Camping in Amerika: How the System Does Not Protect You

TruthStream Media | Feb 17, 2015

This video is a rant of sorts filmed half an hour after we confronted someone who had drunkenly tried to break into our tent (and subsequently, our car) at Garner State Park in the middle of the previous night at 3 am. Authorities, however pointless, got involved.

All their rules and regulations, all the police state security theater and when it really counted, could they protect us? Nope. And the fact that it was a gun free zone only left us and our children that much more vulnerable to a very real and potentially deadly threat.

The Real Age of Stupid: Talking Heads Blame Latest Snowstorm on ‘Global Warming’

21st Century Wire | Jan 28, 2015 | Patrick Henningsen

This week, we’re told that the eastern seaboard is under a ‘state of emergency’ because of a the snowfall ranging from 7.8 inches in New York to 18-22 inches in Boston as of tonight. With all the hype, you’d think it was the Little Ice Age.

Growing up in New England, I remember every winter being pretty much the same: lots of snow. Believe it or not, that’s what happens in the winter time. Sometimes it got up to 2 or 3 feet, but there was never a ‘state of emergency’. This is the gelding of America happening right before your eyes. Welcome to their brave new world of crisis management.

‘Weather experts’ started warning that the snow could reach ‘up to two feet’. Wild claims began to emerge on Monday afternoon like, “Severe weather is set to affect 60 million people”. Meaningless numbers perhaps, but their campaign worked: the public reacted with fear. Panic buying quickly spread throughout the Tri-State area, with many stores completely cleaned out of staple foods and essentials – all for a snow storm which would only last a few days.

Emergencies and crises are coming cheaper and cheaper these days. They even gave it a name, “Juno 2015″. Wonderful occult symbology there by the way, but before you laugh, mythology is exactly what we’re dealing with here…

JUNO: NYC retailers running ‘snow day sales’ today.

Some media outlets were claiming this was “The Worst Snow Storm in History”, which is not even remotely true (but hey, it sells papers so who really cares, right?). Across the region, the 2006 and 2003 Storm, Blizzard of ’97, Blizzard of ’78 and the Blizzard of ’69 were much worse, according to the National Weather Service, but not to the national media. New England caught the brunt of this week’s snow, but while media jesters were predicting an apocalypse in New York City, nothing happened.

Yet, we tuned into US broadcast networks last night and today to watch news anchors Don Lemon and Brooke Baldwin outside in their knitted caps, pointing at tiny drifts of snow as if this is something historic. CNN was pumping-up ‘state-wide travel bans’, at least in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, starting at 11:30pm. “Only emergency personnel and certain members of the media [them] will be allowed out on the roads.”

Gore’s Odyssey: Another record-breaking freeze, still cult followers cling to climate mythology

The media made a big deal about how “Violating the road ban could cost  you fines of up to $300, and could lead to arrest”. We checked, and it appears that out of all 5 nanny states declaring this faux disaster – not one fine was given, and not one arrest was made for ‘violating emergency curfews’. It was a horrible exhibition of intimidation on the part of government officials and a compliant media. Pathetic.

Smart folks will already have figured out that this over-the-top, massive show of force has nothing at all to do with snow. It’s simply another excuse for the media and government officials to band together to show the feudal masses that they’ve got it all “under control”. In other words: ‘you need us, and don’t you forget it’.

Finally, former head of FEMA, Mike Brown became frustrated on air and challenged CNN’s Don Lemon on the media’s role in creating a fake weather crisis, “There a difference between giving a weather forecast and talking about, giving our prediction and here’s what we think is going to happen, and then on the other side of the studio when the news people start hyping it up about how bad it’s going to be, ‘it’s going to be Armageddon’, and that gets everyone riled up, and then people like Governor Cuomo say, ‘I’m going to tell the MTA to shut the subways down’, yet everything I read says they didn’t shut the subways down, they were still running empty trains… If people would just  tell the f**ing truth in these situations instead of hyping it up, then we’d all be better off.”

Embarrassed, Don Lemon then went silent for few seconds, and then exited the segment.

 It seemed that CNN’s Lemon (photo above), awarded “Worst Journalist of 2014“, was in a hurry to tend to his next guest, and get down to doing what he really likes doing in front of America, which is playing with puppies, and talking about, “whether or not it’s safe for your dog to eat snow” (seriously).

The apologies started pouring in, as various meteorologists got on to Twitter to issue retractions:

“My deepest apologies to many key decision makers and so many members of the general public,” Gary Szatkowski of the National Weather Service. “You made a lot of tough decisions expecting us to get it right, and we didn’t. Once again, I’m sorry.”

Despite inflating fears of a devastating “Snowmageddon”, Juno never actually arrived. How did the media get it so wrong? According to the weather experts, they used the wrong model”, meaning the wrong computer model. These are the very same computer models that the UN’s IPCC rely so heavily on when they make their “scientific” predictions of devastating global warming in the future.

As our readers at 21WIRE are well aware, the stupidest conspiracy theories these days are coming from two places – government and the mainstream media. As the snow began to fall on Monday, politicians were jockeying for position, taking turns making outrageous statements in order to appear relevant, and tough. Governors in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island all declared a state  of emergency. But why stop there?

The embattled NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio saw this as an opportunity to look like a Mayor, so he scrambled a press conference, decked out in his Sherpa outfit, proclaiming: ‘This will be one of the largest blizzard in the history of New York City. People must be prepared. This is not business as usual’

When de Blasio realized their was only a foot of snow, he then thrust himself back in front of the camera to claim, “We dodged a bullet!” What an idiot.

LOST: Andrew Cuomo.

New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) stood up on his podium, doing his best impression of that Aztec priest at the top of a pyramid in Mel Gibson’s Apocolypto, preaching their mythology de jour to another helpless crowd, “You’re getting a repeat pattern of these extreme weather situations, whether it’s Hurricane Sandy or seven feet of snow, and that’s part of the changing climate, I believe, that has brought this new extreme weather pattern, and it’s something we have to adjust to, it’s something that’s very costly, and it’s also something that’s very dangerous.”

