of the GSA. We are normally sort of overlooked, but we were thrilled, really excited, when the president gave us such prominent place in his environmental strategy.President Bill Clinton issued four executive orders on sustainable clean procurement, but they lacked specific targets or enforcement mechanisms and thus achieved very little. Our progress in general in buying these products stinks,said Dana Arnold, senior program manager at the White House Office of the Federal Environmental Executive in a recent interview with the Federal Times.
This time it may be different, and the GSA is gearing up to be the point agency in what is sometimes called Environmentally Preferable Procurement, or green supply chain management.The GSA is putting up solar arrays, buying a few electric cars and hybrids, trying to produce energy at its buildings and buying renewable energy like biomass, solar and wind power, which now account for 10.8 percent of the GSA's federal building power supply. It is also creating monitoring systems to track progress and keep federal agencies accountable.The GSA's sustainability plan requires a minimum of three percent renewable energy source for all competitive electricity supply contracts and requires that renewable energy be from a plant that was recently built in order to stimulate greater investment in the industry.The agency has reduced its own energy use by 15 percent, as measured against a 2003 baseline, and plans to reduce energy consumption in its buildings by 30 percent from that baseline by 2020. Already the GSA's building stock—mostly offices—is about 22 percent more efficient than similar private-sector buildings.In addition, the GSA is working on cutting the amount of jet travel its workforce requires and, when possible, increasing telecommuting and home-based work. It is also pressuring other agencies to shut off unused data centers—the USDA, for example, uses only between 10 percent and 20 percent of its total computing capacity, but its huge, largely empty servers run at 100 percent of power.Other federal agencies, however, are lagging far behind. It is amazing to us to find out the low level of awareness, says Linda Mesaros, a consultant for sustainable purchasing. State and local governments are also moving toward green procurement, but few have been very aggressive or ambitious.
Nor are the main pieces of energy and climate legislation focusing on procurement. The American Energy Innovation Council—which includes Bill Gates and executives from companies like Xerox, General Electric and Bank of America—is lobbying for a research plan and money and pilot programs all focused on expensive and spectacular new technology, like small fourth-generation nukes. The plan totally ignores the Big Green Buy strategy.Another group, the Electrification Coalition—made up of CEOs from FedEx, Nissan and PG&E—has published an ambitious 180-page plan for converting America's light-duty vehicle fleet to 75 percent electric miles by 2040. It also calls for radically upgrading America's old, overburdened, semi-deregulated and thus chaotic electrical grid, which loses about twice as much power in transmission as it did in the 1970s. The EC is lobbying hard and has helped shape the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010, legislation being championed by Representative Ed Markey.But again, neither Markey's staff nor the EC is comfortable demanding the Big Green Buy. We don't think that is the best approach was all I could get from a Markey staffer. Instead, the EC proposes a Rube Goldberg–style scheme of geographic target areas that will receive multiple layers of consumer and industry tax credits and tax breaks—$7 billion total. That may sound big, but in the face of the climate crisis it is Lilliputian.This approach is emblematic of the intellectual poverty of the political class and business elites. The bill is entirely too clever for its own good, painfully complicated in its tinkering instrumentalism, which in the end would do very little and do it too late, like an impoverished family scrounging for dinner money on the eve of their eviction. And the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act will be red meat to the climate deniers and fiscal hawks. You can almost hear the derision now: if yuppies in Berkeley want to drive funny new plug-in cars, why do we have to pay for it? Viewed broadly, there are four simple things the government can do to help close the clean-technology price gap and aid clean-tech business across the valley of death.First, it can boost R&D as Gates has requested, but that alone won't bring mass-scale green power on line.
Second, it can set up a Green Bank tasked with financing clean-tech businesses as they cross the valley of death. Along with loans, the government can offer more loan guarantees, which encourage otherwise frightened private capital to invest in clean-energy start-ups. The Waxman-Markey climate bill of last year included language to do that, but nothing like it is yet law.
Third, the government can impose mandates on the private sector requiring companies to adopt electric vehicles, purchase clean energy and conserve energy. Industry already lives with numerous rules that put limits on the anarchy of production. Yet in the crazy world of American politics circa 2010, forcing green procurement mandates on business would be very difficult.So let's get real. The fourth path is the best: a robust program of green procurement is the most immediate and politically feasible thing government can do to boost the clean-tech sector. And the only number that approaches the scale of the energy economy is government spending on energy. We need to be talking not about millions or billions but trillions of dollars going in a new direction. If the government is serious about electric vehicles—then just buy them already!At one level, the mad Tea Partyers are correct: government is leviathan—a monster. But it is our monster, and with proper leadership even this government in the current climate could jump-start a clean-energy revolution.
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).
EU foreign ministers approve diplomatic service
HONOR MAHONY Today JULY 27,10 @ 09:20 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign ministers on Monday (26 July) gave the nod to the overall structure of the Union's new diplomatic service, paving the way for chief of diplomacy Catherine Ashton to begin making appointments to the service that will employ thousands.It is historic to be able to witness the birth, at least at the decision level, of a European diplomacy, Belgian foreign minister Steven Vanackere, whose country holds the EU rotating presidency, said following the meeting.Due to be on its feet by 1 December, the service will see Ms Ashton backed up by a secretary general - likely to be France's ambassador to the US Pierre Vimont - as well as two deputy secretaries general.Monday's decision puts to rest a lengthy period of infighting between the EU institutions on the exact balance of power within the diplomatic service but opens the door to a power struggle between member states about who should land which posts within the service.Ms Ashton is soon expected to announce a series of names for the heads of EU embassies abroad - including to prestigious countries such as China and Brazil. But appointments to key internal posts, such as the secretary general job, can only be made once the European Parliament has agreed new staffing rules, a move expected towards the end of September.Writing in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, Ms Ashton said the new European External Action Service, despite its ungainly name, has a bold and simple purpose: to give the EU a stronger voice around the world, and greater impact on the ground.
With the fight to have the service established largely over, the focus is now likely set on the extent to which member states, several of whom jealously guard their foreign policy prerogatives, will allow a coherent foreign policy to thrive.Big countries have been keen to stress the service will not impinge on their foreign policy sovereignty, a point illustrated by the extent to which they are prepared to consider closing their own embassies in certain countries and use the EU embassy.
According to France's Europe minister, Pierre Lellouche, some countries may consider saving money through using EU embassy facilities but this should not be the case for France.I am the secretary of state, and I do not speak for France [but] I think it is desirable that France continues to maintain a global network. It is one of the few countries to do so, he said, according to Le Monde.Ms Ashton alluded to the difficulties in the article: Our aim is to do foreign policy in a modern way, differently and better. Not to compete with or duplicate what our member states are doing, but to add value and play to our strength of acting as a union.Drawing staff from the European Commission, the member states' council secretariat in Brussels and national diplomats, the service is expected to have around 6,000 personnel once it is fully up and running, expected to take another two or three years.
Critics slams Europe's rescue mechanisms as a threat to social peace
ANDREW WILLIS 26.07.2010 @ 09:11 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – A member of a German quintet of professors that is currently challenging the legality of Europe's recently-devised support measures has said they threaten to create enormous tensions between EU citizens if allowed to stand. In a telephone interview with EUobserver on Thursday (22 July), Wilhelm Nolling, professor of economics at the University of Hamburg, said the idea that Greece would be able to pay back its loans to EU states was simply ridiculous, given the country's level of indebtedness and lack of competitiveness.As a result, EU citizens in lender countries would increasingly begin to question the merits of this implicit system of wealth redistribution, he predicted. A transfer union will destroy the social peace in Europe,he said.Do you think the Germans will be able to keep quiet?
The group of German economists recently extended their legal case in Germany's constitutional court against the EU-IMF €110 billion bail-out for Greece to include the eurozone's €440 billion support mechanism and the ECB's sovereign bond purchases, the latter two announced in the early hours of 10 May. Their complaint is that they breach the EU's no-bailout clause, a ban on fiscal transfers between richer and poorer member states that many Germans feared would be inevitable when giving up the Deutsche Mark in 1999. In addition, Mr Nolling is amongst those that believe that the various support measures have bought nothing but limited time to a eurozone system that is inherently flawed.If you start with a makeshift operation you will never get to the real cause of the malaise. That cause is that a currency area of this size needs converging economies but the opposite has happened.Writing in a blog on this webiste back in February, Edin Mujagic, a monetary economist at Tilburg University, also noted these divergences had increased over the eurozone's 11-year history.Whether you take a closer look at unit labour costs, unemployment, welfare, productivity, fiscal deficits, debt and so on, the differences have increased since 1999,he wrote.
A smaller euro area?
Europe's politicians are rapidly striving to reduce these differences by devising a system of macro-economic indicators that member states would be forced to comply with.A recent European Commission paper suggested financial sanctions should be applied to states that fail to meet the grade, a system similar to the bloc's theoretical rules on debt and deficit limits.Some, however, fear this is merely too little too late, arguing that the eurozone's forefathers were blinded to the inherent economic impossibility of the project by political motivations.We need to form a new heart of the euro, France, Germany, Finland, Austria and the Netherlands, offered Mr Nolling as the only solution to overcoming divergences without using the forbidden system of fiscal transfers.All the other states should be given their freedom back. That would give them a real opportunity to increase their competitiveness through currency devaluations.It is currently impossible for them when they are 30 percent out of line. Salaries and cost structures are way out of line.At present, no one is sure when the German constitutional court will come to its decision, but a rejection by the powerful group of judges is likely to have explosive consequences.I expect the decision before the winter starts,predicted Mr Nolling. I want the court to tell the German government to stop giving money away.
