Tuesday, December 08, 2009

US climate agency declares CO2 public danger

Environmental Protection Agency declaration allows it to impose emissions cuts without agreement of reluctant Senate

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 December 2009 20.24 GMT



Lisa Jackson announcing the new US government position that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The Obama administration adopted its climate change plan B today, formally declaring carbon dioxide a public danger so that it can cut greenhouse gas emissions even without the agreement of a reluctant Senate.

The timing of the announcement – in the opening hours of the UN's Copenhagen climate change summit – prevents Barack Obama from arriving at the talks without concrete evidence that America will do its bit to cut the emissions that cause global warming.

"Climate change has now become a household issue," said Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), adding that the evidence of climate change was real and increasingly alarming. "This administration will not ignore science or the law any longer, nor will we ignore the responsibility we owe to our children and our grandchildren."

The announcement gives the EPA a legal basis for capping emissions from major sources such as coal power plants, as well as cars. Jackson said she hoped it would help to spur a deal in Copenhagen.

The EPA action had been seen as a backstop should Congress fail to pass climate change law. Obama and other officials had repeatedly said they would prefer to pass legislation, but that prospect has grown increasingly remote. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change bill in June, but the proposals have stalled in the Senate.

Jackson said the EPA's regulations, which would come into effect from next spring, would not be too onerous, applying only to facilities emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

The oil and manufacturing industries, which have opposed climate change action, said the move was overly politicised, and warned that the new regulations would be tied up in lawsuits.

The US Chamber of Commerce, also sceptical on global warming, said the move would hurt the economy. "An endangerment finding from the EPA could result in a top-down, command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," said Thomas Donohue, the chamber's president.

Jackson is to address the Copenhagen meeting on Wednesday, while Obama will join more than 100 other world leaders in the Danish capital on the final day of the conference, on 18 December.

The endangerment declaration dates from a supreme court decision in 2007 ordering the EPA to make a ruling on whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions were a pollutant subject to the Clean Air Act of the 1970s.



Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/07/us-climate-carbon-emissions-danger
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The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine




Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.


2 Timothy 4:2-5.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Breathe in the 'unique oxygen' of other faiths

Samir Selmanovic on right


Friday, December 04, 2009
Huntsville Times


Ready or not, Christian or not, for the next few weeks, Christmas will cookie-cut the shape of existence for all Americans. Attempting to avoid Christmas in the United States is as impossible as it would be to avoid Ramadan in Egypt or Passover week in Israel.

The Christian Christmas blankets everyone.

It used to be that under this comforting blanket of sameness, or, at least, near-ness, we could wish each other "Merry Christmas" reflexively - perhaps even thoughtlessly.

One of the gifts of our shrinking world is that, unless we actually know our neighbor, we will not know if that greeting will come across as a heartfelt, faith-full celebration of a belief in Jesus or as an attempt to impose a faith perceived as bigoted and superstitious, as an innocent expression of joy or as a strident, exclusivist declaration, as the sharing of tradition or as an admission of cultural ignorance.

I got to thinking about this aspect of Christmas as I read Samir Selmanovic's "It's Really All about God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian," and Eboo Patel's "Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation."

Both are coming-of-faith stories written by men now both engaged in being, respectively, devoutly Christian and devoutly Muslim, as they work to also appreciate and understand those of other faiths.

Both base their own understanding of God on only one certainty: God is bigger than their human belief systems.

Selmanovic is, surprisingly, a Seventh-day Adventist minister. Adventists are careful about their doctrines. They are people who know what and why they believe with far more detail than, say, us Presbyterians.

But both Selmanovic and Patel have glimpsed the unmistakable signs of God moving in faiths outside of their own. Both have come to the dizzying awareness that God is as present outside Christianity or Islam as inside. And both have found that this does not tempt them to leave their own traditions, but, in fact, deepens their commitment to their own faith home - while they, as the Hindu Gandhi advises, leave "the windows open so that the winds of other traditions can blow through and bring their unique oxygen."


Source: http://www.al.com/religion/huntsvilletimes/news.ssf?/base/living/1259921743156200.xml&coll=1
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Religious groups active in climate debate


Before traveling to Copenhagen to lobby world leaders for policies to limit climate change, Sister Joan Brown leads a prayer vigil Wednesday in Albuquerque.

Updated
6h 22m ago

By Brian Winter, USA TODAY

COPENHAGEN — Sunday started like any other day for Sister Joan Brown — with a period of prayer and meditation just before dawn at her home in Albuquerque.