It gets worse. Bill Finch, the Mayor of Bridgeport, CT, heaped praise upon ‘Reverend’ Al Sharpton for “fighting the good fight on climate change” on MSNBC (no comment on Frostie’s privilege, thank heavens). Finch said, “Thank you for your show, Reverend, you’ve been fighting the good fight on climate change, and we can see the crazy climate here, and we’d like to have a little bit more of you down in Washington.”

Not to be outdone, President Obama took to his pulpit as well, to share his own revisionist version of the Bhagavad Gita with the Indian masses, claiming, “With rising seas, melting Himalayan glaciers, more unpredictable monsoons, cyclones getting stronger… The US recognizes our part in creating this problem, so we’re leading the global effort to combat it [climate change].”

That’s what they believe, or more accurately, that’s what they feel – which seems to be all that’s needed for spouting pop science these days. So we’re all meant to agree with the Governor of New York, because, well,  7 inches of snow falls in the Big Apple. He’s backed-up by members of the media, which means we are forced to suffer disposable headlines – like this one (one of many) by Kate Sheppard of the Huffington Post, “Is Climate Change To Blame For The Northeast Snow Storm?”

You might laugh, but they are serious. There is still a lot of money in green and yellow journalism.

Sheppard goes on to try and stitch together the climate change mythology and 7 inches of snow in New York, saying, “Climate change deniers are gonna deny, but there is increasing evidence that ties atmospheric warming trends to heavier snowfall events.” In order to blog her way through it, she offers this as her ‘evidence’:

“We can’t make too big a deal of every single storm and say it is caused by climate change,” climate scientist Don Wuebbles of the University of Illinois in Urbana told National Geographic on Monday. “But what we are seeing today is completely typical of what you would expect to see in a warming climate.”
That’s why we “deny” Kate. It’s because there is no evidence that this little snow flurry was caused by global warming, or its re-branded catch-all term, “climate change”, and there is no evidence that this is a new, ‘extreme weather event’ either. It’s just a foot of snow. If you are really a true believer, then you will, while you’re at it, empty your fridge of its contents and put all your food outside, and then unplug your fridge – so as to lower your carbon foot print.

In 2009, filmmaker Fanny Armstrong produced an expensive piece of political film called Age of  Stupid. It was groundbreaking at the time, because it pioneered the process of crowd funding, initially raising an impressive £450,000 ($680,000). Even more money was raised afterwards towards the production. It developed a small cult following, not least of all because of the cult-like, doomsday scenario depicted in the film which was cleverly pretending to be backed-up by “irrefutable science”.  Like Al Gore’s thoroughly debunked, but Oscar Award-winning ‘documentary’, An Inconvenient Truth, Armstrong’s Stupid is an archetypal example of a propaganda film which is meant to take place in the year 2055, in a world ravaged by the effects of global warming – rising seas, spiced up with a little nuclear war, and a no Amazon rainforest left (that’s actually a conservation issue, not a climate issue, but who cares – just throw it all in the green blender). The film was lauded by the left as a “documentary”, but at best it’s science fiction, and at worst, it’s collectivist propaganda.

Why did we pick this film for this discussion? Because of its title, “The Age of Stupid”. What is more glaringly obvious now more than ever, is how stupid climate fanatic political busy-bodies are becoming now – where every snow storm, tornado, or rainstorm is explained-away with global warming or ‘climate change’, no matter how small it is.

Some members of the media feel it’s their duty to constantly play-up the fear because (in their mind) they feel they are covering their asses if God forbid, there’s any serious of loss of life. In the Blizzard of ’78 in Massachusetts, 100 died and 4,500 were injured. What about this week’s casualties? Hardly worth a mention. Was it more dangerous back then? Not necessarily, but we are more advanced today in terms of communications and technology today – which means that we are generally safer – which means we should be panicking less, not more. 

A few weeks ago they also said that last year was the warmest ever, which was also a lie. To be accurate, one could say that 2014 was 8/10 of a degree warmer than it was 100 years ago. On its own, however, even that figure is meaningless in the wider context – past, present and future – of this planet’s temperature, which is almost completely determined by celestial factors – like incoming rocks and the sun (and not SUV’s and cows). Truth be known, Global cooling is a much bigger threat to life in our Northern Hemisphere.

If you are looking for a real demon in your midst, then look at this photograph, taken by a satellite above the US eastern seaboard:

It would be nice if all of our ‘green journalists’ would be so brave as to spend an equal amount of time and effort to let us know why they are spraying chemicals and producing artificial cloud cover over the US and parts of Europe.

Soon, you will see these same green-yellow journalists trying to tell us that, “Yes, there’s spraying happening, but it’s only ‘experimental’, in order to reflect back the sunlight, and save us all from global warming.”

No, it’s not experimental, it’s dangerous geoengineering, stupid. 

Drone's Eye View Offers Eerie Glimpse of Nuclear Desolation in Chernobyl's Shadow

'A camera mounted on a drone has revealed the eerie
post-apocalyptic landscape of a town abandoned after
the nuclear power station at Chernobyl exploded nearly
three decades ago,' writes the Guardian's Chris Johnston.
(Image: Screenshot / Danny Cooke footage)

Common Dreams | Nov 29, 2014 | Jon Queally

Filmmaker Danny Cooke filmed city of Pripyat, once home to 50,000 people before nuclear disaster in 1986

A short documentary offering an aerial view of a city that once thrived in the shadow of the former Soviet Union's most notorious nuclear power plant offers a devastating critique of atomic power without uttering a single word.

Employing a remote-controlled drone over and amid the abandoned Ukrainian city of Pripyat, filmmaker Danny Cooke explores the contours of rusted-out amusement park rides and empty buildings left to crumble in the wake of the meltdown at the Chernobyl plant on April 26, 1986. Cooke shot the footage recently while on assignment for CBS News.