Greece back under EU-IMF microscope as Asian stocks rise-EU officials arrive in Athens Monday to assess Greece's performance so far (Photo: John D. Carnessiotis, Athens, Greece)LEIGH PHILLIPS 26.07.2010 @ 09:31 CET
Asian stocks have risen on the back of easing of fears over European bank stress test results were revealed on Friday.In a filip of optimism, Japan's Nkkei 225 Stock Average had climbed 0.9 percent as of early afternoon in Tokyo, according to market reports, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.5 percent and New Zealand's NZX 50 had gained 0.4 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific index had risen 0.3 percent.As the results of the stress tests of European banks, which revealed just seven out of 91 had failed, were issued late Friday in Europe, this was the first chance for Asian markets to assess the fall-out.European authorities had however decided not to subject the banks to the test of seeing what would happen to them in the event of a debt default by Greece, a move that was widely criticised given that such an event is within the realm of possibility.Meanwhile on Monday (26 July), officials from the EU, IMF and European Central Bank arrive in Athens to investigate the implementation of the governing centre-left Pasok's austerity measures before a second, €9 billion tranche of eurozone-IMF bail-out agreed in May can be disbursed.Initial indications from the so-called troika, as the trio of fiscal overseers is referred to in Greece, have been approving.On the weekend, finance minister George Papaconstantinou said he expected no delays to delivery of the second tranche in September as the government had gone further than what was required with its harsh pension cuts.However, an IMF report from earlier this month noted concerns over budget gaps in public healthcare, social security, public transport and municipal governments - the very core of Greece's welfare system, already one of the weakest in western Europe.The fund suggested that Athens ratchet up its programme of privatisation and focus on setting loose government corporations. Railways and bus firms are potential targets, while the troika will also likely push for liberalisation of certain trades, including architects, notaries and lorry-drivers, according to media reports.Brussels for its part wants to see a quick and tidy deregulation of the energy sector, in line with existing EU legislation.However, eyes will also be on the country's labour movement and widespread popular resistance to the cuts. Already imposed austerity measures have produced a series of general strikes and a riot that cost the lives of three bank workers.
Seven banks fail to make the stress test grade-The Royal Bank of Scotland was among the banks to pass with flying colours (Photo: Wikipedia)ANDREW WILLIS
23.07.2010 @ 20:34 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Seven European banks have failed the region's stress tests, designed to assess their ability to withstand a series of worst-case scenarios such as another recession. EU policymakers will now be hoping that the news brings an end investor doubts in the sector, after Friday evening's (23 July) publication of the test results showed the vast majority of banks to have passed with flying colours.We support ... the transparency of this exercise, given the specific market circumstances under which banks currently operate, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission said in a joint statement. One German bank (Hypo Real Estate), five Spanish lenders (Unnim, Cajasur, Diada, Espiga, Banca Civica), and one Greek bank (ATEbank) failed the test.Banks whose Tier 1 capital ratio, the main buffer used to protect against losses, fell below six percent were deemed to have failed, although authorities stressed that four percent is the current regulatory minimum. The results are broadly in line with market expectations, with most analysts predicting failures in the five to 10 range. The seven firms will now need to raise roughly €3.5 billion in additional capital between them.Where the results of the exercise indicate that individual banks require additional capital, these banks should take the necessary steps to reinforce their capital positions through private-sector means and by resorting, if necessary, to facilities set up by member state governments, said the CEBS, ECB, commission statement. None of Europe's major banks failed the tests which were conducted by CEBS on 91 firms in order to asses their ability to deal with another recession or losses on eurozone sovereign bonds.A haircut of 23.1 percent was applied to Greek debt, slightly higher than the 17 percent that had earlier been predicted. Spanish bonds were marked down by 12.3 percent, and German bonds by 4.7 percent.
Doubts remain
Doubts remain however, with some analysts prior to Friday's publication saying a 50 percent markdown on Greek bonds would be more appropriate.I see nothing stressful about this test. It's like sending the banks away for a weekend of R&R,said Stephen Pope, chief global equity strategist at Cantor, reported various media.Other analysts were critical of the fact that sovereign debt haircuts were only applied to bonds set aside for trading, and not those being held until maturity.Stock markets in the US fluctuated as investors digested the news. Europe's markets were all closed when data were released.Centre-right MEP Jean-Paul Gauzès, a key-player in European efforts to overhaul its finance sector, welcomed the results, but cautioned that legislative reform must continue.These good results should not bring us to disregard the implementation of norms, in particular as regards banks' own capital requirements,he said.
Iceland membership talks formally begin Tuesday
HONOR MAHONY 26.07.2010 @ 17:41 CET
At their last meeting before the summer break, EU foreign ministers on Monday (26 July) gave the greenlight for the start of negotiations on Iceland's membership bid.
Talks will formally begin on Tuesday. The small north Atlantic island, with a population of just 320,000, has aligned itself with many EU laws and is seen as fitting snugly with the slightly more ineffable European 'norms', but negotiations on a few key issues - such as fishing rights and its traditional whale hunting - are expected to be difficult.Iceland, whose fishing policies have largely been a success in terms of sustainability, is keen to see that its rich fishing waters are not over-fished by EU member states. The EU's common fisheries policy has led to the severe depletion of stocks in western Europe. Efforts will have to be made by Iceland, Belgian foreign minister Steven Vanackere said after chairing the meeting in Brussels.Think of environment, think of whale hunting.In addition, the UK and the Netherlands have linked actual membership with resolution of a dispute over the €3.8 billion in British and Dutch savings, lost in the banking crisis that consumed the nation in 2008.After the Icelandic Icesave internet bank collapsed two years ago, depositers in the UK and the Netherlands were compensated by their governments. The Hague and London now are demanding Reykjavik pay them back.It's clear that all the chapters need to be discussed ... When the last chapter isn't resolved, nothing is resolved, said Mr Vanackere, when specifically asked about whether the Icesave issue could stymie talks.
Icelanders themselves in a recent referendum rejected a payout plan that would have cost each household tens of thousands of euros. The disagreement has soured the population's sentiment towards the EU. Immediately after the crisis, a majority of Icelanders looked to the EU as a solution to their problems, but the bitter fight with London and the Hague has slashed support for EU membership on the island.In addition to potential controversial policy issues, there is also the increasingly negative opinion of Icelanders towards EU membership.I don't have the impression from the opinion polls that the Icelanders themselves are very favourable: that's the problem, said France's EU Minister Pierre Lellouche.Popular opinions have to be taken on board, and you have to communicate the value [of becoming an EU member], said Mr Vanackere. A June poll showed that public opposition to joining the EU has risen to 60 percent. In November last year, it was 54 percent.The negotiation process is expected to take up to 18 months. EU legislation covers 35 different areas, known as chapters, ranging from the justice and home affairs to environment, energy, social and transport policy. Through its membership of the European Free Trade Association and the Schengen border-free zone, many of Iceland's laws already comply with those of the EU.Croatia and Turkey have also opened membership negotiations with the EU. Zagreb is expected to conclude talks in 2011 while Ankara's talks are proceeding much more slowly.
EU commission called upon to go after corrupt defence deals
VALENTINA POP 26.07.2010 @ 09:14 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – MEPs and defence experts are calling on the EU commission to go after market-distorting, corrupt side-deals to big weapon deals between member states, such as the ones greasing Germany's submarine sales to Portugal and Greece.
As EU officials are packing their holiday suitcases in Brussels, prosecutors in Germany, Portugal and Greece are on to a hot summer, tracing the complex trails of bribes and side-contracts to the German submarines each of the southern countries signed up for at a price of over €1billion.The EU hypocrisy of allowing Greek and Portuguese governments allocate huge parts of their budget for questionable defence purchases, while they are being pressed for austerity measures to cap their deficit, already made headlines such as The submarine deals that helped sink Greece in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.What's striking about Greece and Portugal is the inappropriateness of these purchases,Nick Witney, a defence expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations, a London-based think tank, told EUobserver.It makes no sense at all to urge austerity and at the same time encourage them to buy weapons. But where there's a nexus of security, secrecy and lack of competition, there is always an open field for corruption, he noted.Munich-based investigators in March opened a case against the German engineering group Ferrostaal, suspected of paying bribes to secure defence contracts in Portugal and Greece and of organizing bribery payments on behalf of other firms for a fee. The investigation has meanwhile spread to Portugal and Greece, and touches on former party colleagues of EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who was prime minister at the time the contract was signed. Mr Barroso has denied any involvement in the alleged bribery scheme and says he had nothing to do with the negotiation of the contract, which was the responsibility of the defence minister.
Along with the acquisition per se came offset contracts to the tune of €1billion, meaning direct foreign investments from Germany and business opportunities to Portuguese companies on the German market.Under EU law, offsets are forbidden, except for the defence sector, where member states invoke a national security exemption. As it turns out, a lot of these offsets were actually existing investments. Seven Portuguese executives and three Ferrostaal representatives have already been indicted. According to the public prosecutor's office, the Portuguese state was mislead in these deals and suffered damages of at least €34 million.
According to estimates by the European Defence Agency, 25 percent of the offsets in Europe are non-military and have no direct connection with the purchase.These contracts totally violate the EU's internal market competition rules, Portuguese Socialist MEP Ana Gomes told this website.They are contracts negotiated among companies with government favouring and in total disregard of the competition rules. There are plenty of reasons why the European Commission should investigate, and make it an exemplary case to deter such behaviour from now on from any member state.So far, the commission has turned a blind eye to the non-military contracts occurring alongside large defence procurements.A new defence procurement directive which needs to be transposed into national legislation by August 2011 is set to shed more light into the way such deals are done and restrict the areas in which governments can invoke the national security exemption to internal market rules.Member states will need to prove that the offsets are necessary for the protection of security interests and not distort competition on non-military markets.During his hearings as internal market commissioner, Michel Barnier said the defence offsets bring about discriminations which contradict the [EU] treaty. While acknowledging the traditions and sensibilities, he said these procedures had to be put to an end.
But to Ms Gomes, the commission is missing an opportunity to expose a very corrupt business that involves Portuguese, German companies, government officials and military people.In a time of budget austerity and market jitters, the two submarines acquired by Portugal account for about 40 percent of its defence spending until 2023. We don't have money to equip properly our military and security forces, we are wasting this money in a very corrupt business and violating competition, Ms Gomes points out.
Voluntary code of conduct
A voluntary code of conduct adopted by all member states except Romania last year meanwhile puts some limits on offsets, such as for the value of these contracts not to surpass 100 percent of that of the actual purchase.Apart from being voluntary, the code has also come under fire for lacking any reference to corruption, despite the fact that the defence sector is one of the most prone to this phenomenon, according to Transparency International.We would have hoped EU agencies required high standards, but this is not the case, Mark Pyman, the watchdog's defence expert told this website.He also said that market-distorting deals ranging from refrigerator factories to advertising companies are clearly a question of internal market for the EU commission to investigate.We need clear guidance how governments conduct and audit offsets and an EU framework putting transparency at the core,he concluded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS3H6Cakwpw&feature=player_embedded
Why Oath Keepers are Under Attack: Stewart Rhodes Oath Keepers
Oath Keepers July 27, 2010
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes during the first annual Oath Keepers Conference in October 2009. http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p…
Meet David Berry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyaxEw…
Meet Eddie & Ada Gilbert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49GPAK…
http://stewart-rhodes.blogspot.com/
This is my old, private blog that is now sadly neglected since I have launched Oath Keepers, which has truly taken off like a rocket, leaving me no time for personal blogging – not that I’m complaining. the Oath Keepers mission is very important, and worth the time and effort.Go here: http://oathkeepers.org/oath/
However, if you want to see what prompted me to finally launch Oath Keepers, there are several posts on this blog that show my thinking.Back in 2006 I wrote several scathing criticisms of the Bush Administration’s absurd and dangerous claims of nearly unlimited executive war powers. Those articles built on my research at Yale Law School (where I won the Miller Prize for best paper on the Bill of Rights).One of the most common refrains I get from Obama supporters is where were you when Bush was violating the Constitution.Well, I was right here. Read this:
http://stewart-rhodes.blogspot.com/
OATH KEEPERS is a non-partisan association of Military, Veterans, and peace officers who will honor their oaths to defend the Constitution, will NOT just follow orders, will stand for liberty, and will save the Republic, so help us God. Our motto is:
Not on Our Watch!
SUMMARY LIST OF ORDERS WE WILL NOT OBEY:
1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.
2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people
3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants or to subject them to military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a state of emergency on a state.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to keep the peace or to maintain control.
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.Read the full declaration at http://oathkeepers.org
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,(WORLD SOCIALISM) 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 TUE JULY 27,2010
09:30 AM +1.52
10:00 AM +15.06
10:30 AM +16.88
11:00 AM +10.90
11:30 AM -11.12
12:00 PM -0.07
12:30 PM +30.50
01:00 PM +10.67
01:30 PM -5.14
02:00 PM +8.25
02:30 PM +24.60
03:00 PM +11.28
03:30 PM +23.24
04:00 PM +12.26 10,537.69
S&P 500 1113.84 -1.17
NASDAQ 2288.25 -8.18
GOLD 1,159.10 -24.00
OIL 77.58 -1.40
TSE 300 11,716.70 -29.40
CDNX 1396.28 -7.18
S&P/TSX/60 684.83 -1.00
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +38 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -31 points at low today.
Dow +53 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,173.80.OIL opens at $79.35 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -31 points at low today so far.
Dow +53 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -31 points at low today.
Dow +53 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,260.90 (NOT AT CLOSE)
H.R. 5741 Slave bill now in Committee
Rob Dew Infowars.com July 26, 2010
Slavery has a new name: Mandatory Service, introduced July 15th 2010 by Charles Rangle.H.R. 5741 will give the president the authority To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.Barely a year after introducing H.R. 1444, which was supposed to form a Congressional Commission on Civic Service to study methods of improving and promoting volunteerism and national service, and for other purposes, Congress has upped the ante. Anyone between 18 and 42 will be eligible for a two year commitment of civilian or military service. With more college graduates working for the fast food industry, a depression era unemployment rate and less people retiring; the government will have plenty of eligible able bodies to move into the slave ranks.This echos the sentiment of President Obama who asked Congress in Febuary 2009 to send him a bipartisan bill in the spirit of national service. His Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel outlined a similar plan in his book The Plan.But even Emanuel aims low looking at only 18 to 25 year olds for three months of compulsory service. Under this new legislation nearly all, able bodied Americans will be sentenced to two years of forced labor. The infrastructure is already in place for those unwilling to participate in mandatory service and now the army is looking to fill it’s ranks with Interment/Resettlement Specialists.
There are very few loopholes to opt of out national service, even CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS (SEC. 109) will be forced to choose the mandatory option of A. noncombatant service (as defined by the President) or B. national civilian service. It seems the congressional commission on civic service will no longer be needed thanks to the hard work of a suspected Congressional tax cheat from New York.The slavery bill is currently in debate in the House Committee on Armed Services chaired by Rep Ike Skelton a democrat from Missouri. Those who oppose mandatory slavery should contact Rep. Skelton. Many bills die in committee and this bill should meet the same fate.
The Big Green Buy Christian Parenti July 27, 2010-THE NATION.
In the wake of the BP oil spill, some captains of industry have begun calling for government leadership to spur a clean-energy revolution. In June billionaire software mogul Bill Gates visited Washington and encouraged lawmakers to pony up public subsidies to triple clean-tech R&D funding from $5 billion to $16 billion annually. Gates explained to the Washington Post that much of what is touted as free-market innovation was born of government subsidies: The Internet and the microprocessor, which were very fundamental to Microsoft being able to take the magic of software and having the PC explode, were among many of the elements that came through government research and development.And on his website Gates wrote, When it comes to developing new sources of energy, and ways to store that energy, I believe the federal government needs to play a more active role than it does today.
Gates's acknowledgment of the need for government intervention is welcome, but he and many others are stuck on innovation. The fixation on new game-changing technology is omnipresent. Think of the metaphors we use: a green Manhattan Project or a clean-tech Apollo Program. It recalls Tocqueville's observation that the American lives in a land of wonders, in which everything around him is in constant movement, and every movement seems an advance. Consequently, in his mind the idea of newness is closely linked with that of improvement.Yet according to clean-tech experts, innovation is now less important than rapid large-scale implementation. In other words, developing a clean-energy economy is not about new gadgets but rather about new policies.An overemphasis on breakthrough inventions can obscure the fact that most of the energy technologies we need already exist. You know what they are: wind farms, concentrated solar power plants, geothermal and tidal power, all feeding an efficient smart grid that, in turn, powers electric vehicles and radically more energy-efficient buildings.But the so-called price gap is holding back clean tech: it is too expensive, while fossil fuels are far too cheap. The simple fact is that capitalist economies will switch to clean energy on a large scale only when it is cheaper than fossil fuels. The fastest way to close the price gap is to build large clean-tech markets that allow for economies of scale. So, what is the fastest way to build those markets? More research grants? More tax credits? More clumsy pilot programs? No. The fastest, simplest way to do it is to reorient government procurement away from fossil fuel energy, toward clean energy and technology—to use the government's vast spending power to create a market for green energy. After all, the government didn't just fund the invention of the microprocessor; it was also the first major consumer of the device.