Watch:


Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.
As the Guardian reports on Cooke's project:

The Devon-based film-maker also sent the drone into a crumbling indoor swimming pool and over factories and apartment buildings where the only sign of life is the weeds growing on the roof.

“Chernobyl is one of the most interesting and dangerous places I’ve been,” Cooke said. “There was something serene, yet highly disturbing about this place. Time has stood still and there are memories of past happenings floating around us.”

It is not until the drone is sent rising above the treetops that viewers can see the vast dome being built to place over the damaged reactor.

Report: 81% of GM Crops Approved Without Adequate Safety Studies

© Natural Society

Natural Society | Nov 21, 2014 |Christina Sarich

thanks to biotech-government ties

What’s a recipe for environmental mayhem and the destruction of human health? The approval of genetically modified organisms by governments worldwide without any scientific safety studies. A new study published by the risk-assessment journal Environment International states that of the GM crops approved for planting and marketing globally, 81% were not studied for possible health and environmental safety risks.

Nevertheless, the biotech industry keeps touting GMO ‘benefits’ like a narcissistic madman on steroids. This chest beating continues – despite a complete lack of published, peer-reviewed research supporting the safety of genetically modified organisms.

The researchers of the risk-assessment study looked at GM crops engineered either for tolerance to the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup) or engineered to produce pesticides in their tissues due to the expression of cry1Ab or cry3Bb1 genes. Of all the bioengineering tricks up Monsanto and Syngenta’s sleeves, these are the most commonly used in commercial GM crops.

A whopping 47 GM crop varieties meet these conditions and have been given approval by agencies like the USDA, the FDA, and other regulatory bodies around the world.

When the researchers did a search for peer-reviewed studies on these crops prior to their approval so that they could tell if the agencies were relying on published vs. secret, industry-led studies, their findings were indeed telling.

The approval of these crops was based entirely on industry-biased data.

Only 18 peer-reviewed studies could be found which assessed the safety of any of the 47 GM crops that have been given a rubber stamp, and only 9 of the 47 crop varieties were studied. This means that the remaining 38 GMO varieties were approved with zero credible scientific evidence of their safety.

This is an incontrovertible piece of evidence that Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, Bayer, Cargill, the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association, and others have completely swayed government opinion about GMO safety based on manufactured to appease ‘experts.’ Experts who are supposed to assess the possible toxicity of any food or beverage we consume. This means that GMOs got the green light without safety assessments by independent scientists. No government-appointed shills should be making decisions about our food supply with such little risk assessment conducted.

The new study does suffer from one major limitation, however, since it looked only for published studies involving feeding rats the GM crop in question and then monitoring them for health effects. There are obviously other ways to conduct safety tests, but these were not conducted either.

Furthermore, these companies did indeed test their own crops and hid the results from regulators, even when they knew their toxic GMO products could cause serious health risks. The biotech industry has called these tests a ‘commercial secret’ even when they knowingly promote GMOs while they causes harm.

The pesticides and herbicides marketed to go hand-in-hand with GM crop sales are subject to the same ‘scrutiny’ as GMO crops themselves. A 2014 study in the journal BioScience found that the pesticide-approval process has been very similar.

“Risk assessment is compromised when relatively few studies are used to determine impacts, particularly if most of the data used in an assessment are produced by a pesticide’s manufacturer, which constitutes a conflict of interest. Although manufacturers who directly profit from chemical sales should continue to bear the costs of testing, this can be accomplished without [conflicts of interest] by an independent party with no potential for financial gain from the outcome and with no direct ties to the manufacturer.”

NASA map downplays sharp rise in meteor fireball impacts over last 20 years

SOTT | Nov 17, 2014 | Gary Boyle & Niall Bradley

© NASA/JPL

NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program published a diagram a few days ago, showing 556 mapped comet/asteroid fragment impacts on Earth over the last 20 years (see above). NASA says it's based on data gathered from 1994-2013 on small asteroids impacting Earth's atmosphere to create 'fireballs, adding that "the sizes of yellow dots (daytime impacts) and blue dots (nighttime impacts) are proportional to the optical radiated energy of impacts measured in billions of Joules (GJ) of energy, and show the location of impacts from objects about 1 meter (3 feet) to almost 20 meters (60 feet) in size."

Note the random distribution of impacts around the globe. But note also what the map and accompanying NASA report do not indicate: the year-on-year distribution of those impact events over that 20-year period. This omission enables them to give the following misleading subheading to their report:

It happens all the time: small asteroids impact Earth's atmosphere

By not providing a year-on-year breakdown of the impacts, and by including their rather banal headline, NASA leaves us to assume that these events were more or less evenly distributed over those 20 years - on average, 27 fireball events of note in 2013 (556 total events/20 years). But we have serious doubts about this.

We know from the American Meteor Society that there were nearly 3,500 observed events in 2013 alone - and just in the US.

Read more..

#Droughtshaming: New Tattletale App Allows Californians to Tell on ‘Water Waster’ Neighbors

TruthStream Media | Oct 31, 2014 | Melissa Melton

"Did you know the 1.7 million dairy cows, 563,000 beef cattle, 131,000 hogs, 49.6 million broiler chickens, and 19.7 million egg-laying hens on factory farms in California produce as much untreated manure as 456 million people?"

Amid California’s record drought, towns up and down the state are rolling out smartphone apps that enable people to snap pictures of neighbors and businesses who are violating water restriction rules and “play water cop”:

The apps put more boots on the ground to spot waste and leaks that might go unnoticed, officials say. They say the high-tech citizen reporting programs are intended to encourage water conservation, and not to be used as evidence to fine offenders.

But at least one private company is taking things a step further. Creators of Vizsafe, a neighborhood watch app, have added a feature allowing users to map photos of water wasters — a practice dubbed “drought shaming” on Twitter and Instagram.