Call it the Big Green Buy. The advantage of this strategy is that it is something Obama can do right now, without waiting for Congressional approval to act. As such, it amounts to a real test of his will to make progress in the fight against climate change.Consider this: altogether federal, state and local government constitute more than 38 percent of our GDP. Allow that to sink in for a moment. The federal government will spend $3.6 trillion this year. In more concrete terms, Uncle Sam owns or leases more than 430,000 buildings (mostly large office buildings) and 650,000 vehicles. The federal government is the world's largest consumer of energy and vehicles, and the nation's largest greenhouse gas emitter. Add state and local government activity, and all those numbers grow by about a third again.A redirection of government purchasing would create massive markets for clean power, electric vehicles and efficient buildings, as well as for more sustainably produced furniture, paper, cleaning supplies, uniforms, food and services. If government bought green, it would drive down marketplace prices sufficiently that the momentum toward green tech would become self-reinforcing and spread to the private sector.
The good news is that despite our sclerotic, largely right-wing Congress, government agencies are turning toward procurement as a means to jump-start clean tech and cut emissions.Perhaps the most important move in this direction came in October 2009, when President Obama quietly signed Executive Order 13514, which directs all federal agencies to increase energy efficiency; measure, report, and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from direct and indirect activities; conserve and protect water resources through efficiency, reuse, and stormwater management; eliminate waste, recycle, and prevent pollution; leverage agency acquisitions to foster markets for sustainable technologies and environmentally preferable materials, products, and services; design, construct, maintain, and operate high performance sustainable buildings in sustainable locations.The executive order also stipulates that federal agencies immediately start purchasing 95 percent through green certified programs and achieve a 28 percent greenhouse gas reduction by 2020. The stimulus package passed in 2009 included $32.7 billion for the Energy Department to tackle climate change, and some of that money is now being dispersed to business and federal agencies.Already some federal agencies are installing energy management systems and new solar arrays in buildings, tapping landfills to burn methane and replacing older vehicles with plug-in hybrids and soon some all-electric vehicles. But it is the green procurement part of the executive order that is most interesting.Government has tremendous latitude to leverage green procurement because it requires no new taxes, programs or spending, nor is it hostage to the holy grail of sixty votes in the Senate. It is simply a matter of changing how the government buys its energy, vehicles and services. Yes, in many cases clean tech costs more up front, but in most cases savings arrive soon afterward. And government—because of its size—is a market mover that has already shown it can leverage money-saving deals.
Currently, the price gap relegates clean tech to boutique status: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom owns an electric car; SF City Hall has three electric-vehicle charging stations; nationwide there are about 55,000 electric vehicles and 5,000 charging stations. Groovy.However, back on Planet America the asphalt transportation arteries are clogged with 250 million gasoline-powered vehicles sucking down an annual $200–$300 billion worth of fuel from more than 121,000 filling stations. Add to that the cost of heating and cooling buildings, jet travel, shipping, powering industry and the energy-gobbling servers and mainframes that are the Internet, and the US energy economy reaches a spectacular annual tab of $2–$3 trillion.The clean-tech price gap is partly the result of old dirty tech's history of subsidies ($72.5 billion between 2002 and 2008), but it is also the result of the massive economies of scale that the fossil fuel industry enjoys. In other words, gas pumps and gasoline are cheaper when you buy in bulk.Closely associated with the price gap is another concept, which clean-tech developers call the valley of death. This is the time in a technology's life cycle when capital dries up, the time between a technology's initial invention and its successful application as a moneymaking commodity.A report by Ernst & Young found that a typical technological innovation—like the flatscreen TV or the cellphone—costs about $20–$100 million to invent but about $1 billion to deploy at competitive prices. Between government subsidies and capital markets, there is often enough financing available to invent new gadgets or buy into a mature and profitable business. But there is a dearth of capital for new companies trying to cross that gap between victory in the lab and victory in the market.Smith Electric Vehicles, of Kansas City, is one company that would benefit immensely if government started robust green procurement. Currently Smith, the US affiliate of a British firm that has been making electric delivery trucks for eighty years, turns out about twenty units a month. The vehicles—flatbeds, refrigerator trucks, basic box-style delivery trucks—all require components that Smith buys on the open market.If we could buy gear boxes in batches of a hundred rather than ten at a time, they could be cast to our specifications rather than each one machined. That would immediately cut the cost by 30 to 40 percent, says Smith CEO Bryan Hansel. Similar savings would be available for other inputs like steel chassis, cabs, drive shafts, suspensions and wiring harnesses, all of which are purchased from the same suppliers used by diesel- and gas-powered vehicle makers.
In March Smith received a $32 million Energy Department grant that will help it offset the cost of its trucks. But what would really give it a boost is an order of 1,000 trucks a year for the next ten years, from, say, the Defense Department or the Postal Service or the General Services Administration (GSA). If that happened, Smith's plans to open twenty more small manufacturing facilities around the country would shift into high gear.We have approached the DoD about nontactical vehicles, like trucks that are used on bases here in the US. They bought four of our vehicles for testing. So we're hopeful,says Hansel. The Defense Department has 160,000 nontactical vehicles, many of which are suitable for electrification.In other respects, the military is one of the most avid adaptors of clean technology. Of all the energy the federal government consumes, 80 percent is used by the Defense Department. The cost of delivering fuel to forward operating areas can be as high as $400 a gallon, by some estimates. And according to an Army Environmental Policy Institute report, 170 soldiers died and many more were horribly maimed just protecting fuel in combat zones during 2007. For purely strategic reasons the military is trying to free itself (at least a bit) from its clumsy and very long fossil fuel tether.Thus the military is experimenting on a large scale with green technology. Fort Irwin, in California, is building a 500 megawatt (that is big) solar power plant and is on track to become self-sufficient in electricity use within a decade. Fort Leavenworth is undergoing an energy retrofit that a Pew report described thus: energy efficiency improvements are made by a private-sector firm at no upfront cost to the Army, with resulting savings shared by the base and the contractor.The list goes on, but unfortunately most of the changes are relatively small scale.Government procurement, particularly the military's, would become significantly greener if two recently introduced bills became law. The Department of Defense Energy Security Act of 2010, introduced by Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, would require the department to derive a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. And—good news for Smith Electric Vehicles—the bill also calls, rather ambitiously, for a full-scale conversion of the military's nontactical vehicle fleet to electric, hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles by 2015.
A similar bill, introduced by Democrat José Serrano of New York, would require the Postal Service to purchase at least 20,000 electric vehicles by 2015. That goal is reasonable, and the USPS is a perfect place to start, as most of its vehicles travel in loops of less than 20 miles each day and always park in the same garage. Thus, even current battery technology is sufficient. Many other government fleets fit the same profile: they have regular routes of less than 100 miles a day and use the same parking spot each night, so they are easy and cheaper to charge because the price of juice drops at night.Right now a vehicle from Smith is about 20 percent more expensive than a standard gas or diesel truck. But the cost per mile to run an electric truck is about one-third the cost per mile of a gas- or diesel-powered one. Hansel says that with enough large orders his product will reach cost parity with dirty-tech options. When that happens, large private-sector fleets, like UPS, FedEx, Staples and Frito-Lay, will start buying electric vehicles simply because it will be the cheaper option.In anticipation of that day, Nissan is releasing the 2011 Leaf, a fully electric plug-in car. It plans to make 90,000 of them. Chevy is coming out with the Volt—10,000 of them. Will this first generation of EVs really have a market, and sufficient charging options? Who knows? But you can be sure they would if Big Government made the Big Green Buy.Buildings also use lots of energy. The US Green Building Council reports that buildings account for about 36 percent of America's total energy use and emit roughly the same proportion of greenhouse gases. But if properly constructed and managed, many buildings could actually generate energy for their own use, for vehicles or to put back into the grid.The government's building manager—its janitor, if you will—is the GSA. The GSA constructs, repairs and manages federal buildings; it buys the supplies and keeps the heat and AC on; and it buys and maintains much of the government's nonmilitary vehicle fleet. It also acts as a purchaser and contractor of sorts for most other federal agencies. The GSA is about as dull an agency as you can imagine. It has pocket-protector and brown shoes written all over it. But in the age of climate change, its brief has taken on vital importance. The implications of Executive Order 13514 have put the GSA, along with the military, at the cutting edge of the Big Green Buy.We're taking this very seriously,says Martha Johnson, administrator of the GSA. We are normally sort of overlooked, but we were thrilled, really excited, when the president gave us such prominent place in his environmental strategy.President Bill Clinton issued four executive orders on sustainable clean procurement, but they lacked specific targets or enforcement mechanisms and thus achieved very little. Our progress in general in buying these products stinks,said Dana Arnold, senior program manager at the White House Office of the Federal Environmental Executive in a recent interview with the Federal Times.
This time it may be different, and the GSA is gearing up to be the point agency in what is sometimes called Environmentally Preferable Procurement, or green supply chain management.The GSA is putting up solar arrays, buying a few electric cars and hybrids, trying to produce energy at its buildings and buying renewable energy like biomass, solar and wind power, which now account for 10.8 percent of the GSA's federal building power supply. It is also creating monitoring systems to track progress and keep federal agencies accountable.The GSA's sustainability plan requires a minimum of three percent renewable energy source for all competitive electricity supply contracts and requires that renewable energy be from a plant that was recently built in order to stimulate greater investment in the industry.The agency has reduced its own energy use by 15 percent, as measured against a 2003 baseline, and plans to reduce energy consumption in its buildings by 30 percent from that baseline by 2020. Already the GSA's building stock—mostly offices—is about 22 percent more efficient than similar private-sector buildings.In addition, the GSA is working on cutting the amount of jet travel its workforce requires and, when possible, increasing telecommuting and home-based work. It is also pressuring other agencies to shut off unused data centers—the USDA, for example, uses only between 10 percent and 20 percent of its total computing capacity, but its huge, largely empty servers run at 100 percent of power.Other federal agencies, however, are lagging far behind. It is amazing to us to find out the low level of awareness, says Linda Mesaros, a consultant for sustainable purchasing. State and local governments are also moving toward green procurement, but few have been very aggressive or ambitious.
Nor are the main pieces of energy and climate legislation focusing on procurement. The American Energy Innovation Council—which includes Bill Gates and executives from companies like Xerox, General Electric and Bank of America—is lobbying for a research plan and money and pilot programs all focused on expensive and spectacular new technology, like small fourth-generation nukes. The plan totally ignores the Big Green Buy strategy.Another group, the Electrification Coalition—made up of CEOs from FedEx, Nissan and PG&E—has published an ambitious 180-page plan for converting America's light-duty vehicle fleet to 75 percent electric miles by 2040. It also calls for radically upgrading America's old, overburdened, semi-deregulated and thus chaotic electrical grid, which loses about twice as much power in transmission as it did in the 1970s. The EC is lobbying hard and has helped shape the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010, legislation being championed by Representative Ed Markey.But again, neither Markey's staff nor the EC is comfortable demanding the Big Green Buy. We don't think that is the best approach was all I could get from a Markey staffer. Instead, the EC proposes a Rube Goldberg–style scheme of geographic target areas that will receive multiple layers of consumer and industry tax credits and tax breaks—$7 billion total. That may sound big, but in the face of the climate crisis it is Lilliputian.This approach is emblematic of the intellectual poverty of the political class and business elites. The bill is entirely too clever for its own good, painfully complicated in its tinkering instrumentalism, which in the end would do very little and do it too late, like an impoverished family scrounging for dinner money on the eve of their eviction. And the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act will be red meat to the climate deniers and fiscal hawks. You can almost hear the derision now: if yuppies in Berkeley want to drive funny new plug-in cars, why do we have to pay for it? Viewed broadly, there are four simple things the government can do to help close the clean-technology price gap and aid clean-tech business across the valley of death.First, it can boost R&D as Gates has requested, but that alone won't bring mass-scale green power on line.
Second, it can set up a Green Bank tasked with financing clean-tech businesses as they cross the valley of death. Along with loans, the government can offer more loan guarantees, which encourage otherwise frightened private capital to invest in clean-energy start-ups. The Waxman-Markey climate bill of last year included language to do that, but nothing like it is yet law.
Third, the government can impose mandates on the private sector requiring companies to adopt electric vehicles, purchase clean energy and conserve energy. Industry already lives with numerous rules that put limits on the anarchy of production. Yet in the crazy world of American politics circa 2010, forcing green procurement mandates on business would be very difficult.So let's get real. The fourth path is the best: a robust program of green procurement is the most immediate and politically feasible thing government can do to boost the clean-tech sector. And the only number that approaches the scale of the energy economy is government spending on energy. We need to be talking not about millions or billions but trillions of dollars going in a new direction. If the government is serious about electric vehicles—then just buy them already!At one level, the mad Tea Partyers are correct: government is leviathan—a monster. But it is our monster, and with proper leadership even this government in the current climate could jump-start a clean-energy revolution.
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).
EU foreign ministers approve diplomatic service
HONOR MAHONY Today JULY 27,10 @ 09:20 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign ministers on Monday (26 July) gave the nod to the overall structure of the Union's new diplomatic service, paving the way for chief of diplomacy Catherine Ashton to begin making appointments to the service that will employ thousands.It is historic to be able to witness the birth, at least at the decision level, of a European diplomacy, Belgian foreign minister Steven Vanackere, whose country holds the EU rotating presidency, said following the meeting.Due to be on its feet by 1 December, the service will see Ms Ashton backed up by a secretary general - likely to be France's ambassador to the US Pierre Vimont - as well as two deputy secretaries general.Monday's decision puts to rest a lengthy period of infighting between the EU institutions on the exact balance of power within the diplomatic service but opens the door to a power struggle between member states about who should land which posts within the service.Ms Ashton is soon expected to announce a series of names for the heads of EU embassies abroad - including to prestigious countries such as China and Brazil. But appointments to key internal posts, such as the secretary general job, can only be made once the European Parliament has agreed new staffing rules, a move expected towards the end of September.Writing in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, Ms Ashton said the new European External Action Service, despite its ungainly name, has a bold and simple purpose: to give the EU a stronger voice around the world, and greater impact on the ground.
With the fight to have the service established largely over, the focus is now likely set on the extent to which member states, several of whom jealously guard their foreign policy prerogatives, will allow a coherent foreign policy to thrive.Big countries have been keen to stress the service will not impinge on their foreign policy sovereignty, a point illustrated by the extent to which they are prepared to consider closing their own embassies in certain countries and use the EU embassy.
According to France's Europe minister, Pierre Lellouche, some countries may consider saving money through using EU embassy facilities but this should not be the case for France.I am the secretary of state, and I do not speak for France [but] I think it is desirable that France continues to maintain a global network. It is one of the few countries to do so, he said, according to Le Monde.Ms Ashton alluded to the difficulties in the article: Our aim is to do foreign policy in a modern way, differently and better. Not to compete with or duplicate what our member states are doing, but to add value and play to our strength of acting as a union.Drawing staff from the European Commission, the member states' council secretariat in Brussels and national diplomats, the service is expected to have around 6,000 personnel once it is fully up and running, expected to take another two or three years.
Critics slams Europe's rescue mechanisms as a threat to social peace
ANDREW WILLIS 26.07.2010 @ 09:11 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – A member of a German quintet of professors that is currently challenging the legality of Europe's recently-devised support measures has said they threaten to create enormous tensions between EU citizens if allowed to stand. In a telephone interview with EUobserver on Thursday (22 July), Wilhelm Nolling, professor of economics at the University of Hamburg, said the idea that Greece would be able to pay back its loans to EU states was simply ridiculous, given the country's level of indebtedness and lack of competitiveness.As a result, EU citizens in lender countries would increasingly begin to question the merits of this implicit system of wealth redistribution, he predicted. A transfer union will destroy the social peace in Europe,he said.Do you think the Germans will be able to keep quiet?
The group of German economists recently extended their legal case in Germany's constitutional court against the EU-IMF €110 billion bail-out for Greece to include the eurozone's €440 billion support mechanism and the ECB's sovereign bond purchases, the latter two announced in the early hours of 10 May. Their complaint is that they breach the EU's no-bailout clause, a ban on fiscal transfers between richer and poorer member states that many Germans feared would be inevitable when giving up the Deutsche Mark in 1999. In addition, Mr Nolling is amongst those that believe that the various support measures have bought nothing but limited time to a eurozone system that is inherently flawed.If you start with a makeshift operation you will never get to the real cause of the malaise. That cause is that a currency area of this size needs converging economies but the opposite has happened.Writing in a blog on this webiste back in February, Edin Mujagic, a monetary economist at Tilburg University, also noted these divergences had increased over the eurozone's 11-year history.Whether you take a closer look at unit labour costs, unemployment, welfare, productivity, fiscal deficits, debt and so on, the differences have increased since 1999,he wrote.
A smaller euro area?
Europe's politicians are rapidly striving to reduce these differences by devising a system of macro-economic indicators that member states would be forced to comply with.A recent European Commission paper suggested financial sanctions should be applied to states that fail to meet the grade, a system similar to the bloc's theoretical rules on debt and deficit limits.Some, however, fear this is merely too little too late, arguing that the eurozone's forefathers were blinded to the inherent economic impossibility of the project by political motivations.We need to form a new heart of the euro, France, Germany, Finland, Austria and the Netherlands, offered Mr Nolling as the only solution to overcoming divergences without using the forbidden system of fiscal transfers.All the other states should be given their freedom back. That would give them a real opportunity to increase their competitiveness through currency devaluations.It is currently impossible for them when they are 30 percent out of line. Salaries and cost structures are way out of line.At present, no one is sure when the German constitutional court will come to its decision, but a rejection by the powerful group of judges is likely to have explosive consequences.I expect the decision before the winter starts,predicted Mr Nolling. I want the court to tell the German government to stop giving money away.