Read more..

History Secrets: The Prussian Connection to American Schooling (Part 4), by John Taylor Gatto

School Sucks Podcast | Oct 30, 2014

Where did the American school system come from? And what are its true purposes?

These are excerpts from John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education
Chapter Seven: The Prussian Connection,
Section 93: "The Technology of Subjection" and
Section 94: "The German/American Reichsbank"

Get the book: http://johntaylorgatto.com/underground/
PDF: http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/i...
Audiobook: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/pr...

The Ultimate History Lesson: A Weekend With John Taylor Gatto (Documentary)
https://www.tragedyandhope.com/th-fil...

RELATED:  

History Secrets: The Prussian Connection to American Schooling (Part 3), by John Taylor Gatto

Busted: Popular “Non-GMO” Tortilla Chips Found to Contain 75% GMOs

Natural Society | Oct 18, 2014 | Christina Sarich

© Natural Society

Do you do your best to avoid GMOs in food by reading labels and only buying from trusted brands? Well how would you feel if you found out that a popular brand of tortilla corn chips that you’ve been buying – specifically because their packaging states they are GMO-free – was FULL of GMO corn? Yea, you’ve been eating those tasty little chips like they were going out of style, all while potentially hurting yourself without even knowing it. That is exactly what’s happening with tortilla chip maker Xochitl, a company recently ousted for covertly including GMO ingredients in its chips.

Xochitl has been printing the GMO-Free label on the bottom left on their packages, branding themselves as a label that consumers can trust. However, after conducting a study looking at many products that are supposed to be GMO-free, Consumer Reports, has found this labeling to be less than honest.

Consumer Reports says that Xochitl has been lying about their GMO content – and not just a little bit. We aren’t talking about trace amounts of GMO corn.

The report even found its way into the mainstream media.

Despite the non-GMO claims by Xochitl (pronounced “so-cheel”) and their Totopos de Maiz original corn chips, the Consumer Reports investigation found that the non-organic (supposedly non-GMO) varieties of the chips contain over 75% GMO corn, after testing 6 different packages.

GMO corn was found in each type of chips, even with the ‘all natural’ and ‘No GMO’ claims on the front and backs of packages.

The Xochitl finding raises an important question about the unverified, non-third party claims of companies trying to sell their GMO-containing products. It also makes the suggestions of the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association that we should just trust food manufacturers to ‘voluntarily’ label their GMOS without independent verification and government mandated labeling even more ridiculous.

Report: 92% of Citizens Want GMOs Labeled

The report, which can be read in its entirety here, states that the majority of samples from companies that make unregulated non-GMO claims contained about 0.9% GMO corn or soy on average. Xochitl just happened to grossly overstep that average.

So, even though looking at packaging can help you to minimize GMO consumption (as most non-GMO advocates have been saying for years), it is going to be more and more difficult to find truly non-GMO products unless they are sourced outside of the US. as so many of our crops are contaminated with genetically modified seed.

It is also vital to note that “All Natural” products had comparable levels of GMO corn or soy to their “conventional” counterparts according to Consumer Reports; in other words, the “All Natural” label is virtually meaningless if you want to avoid GMOs.

Though it is understandable that food companies would want to present their products as GMO-free since over 96% of Americans want their food labeled so they can avoid the stuff, producing a product and selling it to national grocery store chains all over the nation with a false ‘NO-GMO’ brand is unconscionable – and illegal. Their website, not just their brand packaging, states this claim.

If we continue to fight against this trend, I do think we can win. After all, several multi-million dollar lawsuits against Coca-Cola - makers of Vitamin Water, and Tropicana - for claiming their products were ‘all natural’ when they were not, have been won.

We are, in fact, the largest GMO-producing country in the world. Over 90% of the soy we grow and 90% of our corn is now genetically modified.

Please, adjust your grocery shopping habits according to this information, and of course let Xochitl know just how you feel about their fraudulent practices on their contact page here - their Facebook page will no longer load.

Frack For The Cure, Because We Love A Good Dose of Benzene With Our Pink Ribbons

Common Dreams | Oct 10, 2014 | Abby Zimet

Happy Breast Cancer Industry Month! Bring On the Highly Questionable Profit-Driven Alliances! In what's being touted as the most egregious example ever of the pinkwashing of cancer in the name of profit, Susan G. Komen, America's largest and sketchiest breast cancer organization, has partnered with Baker Hughes, one of the world’s largest oilfield companies, to introduce a thousand hand-painted pink drill bits "for the cure," thus facilitating a thousand fracking operations emitting a host of toxic chemicals, including benzene and formaldehyde, known to lead to leukemia and - yes! - breast cancer. The Frack-For-the Cure campaign by Baker Hughes, whose mission statement enthuses they are "looking forward to the next 100 years of working (to) continue expanding the limits" of oil and gas drilling, boasts the oil giant is "doing our bit" to end cancer "forever." Their bit! A pun! Get it? The best response to this surreal travesty comes from Breast Cancer Action, which has long fought a corporate pinkwashing effort producing everything from pink soup cans to pink NFL gear, by arguing that "cancer is not a color." They thanked both companies for "partnering on the most ludicrous piece of pink sh*t they've seen all year – 1,000 shiny pink drill bits" to be used to transmit their "special toxic mix" of chemicals into our drinking water.

"BCAction commended Baker Hughes and Komen for their ingenious pinkwashing profit cycle, whereby Baker Hughes helps fuel breast cancer while Komen raises millions of dollars to try to cure it."