Greece back under EU-IMF microscope as Asian stocks rise-EU officials arrive in Athens Monday to assess Greece's performance so far (Photo: John D. Carnessiotis, Athens, Greece)LEIGH PHILLIPS 26.07.2010 @ 09:31 CET
Asian stocks have risen on the back of easing of fears over European bank stress test results were revealed on Friday.In a filip of optimism, Japan's Nkkei 225 Stock Average had climbed 0.9 percent as of early afternoon in Tokyo, according to market reports, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.5 percent and New Zealand's NZX 50 had gained 0.4 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific index had risen 0.3 percent.As the results of the stress tests of European banks, which revealed just seven out of 91 had failed, were issued late Friday in Europe, this was the first chance for Asian markets to assess the fall-out.European authorities had however decided not to subject the banks to the test of seeing what would happen to them in the event of a debt default by Greece, a move that was widely criticised given that such an event is within the realm of possibility.Meanwhile on Monday (26 July), officials from the EU, IMF and European Central Bank arrive in Athens to investigate the implementation of the governing centre-left Pasok's austerity measures before a second, €9 billion tranche of eurozone-IMF bail-out agreed in May can be disbursed.Initial indications from the so-called troika, as the trio of fiscal overseers is referred to in Greece, have been approving.On the weekend, finance minister George Papaconstantinou said he expected no delays to delivery of the second tranche in September as the government had gone further than what was required with its harsh pension cuts.However, an IMF report from earlier this month noted concerns over budget gaps in public healthcare, social security, public transport and municipal governments - the very core of Greece's welfare system, already one of the weakest in western Europe.The fund suggested that Athens ratchet up its programme of privatisation and focus on setting loose government corporations. Railways and bus firms are potential targets, while the troika will also likely push for liberalisation of certain trades, including architects, notaries and lorry-drivers, according to media reports.Brussels for its part wants to see a quick and tidy deregulation of the energy sector, in line with existing EU legislation.However, eyes will also be on the country's labour movement and widespread popular resistance to the cuts. Already imposed austerity measures have produced a series of general strikes and a riot that cost the lives of three bank workers.
Seven banks fail to make the stress test grade-The Royal Bank of Scotland was among the banks to pass with flying colours (Photo: Wikipedia)ANDREW WILLIS
23.07.2010 @ 20:34 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Seven European banks have failed the region's stress tests, designed to assess their ability to withstand a series of worst-case scenarios such as another recession. EU policymakers will now be hoping that the news brings an end investor doubts in the sector, after Friday evening's (23 July) publication of the test results showed the vast majority of banks to have passed with flying colours.We support ... the transparency of this exercise, given the specific market circumstances under which banks currently operate, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission said in a joint statement. One German bank (Hypo Real Estate), five Spanish lenders (Unnim, Cajasur, Diada, Espiga, Banca Civica), and one Greek bank (ATEbank) failed the test.Banks whose Tier 1 capital ratio, the main buffer used to protect against losses, fell below six percent were deemed to have failed, although authorities stressed that four percent is the current regulatory minimum. The results are broadly in line with market expectations, with most analysts predicting failures in the five to 10 range. The seven firms will now need to raise roughly €3.5 billion in additional capital between them.Where the results of the exercise indicate that individual banks require additional capital, these banks should take the necessary steps to reinforce their capital positions through private-sector means and by resorting, if necessary, to facilities set up by member state governments, said the CEBS, ECB, commission statement. None of Europe's major banks failed the tests which were conducted by CEBS on 91 firms in order to asses their ability to deal with another recession or losses on eurozone sovereign bonds.A haircut of 23.1 percent was applied to Greek debt, slightly higher than the 17 percent that had earlier been predicted. Spanish bonds were marked down by 12.3 percent, and German bonds by 4.7 percent.
Doubts remain
Doubts remain however, with some analysts prior to Friday's publication saying a 50 percent markdown on Greek bonds would be more appropriate.I see nothing stressful about this test. It's like sending the banks away for a weekend of R&R,said Stephen Pope, chief global equity strategist at Cantor, reported various media.Other analysts were critical of the fact that sovereign debt haircuts were only applied to bonds set aside for trading, and not those being held until maturity.Stock markets in the US fluctuated as investors digested the news. Europe's markets were all closed when data were released.Centre-right MEP Jean-Paul Gauzès, a key-player in European efforts to overhaul its finance sector, welcomed the results, but cautioned that legislative reform must continue.These good results should not bring us to disregard the implementation of norms, in particular as regards banks' own capital requirements,he said.
Iceland membership talks formally begin Tuesday
HONOR MAHONY 26.07.2010 @ 17:41 CET
At their last meeting before the summer break, EU foreign ministers on Monday (26 July) gave the greenlight for the start of negotiations on Iceland's membership bid.
Talks will formally begin on Tuesday. The small north Atlantic island, with a population of just 320,000, has aligned itself with many EU laws and is seen as fitting snugly with the slightly more ineffable European 'norms', but negotiations on a few key issues - such as fishing rights and its traditional whale hunting - are expected to be difficult.Iceland, whose fishing policies have largely been a success in terms of sustainability, is keen to see that its rich fishing waters are not over-fished by EU member states. The EU's common fisheries policy has led to the severe depletion of stocks in western Europe. Efforts will have to be made by Iceland, Belgian foreign minister Steven Vanackere said after chairing the meeting in Brussels.Think of environment, think of whale hunting.In addition, the UK and the Netherlands have linked actual membership with resolution of a dispute over the €3.8 billion in British and Dutch savings, lost in the banking crisis that consumed the nation in 2008.After the Icelandic Icesave internet bank collapsed two years ago, depositers in the UK and the Netherlands were compensated by their governments. The Hague and London now are demanding Reykjavik pay them back.It's clear that all the chapters need to be discussed ... When the last chapter isn't resolved, nothing is resolved, said Mr Vanackere, when specifically asked about whether the Icesave issue could stymie talks.
Icelanders themselves in a recent referendum rejected a payout plan that would have cost each household tens of thousands of euros. The disagreement has soured the population's sentiment towards the EU. Immediately after the crisis, a majority of Icelanders looked to the EU as a solution to their problems, but the bitter fight with London and the Hague has slashed support for EU membership on the island.In addition to potential controversial policy issues, there is also the increasingly negative opinion of Icelanders towards EU membership.I don't have the impression from the opinion polls that the Icelanders themselves are very favourable: that's the problem, said France's EU Minister Pierre Lellouche.Popular opinions have to be taken on board, and you have to communicate the value [of becoming an EU member], said Mr Vanackere. A June poll showed that public opposition to joining the EU has risen to 60 percent. In November last year, it was 54 percent.The negotiation process is expected to take up to 18 months. EU legislation covers 35 different areas, known as chapters, ranging from the justice and home affairs to environment, energy, social and transport policy. Through its membership of the European Free Trade Association and the Schengen border-free zone, many of Iceland's laws already comply with those of the EU.Croatia and Turkey have also opened membership negotiations with the EU. Zagreb is expected to conclude talks in 2011 while Ankara's talks are proceeding much more slowly.
EU commission called upon to go after corrupt defence deals
VALENTINA POP 26.07.2010 @ 09:14 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – MEPs and defence experts are calling on the EU commission to go after market-distorting, corrupt side-deals to big weapon deals between member states, such as the ones greasing Germany's submarine sales to Portugal and Greece.
As EU officials are packing their holiday suitcases in Brussels, prosecutors in Germany, Portugal and Greece are on to a hot summer, tracing the complex trails of bribes and side-contracts to the German submarines each of the southern countries signed up for at a price of over €1billion.The EU hypocrisy of allowing Greek and Portuguese governments allocate huge parts of their budget for questionable defence purchases, while they are being pressed for austerity measures to cap their deficit, already made headlines such as The submarine deals that helped sink Greece in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.What's striking about Greece and Portugal is the inappropriateness of these purchases,Nick Witney, a defence expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations, a London-based think tank, told EUobserver.It makes no sense at all to urge austerity and at the same time encourage them to buy weapons. But where there's a nexus of security, secrecy and lack of competition, there is always an open field for corruption, he noted.Munich-based investigators in March opened a case against the German engineering group Ferrostaal, suspected of paying bribes to secure defence contracts in Portugal and Greece and of organizing bribery payments on behalf of other firms for a fee. The investigation has meanwhile spread to Portugal and Greece, and touches on former party colleagues of EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who was prime minister at the time the contract was signed. Mr Barroso has denied any involvement in the alleged bribery scheme and says he had nothing to do with the negotiation of the contract, which was the responsibility of the defence minister.
Along with the acquisition per se came offset contracts to the tune of €1billion, meaning direct foreign investments from Germany and business opportunities to Portuguese companies on the German market.Under EU law, offsets are forbidden, except for the defence sector, where member states invoke a national security exemption. As it turns out, a lot of these offsets were actually existing investments. Seven Portuguese executives and three Ferrostaal representatives have already been indicted. According to the public prosecutor's office, the Portuguese state was mislead in these deals and suffered damages of at least €34 million.
According to estimates by the European Defence Agency, 25 percent of the offsets in Europe are non-military and have no direct connection with the purchase.These contracts totally violate the EU's internal market competition rules, Portuguese Socialist MEP Ana Gomes told this website.They are contracts negotiated among companies with government favouring and in total disregard of the competition rules. There are plenty of reasons why the European Commission should investigate, and make it an exemplary case to deter such behaviour from now on from any member state.So far, the commission has turned a blind eye to the non-military contracts occurring alongside large defence procurements.A new defence procurement directive which needs to be transposed into national legislation by August 2011 is set to shed more light into the way such deals are done and restrict the areas in which governments can invoke the national security exemption to internal market rules.Member states will need to prove that the offsets are necessary for the protection of security interests and not distort competition on non-military markets.During his hearings as internal market commissioner, Michel Barnier said the defence offsets bring about discriminations which contradict the [EU] treaty. While acknowledging the traditions and sensibilities, he said these procedures had to be put to an end.
But to Ms Gomes, the commission is missing an opportunity to expose a very corrupt business that involves Portuguese, German companies, government officials and military people.In a time of budget austerity and market jitters, the two submarines acquired by Portugal account for about 40 percent of its defence spending until 2023. We don't have money to equip properly our military and security forces, we are wasting this money in a very corrupt business and violating competition, Ms Gomes points out.
Voluntary code of conduct
A voluntary code of conduct adopted by all member states except Romania last year meanwhile puts some limits on offsets, such as for the value of these contracts not to surpass 100 percent of that of the actual purchase.Apart from being voluntary, the code has also come under fire for lacking any reference to corruption, despite the fact that the defence sector is one of the most prone to this phenomenon, according to Transparency International.We would have hoped EU agencies required high standards, but this is not the case, Mark Pyman, the watchdog's defence expert told this website.He also said that market-distorting deals ranging from refrigerator factories to advertising companies are clearly a question of internal market for the EU commission to investigate.We need clear guidance how governments conduct and audit offsets and an EU framework putting transparency at the core,he concluded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS3H6Cakwpw&feature=player_embedded
Why Oath Keepers are Under Attack: Stewart Rhodes Oath Keepers
Oath Keepers July 27, 2010
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes during the first annual Oath Keepers Conference in October 2009. http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p…
Meet David Berry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyaxEw…
Meet Eddie & Ada Gilbert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49GPAK…
http://stewart-rhodes.blogspot.com/
This is my old, private blog that is now sadly neglected since I have launched Oath Keepers, which has truly taken off like a rocket, leaving me no time for personal blogging – not that I’m complaining. the Oath Keepers mission is very important, and worth the time and effort.Go here: http://oathkeepers.org/oath/
However, if you want to see what prompted me to finally launch Oath Keepers, there are several posts on this blog that show my thinking.Back in 2006 I wrote several scathing criticisms of the Bush Administration’s absurd and dangerous claims of nearly unlimited executive war powers. Those articles built on my research at Yale Law School (where I won the Miller Prize for best paper on the Bill of Rights).One of the most common refrains I get from Obama supporters is where were you when Bush was violating the Constitution.Well, I was right here. Read this:
http://stewart-rhodes.blogspot.com/
OATH KEEPERS is a non-partisan association of Military, Veterans, and peace officers who will honor their oaths to defend the Constitution, will NOT just follow orders, will stand for liberty, and will save the Republic, so help us God. Our motto is:
Not on Our Watch!
SUMMARY LIST OF ORDERS WE WILL NOT OBEY:
1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.
2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people
3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants or to subject them to military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a state of emergency on a state.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to keep the peace or to maintain control.
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.Read the full declaration at http://oathkeepers.org
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,(WORLD SOCIALISM) 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 TUE JULY 27,2010
09:30 AM +1.52
10:00 AM +15.06
10:30 AM +16.88
11:00 AM +10.90
11:30 AM -11.12
12:00 PM -0.07
12:30 PM +30.50
01:00 PM +10.67
01:30 PM -5.14
02:00 PM +8.25
02:30 PM +24.60
03:00 PM +11.28
03:30 PM +23.24
04:00 PM +12.26 10,537.69
S&P 500 1113.84 -1.17
NASDAQ 2288.25 -8.18
GOLD 1,159.10 -24.00
OIL 77.58 -1.40
TSE 300 11,716.70 -29.40
CDNX 1396.28 -7.18
S&P/TSX/60 684.83 -1.00
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +38 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -31 points at low today.
Dow +53 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,173.80.OIL opens at $79.35 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -31 points at low today so far.
Dow +53 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -31 points at low today.
Dow +53 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,260.90 (NOT AT CLOSE)
H.R. 5741 Slave bill now in Committee
Rob Dew Infowars.com July 26, 2010
Slavery has a new name: Mandatory Service, introduced July 15th 2010 by Charles Rangle.H.R. 5741 will give the president the authority To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.Barely a year after introducing H.R. 1444, which was supposed to form a Congressional Commission on Civic Service to study methods of improving and promoting volunteerism and national service, and for other purposes, Congress has upped the ante. Anyone between 18 and 42 will be eligible for a two year commitment of civilian or military service. With more college graduates working for the fast food industry, a depression era unemployment rate and less people retiring; the government will have plenty of eligible able bodies to move into the slave ranks.This echos the sentiment of President Obama who asked Congress in Febuary 2009 to send him a bipartisan bill in the spirit of national service. His Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel outlined a similar plan in his book The Plan.But even Emanuel aims low looking at only 18 to 25 year olds for three months of compulsory service. Under this new legislation nearly all, able bodied Americans will be sentenced to two years of forced labor. The infrastructure is already in place for those unwilling to participate in mandatory service and now the army is looking to fill it’s ranks with Interment/Resettlement Specialists.
There are very few loopholes to opt of out national service, even CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS (SEC. 109) will be forced to choose the mandatory option of A. noncombatant service (as defined by the President) or B. national civilian service. It seems the congressional commission on civic service will no longer be needed thanks to the hard work of a suspected Congressional tax cheat from New York.The slavery bill is currently in debate in the House Committee on Armed Services chaired by Rep Ike Skelton a democrat from Missouri. Those who oppose mandatory slavery should contact Rep. Skelton. Many bills die in committee and this bill should meet the same fate.
Monday, July 26, 2010
INSTEAD OF TAX HIKES-EXPECT FEES,FEES,FEES
Instead of tax hike, expect fees, fees and more fees
Posted By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD JULY 24,10
The sneaky eco fee tax hike may have been put on the back burner for three months, but don't relax. It was simply Round 1 in what promises to be a slew of tax hikes by stealth. The McGuinty government is searching for new forms of non-tax revenue to help pay down the $19 billion deficit.According to a 2010-11 Results-Based Planningdocument obtained by QMI Agency, these NTRs offer an opportunity to ensure fiscal neutrality of ministry expenditure proposals.Income tax is not enough. Bad enough that the government has just about doubled spending since it came to power in 2003, now if a new program is introduced, it will be paid for not through existing revenues, but through more sneaky charges such as the eco fee. If applicable, ministries are encouraged to propose new revenue streams to offset increased expenditures if there are no large-scale investments required, or to increase existing fees to achieve full cost recovery,says the document. Worse, they want us to pay more for services that cost less.Once upon a time, you used to be able to talk to a human being when you renewed your licence or your health card.
I don't mind paying for the privilege of talking to a person. But government seems to be taking a leaf from the banks' book: Charge people fees for using a machine.
Ministries were told to charge a premium for using electronic kiosks.Particular electronic service delivery channels, such as kiosks, are considered a premium service for which an additional amount is charged to acknowledge the cost of this service above the normal delivery standard, a guide says.This may result in the total fee charged being higher than the fee to deliver the same service over the counter.Call me old-fashioned, but I think premium service is personal service.
Watch for licences, testing and other sly ways to whack unsuspecting folk with extra costs.The public safety ministry recently implemented a test for people who want to be security guards. As of April 15, new applicants must successfully complete accredited training and pass a test prior to a licence being issued. The cost? $60. If you fail, you have to pay $60 to re-take the test. Starting in July, all existing licensed security guards and investigators have to pass a test before they can renew their licenses. So, people wanting to become security guards -- often a minimum wage job -- will have to work almost a full day just to pay for the test.The Liberals came to power lambasting the Tories for their so-called structural $5.6 billion deficit. Yet these guys, having massively hiked taxes, have a $19 billion structural deficit.
And no one seems to mind. Sure, we're in an economic
downturn. But we'd suffered through SARS, West Nile and a massive power outage in 2003, so things were grim then as well.We're already paying massively through our income taxes. We've got soaring electricity prices, eco fees and now we're going to be dinged through other non-tax revenue.That's sneaky. And it's unfair. Income tax is progressive. The people who make the most money pay the most tax. This willy-nilly system of hidden fees and costs isn't fair, it isn't transparent. And it isn't good government. christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca Article ID# 2682637
Eco fee yet another cash grab by Ontario Liberals
Posted By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
possibly illegal -- tax.Think of it as a green fee.Don't think of the HST as another tax grab that shifts the tax burden from corporations to individuals. Think of it as the Liberals saving the economy.Don't think of the deposit on liquor bottles as a tax.Think of it as saving the environment.(WORSHIPPING THE EARTH).Ditto for the 5¢ you now pay for plastic bags. Don't think of it as a massive gift from the government to the retail sector. Not only are they off the hook for the cost of plastic bags, they even built a whole new revenue stream selling cloth bags.