Why Nuclear Power Fail$

MsMilkytheclown1 | Oct 3, 2014

Jeremy Rifkin, President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, speaks at the Wermuth Asset Management 5th Annual Investors Event regarding nuclear power and its fate in the future of renewable energy. Sorry to tell you nuclear plant workers, and RELATIVES of nuclear power plant workers... However there is still a great job prospect for You ALL!!!. Simply design SAFE deposits for the radioactive material and remove the radioactive waste you have made! Just pluck those reactors apart and store them safely in safe containment you have designed... No big deal, right???? Nobody has been able to secure safe storage of radioactive materials as long as they will be contained. So YOU, my dear friends, would be the First!... And Deemed the "smartest" people. How's That for a feather in your proverbial cap (safety helmet)?

A Green Road: Jeremy Rifkin - Five Reasons Why Nuclear Power is a Dead-End Business Model
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3nhh...

Jeremy Rifkin http://www.foet.org/JeremyRifkin.htm

On April 1st, 2014 Mr. Rifkin's published his latest book, The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism. In 2011, Jeremy Rifkin published the New York Times bestseller The Third Industrial Revolution, which captured the attention of the world. Mr. Rifkin's vision of a sustainable, post carbon economic era has been endorsed by the European Union and the United Nations and embraced by world leaders including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President François Hollande of France, and Premier Li Keqiang of China. Mr. Rifkin's other recent titles include, The Empathic Civilization, The Age of Access, The End of Work, The European Dream, The Biotech Century, and The Hydrogen Economy.

Jeremy Rifkin has been an advisor to the European Union for the past decade. Mr. Rifkin also served as an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Jose Socrates of Portugal, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain, and Prime Minister Janez Janša of Slovenia, during their respective European Council Presidencies, on issues related to the economy, climate change, and energy security. He currently advises the European Commission, the European Parliament, and several EU and Asian heads of state.

Mr. Rifkin is the principle architect of the European Union's Third Industrial Revolution long-term economic sustainability plan to address the triple challenge of the global economic crisis, energy security, and climate change. The Third Industrial Revolution was formally endorsed by the European Parliament in 2007 and is now being implemented by various agencies within the European Commission as well as in the 27 member-states.

Jeremy Rifkin is the President of the TIR Consulting Group LLC, comprised of many of the leading renewable energy companies, electricity transmission companies, construction companies, architectural firms, IT and electronics companies, and transport and logistics companies. His global economic development team is working with cities, regions, and national governments to develop the Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure for a Collaborative Commons and a Third Industrial Revolution.

Mr. Rifkin is a senior lecturer at the Wharton School's Executive Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania where he instructs CEOs and senior management on transitioning their business operations into sustainable Third Industrial Revolution economies. From 1995-2010, Mr. Rifkin taught in the Advanced Management Program at Wharton.

Mr. Rifkin's monthly column on global issues has appeared over the years in many of the world's leading newspapers and magazines, including The Los Angeles Times in the United States, The Guardian in the U.K., Die Süddeutsche Zeitung and Handelsblatt in Germany, Le Soir and Knack in Belgium, L'Espresso in Italy, El Mundo and El País in Spain, Kathimerini in Greece, Informatíon in Denmark, De Volkskrant in the Netherlands, Hospodárské Noviny in the Czech Republic, Wort in Luxembourg, Clarín in Argentina, and Al-Ittihad in the U.A.E.

Mr. Rifkin holds a degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Rifkin speaks frequently before government, business, labor and civic forums. He has lectured at hundreds of the world's leading corporations as well as more than 300 universities in some thirty countries in the past four decades.

Mr. Rifkin is the founder and president of The Foundation on Economic Trends (www.foet.org) in Bethesda, MD.

uranium is it a country?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnW0N...

http://www.foet.org/JeremyRifkin.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xOK2... Jeremy Rifkin on the Fall of Capitalism and the Internet of Things (a startling interview.) http://youtu.be/3xOK2aJ-0Js

West Virginia Plans to Solve Money Woes by Allowing Fracking under Ohio River

Ohio River near Wheeling,
West Virginia (photo: David
Fattaleh, West Virginia Dept.
of Commerce)

ALLGOV | Oct 2, 2014 | Noel Brinkerhoff

Short on cash, the state of West Virginia has decided one solution to its monetary problems lies beneath the Ohio River.

Officials there have opened the bidding process for companies to sink oil and natural gas wells along a 14-mile stretch of the river. One bidder has already offered $17.8 million over five years plus 18% royalties on extracted oil for the right to frack under the river. Three other bidders offered 20% royalties.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves injecting fluid which is often toxic into a well to break loose deposits of oil and gas. The fluid is later injected into spent wells and can contaminate ground water.

State leaders said the move was necessary after lawmakers had to use $100 million from the Rainy Day Fund to avoid a budget deficit earlier this year. Revenue projections show West Virginia falling short again next year by about the same amount unless new sources of funding are identified.

In addition to drilling in the Ohio River, the state may also open up a wildlife management area to drilling.

Numerous environmental groups have called on Governor Earl Ray Tomblin to scrap fracking in sensitive areas. They argue drilling in the river could result in contamination and cut off the drinking water of millions of residents. In January, a huge chemical spill left 300,000 West Virginians without drinking water for days.

“We need not remind you that another large-scale water contamination issue in our state and region could be devastating for West Virginia’s economy and reputation, not to mention the human health costs,” eight groups wrote to Tomblin, according to the Associated Press.

Breaking: Monsanto & Big Food Dump Over $8.15 MILLION to Defeat GMO Labeling in Colorado

© Natural Society

Natural Society | Oct 1, 2014 | Christina Sarich

Right to Know Colorado has just reported their numbers for the anti GMO-labeling campaign. Monsanto and its Big Food Allies have dumped more than $8.15 million into the campaign to defeat Colorado’s up and coming vote to label genetically modified foods. Monsanto singularly contributed over $5 million of those funds to keep you in the dark about what’s in your food.

Monsanto just went all in on this GMO poker game, and we need to do more than just keep our poker faces. We need to fight back.

At the moment, you can either donate or write a letter supporting GMO labeling to Governor Hickenlooperas (the letter is already written) to try to come close to matching Big Biotech’s seemingly endless wallet so that the same fate that happened to GMO labeling in other states in the past few years doesn’t also happen in Colorado.