Some retailers even add HST to the fee and charge 6¢ a bag.That's the soothing message the government wants to get out.And, we're all nodding and smiling at the cash register and smugly thinking we're doing our bit to save the world, when what we're really doing is paying stores for the privilege of shopping at them.Like so many other government tax grabs, the eco fee on 9,000 consumer goods came disguised as an environmental fee. It was done with such stealth, the opposition parties seem to have been caught unaware.But, as QMI Agency's Queen's Park Bureau Chief Antonella Artuso reported last week, it may well be illegal. Industry insiders and a prominent tax lawyer all point out the tax is being levied not by the government, but by a third party.What are the stores doing with this money? What happens to the fee you pay on batteries, fire extinguishers and air freshener? We already pay taxes that help support waste disposal and diversion programs,PC Leader Tim Hudak said Tuesday.
The notion that it comes from an unaccountable, arm's length body of the government that can tax directly consumers, I reject fundamentally, he said. In an attempt at damage control, Stewardship Ontario sent out e-mails to stewards (you and I call them shops) with hints as to how to hide the tax.They suggest making the fee part of the price of the goods -- and hoping no one notices.
Here's what they said:Our Message: The eco fee is not mandatory nor is it a tax -- stewards have the option to pass the fees they pay Stewardship Ontario on to consumers . . . The eco fee may be reflected in the product's sticker price -- in which case the consumer is none the wiser. Or it may be itemized on the cash register receipt and added to the product price at checkout . . .So, it's a hidden fee charged arbitrarily by these unnamed stewards. It's not going to the government or Stewardship Ontario (SO) -- so no one is clear where that money is going. Tuesday night, Environment Minister John Gerretsen released a letter he had sent to SO CEO Gemma Zecchini, expressing,serious concerns with some overcharging of fees and the availability of accurate information, related to the Municipal Hazardous or Special Waste Program.Gerretsen said SO must take quick action to resolve these issues and restore consumer confidence.It's not just the eco fee that has people outraged. It's the sneaky way it was implemented. Introduce a sly eco fee the same day you introduce a whopping tax grab -- and hope no one notices.Boston had its tea party because people resented paying unfair taxes to a person they didn't know. Who wants to toss the eco fees overboard? christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca Article ID# 2670362
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,(WORLD SOCIALISM) 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 JULY 26,2010
09:30 AM -1.25
10:00 AM +20.13
10:30 AM +50.48
11:00 AM +38.30
11:30 AM +69.63
12:00 PM +64.48
12:30 PM +66.00
01:00 PM +55.82
01:30 PM +56.69
02:00 PM +68.42
02:30 PM +60.85
03:00 PM +50.03
03:30 PM +74.78
04:00 PM +100.81 10,525.43
S&P 500 1115.01 +12.35
NASDAQ 2296.43 +26.96
GOLD 1,180.40 -7.40
OIL 79.03 +0.05
TSE 300 11,746.10 +31.90
CDNX 1403.46 +8.48
S&P/TSX/60 685.83 +2.16
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +14 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -10 points at low today.
Dow +76 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,190.80.OIL opens at $78.73 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -10 points at low today so far.
Dow +76 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -10 points at low today.
Dow +102 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,260.90 (NOT AT CLOSE)
Posted By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD JULY 24,10
The sneaky eco fee tax hike may have been put on the back burner for three months, but don't relax. It was simply Round 1 in what promises to be a slew of tax hikes by stealth. The McGuinty government is searching for new forms of non-tax revenue to help pay down the $19 billion deficit.According to a 2010-11 Results-Based Planningdocument obtained by QMI Agency, these NTRs offer an opportunity to ensure fiscal neutrality of ministry expenditure proposals.Income tax is not enough. Bad enough that the government has just about doubled spending since it came to power in 2003, now if a new program is introduced, it will be paid for not through existing revenues, but through more sneaky charges such as the eco fee. If applicable, ministries are encouraged to propose new revenue streams to offset increased expenditures if there are no large-scale investments required, or to increase existing fees to achieve full cost recovery,says the document. Worse, they want us to pay more for services that cost less.Once upon a time, you used to be able to talk to a human being when you renewed your licence or your health card.
I don't mind paying for the privilege of talking to a person. But government seems to be taking a leaf from the banks' book: Charge people fees for using a machine.
Ministries were told to charge a premium for using electronic kiosks.Particular electronic service delivery channels, such as kiosks, are considered a premium service for which an additional amount is charged to acknowledge the cost of this service above the normal delivery standard, a guide says.This may result in the total fee charged being higher than the fee to deliver the same service over the counter.Call me old-fashioned, but I think premium service is personal service.
Watch for licences, testing and other sly ways to whack unsuspecting folk with extra costs.The public safety ministry recently implemented a test for people who want to be security guards. As of April 15, new applicants must successfully complete accredited training and pass a test prior to a licence being issued. The cost? $60. If you fail, you have to pay $60 to re-take the test. Starting in July, all existing licensed security guards and investigators have to pass a test before they can renew their licenses. So, people wanting to become security guards -- often a minimum wage job -- will have to work almost a full day just to pay for the test.The Liberals came to power lambasting the Tories for their so-called structural $5.6 billion deficit. Yet these guys, having massively hiked taxes, have a $19 billion structural deficit.
And no one seems to mind. Sure, we're in an economic
downturn. But we'd suffered through SARS, West Nile and a massive power outage in 2003, so things were grim then as well.We're already paying massively through our income taxes. We've got soaring electricity prices, eco fees and now we're going to be dinged through other non-tax revenue.That's sneaky. And it's unfair. Income tax is progressive. The people who make the most money pay the most tax. This willy-nilly system of hidden fees and costs isn't fair, it isn't transparent. And it isn't good government. christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca Article ID# 2682637
Eco fee yet another cash grab by Ontario Liberals
Posted By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
possibly illegal -- tax.Think of it as a green fee.Don't think of the HST as another tax grab that shifts the tax burden from corporations to individuals. Think of it as the Liberals saving the economy.Don't think of the deposit on liquor bottles as a tax.Think of it as saving the environment.(WORSHIPPING THE EARTH).Ditto for the 5¢ you now pay for plastic bags. Don't think of it as a massive gift from the government to the retail sector. Not only are they off the hook for the cost of plastic bags, they even built a whole new revenue stream selling cloth bags.
Some retailers even add HST to the fee and charge 6¢ a bag.That's the soothing message the government wants to get out.And, we're all nodding and smiling at the cash register and smugly thinking we're doing our bit to save the world, when what we're really doing is paying stores for the privilege of shopping at them.Like so many other government tax grabs, the eco fee on 9,000 consumer goods came disguised as an environmental fee. It was done with such stealth, the opposition parties seem to have been caught unaware.But, as QMI Agency's Queen's Park Bureau Chief Antonella Artuso reported last week, it may well be illegal. Industry insiders and a prominent tax lawyer all point out the tax is being levied not by the government, but by a third party.What are the stores doing with this money? What happens to the fee you pay on batteries, fire extinguishers and air freshener? We already pay taxes that help support waste disposal and diversion programs,PC Leader Tim Hudak said Tuesday.
The notion that it comes from an unaccountable, arm's length body of the government that can tax directly consumers, I reject fundamentally, he said. In an attempt at damage control, Stewardship Ontario sent out e-mails to stewards (you and I call them shops) with hints as to how to hide the tax.They suggest making the fee part of the price of the goods -- and hoping no one notices.
Here's what they said:Our Message: The eco fee is not mandatory nor is it a tax -- stewards have the option to pass the fees they pay Stewardship Ontario on to consumers . . . The eco fee may be reflected in the product's sticker price -- in which case the consumer is none the wiser. Or it may be itemized on the cash register receipt and added to the product price at checkout . . .So, it's a hidden fee charged arbitrarily by these unnamed stewards. It's not going to the government or Stewardship Ontario (SO) -- so no one is clear where that money is going. Tuesday night, Environment Minister John Gerretsen released a letter he had sent to SO CEO Gemma Zecchini, expressing,serious concerns with some overcharging of fees and the availability of accurate information, related to the Municipal Hazardous or Special Waste Program.Gerretsen said SO must take quick action to resolve these issues and restore consumer confidence.It's not just the eco fee that has people outraged. It's the sneaky way it was implemented. Introduce a sly eco fee the same day you introduce a whopping tax grab -- and hope no one notices.Boston had its tea party because people resented paying unfair taxes to a person they didn't know. Who wants to toss the eco fees overboard? christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca Article ID# 2670362
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,(WORLD SOCIALISM) 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 JULY 26,2010
09:30 AM -1.25
10:00 AM +20.13
10:30 AM +50.48
11:00 AM +38.30
11:30 AM +69.63
12:00 PM +64.48
12:30 PM +66.00
01:00 PM +55.82
01:30 PM +56.69
02:00 PM +68.42
02:30 PM +60.85
03:00 PM +50.03
03:30 PM +74.78
04:00 PM +100.81 10,525.43
S&P 500 1115.01 +12.35
NASDAQ 2296.43 +26.96
GOLD 1,180.40 -7.40
OIL 79.03 +0.05
TSE 300 11,746.10 +31.90
CDNX 1403.46 +8.48
S&P/TSX/60 685.83 +2.16
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +14 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -10 points at low today.
Dow +76 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,190.80.OIL opens at $78.73 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -10 points at low today so far.
Dow +76 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -10 points at low today.
Dow +102 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,260.90 (NOT AT CLOSE)
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