The numbers haven’t been reported yet for Oregon, but you can bet these corrupt corporations are going to try to do the same thing there. They simply don’t want states to have the right to demand GMO labeling.

Why? That’s a good question. These corporations have repeatedly said that GMOs are safe, but if that were really the case, then they should have no qualms with labeling our food. Food companies and chemical companies say labeling foods will create hysteria and cause many consumers to quiver in fear of eating foods which contain GMOs, but that doesn’t mean consumers should still be in the dark. These companies should be proving that these created ingredients are safe.

But the truth is that they know genetically modified foods are showing up repeatedly in studies with links to cancer, infertility, gastrointestinal problems, birth defects, and even the altering of human DNA. There is no way they are going to label these foods. If they did, it would be an outright precedence to be sued later in U.S. courts for poisoning people across the nation.

If we don’t act now when they strike big, and we don’t react loudly and with force, then Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association will have won again – that simply can’t be allowed to transpire.

Please consider giving today and spread the world near and far. It’s time to take these biotech bullies down once and for all.

RELATED:

Understanding The GMO Labeling Conundrum

New book examines WWF's relationship with Monsanto and Big Business

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GM Watch | Sep 28, 2014 | Claire Robinson

WWF's lawsuits failed to achieve ban on book

In 2011 the German film maker Wilfried Huismann released his documentary film exposé of WWF, The Silence of the Pandas. The film highlighted the devastation caused by the expansion of GM soy in South America and WWF's collaboration with Monsanto in the Round Table on Responsible Soy, an industry-led greenwashing forum that tries to portray GM soy as "responsible".

Now Huismann has published an English language book on his investigations. It's available as an e-book or in a Kindle edition from Amazon. Paperback version available soon.
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PandaLeaks – The Dark Side of the WWF

pandaleaks.org, 24 Sept 2014
http://www.pandaleaks.org/operation-lock/

We are pleased and proud to announce the long-awaited publication of PandaLeaks – The Dark Side of the WWF: the controversial book by award-winning German journalist and filmmaker Wilfried Huismann is  finally available in an English language edition – unabridged and updated.

PandaLeaks is a journalistic tour de force unearthing the grim secrets of the world’s biggest and most powerful wildlife conservation organization. When the German edition was first published in 2012 it went straight to the bestseller list. Despite the fact that the WWF had initially managed to stop its sale for several weeks with a massive campaign of threats to the book trade. A subsequent series of lawsuits launched by the WWF also failed to achieve a book ban.

The WWF cannot refute the facts gathered by Wilfried Huismann during his two-year research expedition to all corners of the “green empire”: the WWF is in bed with the world’s biggest environmental polluters; it “greenwashes” the ecological crimes of Big Business, the corporations currently destroying the last remaining rainforests and natural habitats on earth; and it accepts their money. The WWF doesn’t stop short of cooperating with GMO giant Monsanto. The facts are clear and sobering: the business model of the famous “eco” organization does more to harm nature than to protect it.

Huismann dug deep into the history of the WWF and found several skeletons in the closet: the elite secret club known as “The 1001”, and a private military commando unit deployed in Africa against big game poachers – and against black African liberation movements. In the name of environmental protection the WWF has initiated the displacement and cultural extinction of indigenous peoples the world over. The German newspaper Die Welt wrote: “The revelations of this book shatter faith in the panda as a force for good.”

Huismann’s book is a fast-paced exposé based on boots-on-the-ground journalism. Jam-packed with startling revelations, it is a must-read for anyone who wants a glimpse behind the façade of global power structures, and anyone prepared to hear what the WWF panda isn’t saying.

PandaLeaks is now available as an ebook for 8,99 € / 9,99 $ and as a book on demand (256 pages) for 19,99 € (VAT not included) / 24,99 $. You can buy it directly on our homepage, or at Amazon, Apple, Kobo and Google play.

Please visit our website for additional information: www.pandaleaks.org

UK fracking firm accused of 'bribing' land and property owners

Demonstrators carry placards as they gather for
an anti-fracking protest in London.
(AFP Photo / Ben Stansall)

RT | Sep 29, 2014

Activists accuse fracking firm Ineos of taking a “bribes and bulldozers” approach to shale gas exploration in the UK, as it offers affected landlords and communities a 6 percent future profit share.

In a bid to replicate the industry’s progress in the US, where the sharing of shale gas profits is commonplace, Ratcliffe hopes to incentivize landowners and residents to agree to fracking in their neighbourhoods.

“We think this is a game changer for Britain,” Ratcliffe said in a company statement. “Giving 6 percent of the revenues to those living above our shale gas operations will give them a real stake in the success of the venture and encourage the development of the whole shale gas industry”.

His offer would amount to £375 million for residents in an exploration area over the lifetime of the project, divided between £250 million for homeowners and landowners directly above the wells and £125 million for nearby communities.

Ineos calculates that each of the 200 wells in an exploration area would generate £1.3 million for home and land owners and £600,000 for the community.

The offer to locals is more generous than the 1 percent figure the industry has already committed to.

Landowners, environmental groups and a stricter planning system have delayed the fracking agenda in the UK.

Jim Ratcliffe.(AFP Photo / Ed Jones)

“This is just more of the same bribes and bulldozers approach that has already proved a failure,” Simon Clydesdale, UK energy campaigner at Greenpeace, told the Guardian.

“With one hand the fracking industry goads the government into steamrolling people’s right to oppose fracking under their homes, with the other it offers cash incentives.

“The industry forgets people have legitimate concerns about fracking that won’t be easily assuaged by cash sweeteners. The simple fact that the shale lobby can’t win the argument on safety but has to buy up consensus instead will help convince people that nothing good will come from letting the frackers through the door”.

Opponents of the technique say fracking uses a huge amount of water and potentially allows carcinogenic chemicals to escape and contaminate groundwater near the site.

Supporters say environmental concerns relate to bad practice, rather than an inherently risky process. They also say it could create thousands of jobs and make the UK self-sufficient in energy production.

The UK government intends to allow fracking companies to drill under people's land without their agreement.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said it will press ahead with proposals to simplify underground access for oil and gas developers.

The government says the current ability for people to block shale gas development under their property would lead to significant delays and that the legal process by which companies can force fracking plans through was costly, time-consuming and disproportionate.

Navajo Nation Sacrificed for US Nuclear Obsession

Breaking the Set | Sep 29, 2014

Abby Martin talks about a $500 million settlement between the government and Navajo nation over destruction of tribal land due to uranium mining and how this amount will do nothing to alleviate the pain and suffering caused by this industry.

350.org caught up in fossil fuel ‘divestment’ hypocrisy

Watts Up With That | Sep 25, 2014 | Anthony Watts

In a blast of publicity, the Rockefellers Brothers Fund (RBF) announced it would “begin” divesting all fossil fuel investments. The Rockefellers brothers, offspring of the founder of the industry, were said to be marking a major turning point in the great trajectory of climate change. Except, they still have holdings they aren’t talking about.

Note that RBF and 350.org are refusing to comment about the findings of Oil Sands Fact Check today.
First, two must read pieces on RBF, published in the past 24 hours.

• http://www.cfact.org/2014/09/25/rockefeller-divestment-is-shameless-climate-summit-eyewash/
• http://business.financialpost.com/2014/09/23/rockefellers-baby-boycott-why-nobody-in-4-65-trillion-fossil-fuel-business-will-even-notice/

And now this, the natives are getting restless:

KXL backers question timing of Rockefeller divestment
Manuel Quiñones, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, September 25, 2014

Backers of the Keystone XL oil pipeline are questioning the timing of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s decision to divest from most fossil fuel holdings.

The website Oil Sands Fact Check, an industry-backed repository of information in favor of the transboundary pipeline, noted that the fund has significant fossil fuel holdings at the same time it was funding anti-fossil-fuel activities. The fund announced its change of investment strategy earlier this week (Greenwire, Sept. 22).

“Given that board members of RBF are heirs to the Rockefeller oil fortune, the media was led to believe that divestment from fossil fuels was a drastic change in practice for the foundation,” says a new post.

“Yet anyone who knows the least bit about RBF is well aware that the foundation has given millions to groups that oppose fossil fuels for years,” the post says.

KXL backers are focusing on the fund’s longtime support for the group 350.org, which has been a major force in opposition to the pipeline.

RBF has given 350.org $800,000 in recent years and almost $2 million to the 1Sky Education Fund, now part of 350.org, according to foundation records.

And beyond 350.org, RBF has funded other groups critical of fossil fuel interests through its sustainable development program. Its mission statement is to advance “social change that contributes to a more just, sustainable and peaceful world.”

But Oil Sands Fact Check says,

RBF said the fossil fuel divestment process has been an ongoing effort to better align its finances with its goals. “Our immediate focus will be on coal and tar sands, two of the most intensive sources of carbon emissions,” it said.

The group 350.org did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

Fossil fuel interests have made similar claims about billionaire climate activist and political donor Tom Steyer, who invested heavily in fossil fuels during his time as a hedge fund manager (Greenwire, July 15).

Steyer took to the pages of Politico to respond, saying the threat of climate change altered his thinking. “The past is the past,” he wrote, “and I am working as hard as I can to change our collective future.”

Source: http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2014/09/25/stories/1060006453

Green Lake, WI latest in long line of school districts dissatisfied with Michelle Obama's lunch program

SOTT | Sep 25, 2014 | Kyle Olsen

© Eagnews.org

The Green Lake School District is the latest the join a number of schools reevaluating their participation in the National School Lunch Program.

The Ripon Press reports the district is dissatisfied with the new school lunch and snack rules championed by First Lady Michelle Obama. "When I walk through the school cafeteria, I see multi-colored fruits and vegetables and whole-grain pasta or wraps on the trays of our students. The food looks really good, but the students aren't eating it," principal Mary Allen says, according to the paper. "... The limited salt, whole-grains, vegetable substitutes for meat, and unfamiliar foods such as 'quinoa' and 'jicama' are not being embraced. Although the food looks good and is undeniably healthy, it is unflavored and tasteless."

Students reportedly gave the school board a 31-page report produced in math class, which studied the question: "Will the Green Lake School District better serve its students without the National School Lunch Program?" Green Lake isn't alone.

The Windham and Salem school districts - both in New Hampshire - are also mulling opting out.
"It has been much more restrictive and prescriptive than in the past with the intention of serving healthy snacks and food," Windham superintendent Winifried Feneberg says, according to the Eagle-Tribune.
Opting out would mean more flexibility and local decision-making, the superintendent tells the paper. "We're considering opting out because of the program rules and a decline in participation," Salem finance director Deborah Payne says. "There's not a lot of choice for students."

Meanwhile, others aren't quite to that point yet, despite growing alarm over the shrinking portion sizes. The Bangor, Pennsylvania district has cut its chicken finger serving size from six to three.

"Going from six chicken fingers down to three of them is not what we should be doing," school board member Kenneth Brewer tells 69 News.

Source:  Eagnews.org

Mutated Ebola virus could spread like flu, says Purdue University biologist

The Extinction Protocol | Sep 20, 2014

September 2014 – HEALTH – There is a real possibility that Ebola could mutate into a virus that is as spreadable as the flu, one of the nation’s top Ebola researchers tells Newsmax Health. “I don’t want to be an alarmist, but the possibility of Ebola becoming an airborne virus clearly has to be taken into account,” said David Sanders, associate professor of biological sciences at Purdue University.  “Ebola does share some of the characteristics of airborne viruses like influenza and we should not disregard the possibility of it evolving into something that could be transmitted in this way,” added Sanders, whose work on Ebola led to his participation in the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Biological Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program. U.S. health officials have largely dismissed Ebola as posing a major threat inside American borders. Testifying before a Congressional subcommittee this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top White House infectious disease advisor, said it was very unlikely Ebola would mutate in a way that would make it transmittable through the air like flu. That’s “not something I would put at the very top of the radar screen,” he said. But Sanders disagrees. “I want the facts to be clear. It’s important that we not get the idea that this can’t happen,” he said, adding, “When people say that it is impossible for this virus to mutate, this is simply not true.”

According to Sanders, a key factor in the successful mutation of a virus centers on how it enters and exits the body. Sanders led a research team that established the Zaire form of the Ebola virus, which is the one involved in the West Africa epidemic, could enter the mucus-lined cells that line the human airway in much the same way the flu virus does. He pointed to the flu as an example of how a virus can mutate so that it can infect different species and be transmitted in different ways. Originally, flu was a virus that lived in the gastrointestinal tract of aquatic birds, like ducks and geese. But it mutated into a disease that spread easily among humans, gaining entry to the human body through airways, which have a mucus lining that is similar to that in the gastrointestinal tract of birds. To pose a major threat in the U.S., the Ebola virus would have to mutate so that it could survive outside the body for a significant length of time like influenza can, Sanders said. “This is not how the Ebola virus is currently known to spread, but there is evidence that it has some of the necessary components for respiratory transmission,” he said.

The more the West Africa epidemic spreads, the more likely it is that the virus will mutate. This is why it is important the outbreak be contained now, even though it hasn’t yet reached American shores, he said. “When people have looked at the current outbreak, the virus really hasn’t changed much,” Sanders said. “However, this research was done when there were 1,500 cases and now it’s up to 4,000 and if it gets to be 100,000 cases, there is more and more of a chance for mutations to occur.” There is no way to forecast when or if Ebola will dangerously mutate, he said. “I can’t calculate you the probability of this happening. I can just tell you that from the way the virus enters the body, this is a possibility and that clearly has to be taken into account,” Sanders added. –Newsmax Health
 

The Weather Channel is losing viewers to global warming and other pointless programming

Watts Up With That | Sep 13, 2014 | Anthony Watts

Bloomberg reports that ratings are down 20% over three years, and with the sort of programming they continue with, such as this lame “forecast from 2050″ with Sam Champion and go-to storm chaser guy Jim Cantore, where in a CGI based forecast, he laments rising sea levels while standing in fake water.

Here is the fake forecast video, sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (part of the U.N.):



It doesn’t look like their ratings and viewers will rebound any time soon, much like global warming itself, which is now in an extended pause that may last as long as 30 years.

Bloomberg reports:

DirecTV dropped the Weather Channel for about three months earlier this year after failing to come to an agreement about how much the network should be paid in affiliate fees. The Weather Channel agreed to cut back on its reality programming to include more local weather updates when DirecTV agreed to a new deal in April.
…

DirecTV, with 20 million subscribers, had pushed for a reduction of more than 20 percent in the fees it pays the Weather Channel, which had asked for an increase of 1 cent a month per subscriber.

The Weather Channel, based in Atlanta, averaged 13 cents a month per subscriber in 2013 and in 2012, according to estimates from researcher SNL Kagan. It averaged 214,000 daily viewers in 2013, down from 264,000 in 2011, according to data provided by Nielsen.

Maybe “Fat guys in the Woods” (yes that is really a TWC show) will save them:



Bloomberg also mentions that “the companies that own The Weather Channel—including Bain Capital, Blackstone, and NBC Universal—appear to be in the beginning stages of talks to sell the Atlanta-based weather behemoth”.

The billion dollar question is: who would buy it? NBCUniversal bought TWC in 2008 for about $3.5 billion. They’d be lucky to get half of that today in a sale, and any potential buyer would be even luckier to see any profit from it after the sale. Maybe Al Jazerra?

Kurdish ‘ghost’ oil tanker reemerges near Texas – with $100mn cargo

A still image from video taken by a U.S. Coast Guard HC-144
Ocean Sentry aircraft shows the oil tanker United Kalavyrta
(also known as the United Kalavrvta), which is carrying a
cargo of Kurdish crude oil, approaching Galveston,
Texas July 25, 2014 (Reuters / US Coast Guard)

RT | Sep 1, 2014

A “ghost ship” oil tanker carrying approximately $100 million of disputed Iraqi Kurdish crude oil has reappeared on satellite imagery near the US coast Monday, after disappearing for several days. The tanker seems not to have offloaded its oil.

According to the US Coast Guard and Reuters, the tanker, United Kalavrvta, is still 95 percent full and has not yet unloaded its cargo. The vessel was anchored Monday in the Galveston Offshore Lightering Area, close to its previously known position.

The Iraqi government has deemed this shipment of Kurdish crude oil illegal. Baghdad filed a lawsuit in the US in June, preventing any purchaser from unloading the Kurdish shipment.

When Iraq’s government initially filed the law suit, US District Judge Nancy K. Johnson ordered the seizure of the tanker’s $100 million payload, but only if the tanker entered the territorial waters of the US.

This isn’t the first time Kurdish oil tankers have switched off their electronic transponders to avoid detection – essentially making their movements impossible to track.

Approximately a week ago, a Kurdish tanker carrying crude disappeared from satellite tracking north of Egypt’s Sinai, only to reappear empty two days later near Israel.

As recently as June, Iraq’s central government made an attempt at illegalizing Kurdish oil sales but it was ultimately rejected by Iraq’s Supreme Court.

Kurds have argued that the sale of their crude is essential to their dreams of an independent Kurdistan – while the US State Department has publicly backed Baghdad’s stance.

Given the recent violence and uncertainty in Iraq, this makes for a hard decision for both the stranded tanker and its would-be US buyer.