Then, instead of going to Mass, the Franciscan sister boarded a plane to Copenhagen. When she arrives Monday, she'll join 20,000 other attendees at a United Nations summit on climate change, where she hopes to persuade leaders including President Obama to reach a worldwide agreement to cut pollution levels.

"Many people can't afford to make this trip," says Brown, who is using frequent flier miles and staying with a Danish family to cut costs. "But all our voices are needed, and this is one small way I can speak to the greatest moral and spiritual issue of our time."

She will be among numerous preachers, rabbis, ministers and other faith-based figures who are bringing a spiritual presence — and, often, a strong point of view on the political issues — to Copenhagen. At a time when political leaders are struggling to pass environmental legislation in the USA and elsewhere, in large part because of the potential economic costs, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon says religious leaders "can have the largest, widest and deepest reach" when it comes to influencing the outcome of the summit.

The main goal in Copenhagen is to forge a long-range global deal to cut emissions of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, which climate data suggest is causing the Earth to warm.

Representatives of 192 countries will attend, including Obama, who plans to arrive next week.

So how does Brown, an ecology minister in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, plan to make her voice stand out? For starters, she and a crowd of supporters held a candlelight vigil before her departure and wrote letters to New Mexico's U.S. senators, expressing concern over climate change.

Once she's in Copenhagen, she'll blog. And she'll do her best to navigate the dizzying two weeks of conferences, side events, parties and concerts that will make Copenhagen seem almost like the Woodstock of the environmental movement.

"I'm going to speak the truth to the delegates there, and try to educate people back here," she says. "It's our obligation for posterity to leave a world that exudes the beauty of the Creator for future generations."

Other religious leaders in Copenhagen will include Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion; Richard Cizik, a former vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Jim Ball, head of the Evangelical Environmental Network; South African cleric and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu; and representatives from the National Council of Churches (NCC), which encompasses more than 100,000 Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical and other congregations with 45 million members across the USA.

In all, as many as 100 religiously affiliated representatives from the USA plan to attend the summit, estimates Tyler Edgar, assistant director for the environmental arm of the NCC. Worldwide, she says that number will likely run "in the hundreds."

There is a wide range of views among — and within — different faiths as to the fundamental questions in the environmental debate: to what extent climate change is occurring, whether human activity is responsible for it, and what, if anything, should be done as a result.

Some are actively pushing against Copenhagen's agenda.

E. Calvin Breisner, a founder of the Cornwall Alliance, a coalition of clergy, scientists and academics, says recent data show the human role in causing global warming is minimal or non-existent. Religious figures who say otherwise, without a full background in science and economics, "risk an abuse of their moral authority," Breisner says.

Edgar, who also is traveling to Copenhagen, sees things differently. Broadly speaking, America's religious communities have shed their long-standing suspicion of the environmental cause "as that hippie, tree-hugging thing," she says.

In the past three years or so, many have rallied behind the belief that "we are all called upon to protect God's creation and God's people" by acting to stop climate change, Edgar says.
It's unclear whether such lobbying will be able to overcome a rough couple of months for the green cause.

In Copenhagen, Obama plans to present a goal of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 by about 17% compared to levels in 2005. But to make good on that target, he'll need the Senate to pass an energy bill next year over the objections of many Republicans, who say it could result in dramatically higher energy costs for businesses and consumers. The legislation has been stalled for months.

Then there's the "Climategate" controversy, in which hackers recently obtained and published e-mails exchanged among prominent scientists who say the Earth is warming. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., is seeking congressional hearings into whether the e-mails show the scientists deliberately censored opposing views, and manipulated data in order to exaggerate their claims.

If anyone can help move the debate, it's faith-based leaders, says Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

"This is a very religious country. God the Creator still does better in polls than any politician," says Lieberman, who backs legislation to mandate lower carbon emissions. He says he first began to embrace the environmental cause 20 years ago because of his own spiritual beliefs.

Lieberman, who is Jewish and has deep ties with evangelicals, says religious leaders and constituents could still help swing some Senate votes, especially among Republicans. "This helps put the issue in the broader context ... of exercising our responsibility to protect God's creation ... and that helps us," he says.

'A profound moral issue'

Ball, who arrives in Copenhagen on Friday, says he plans to spend most of his time "hanging out in the hallways" of the Bella Center conference hall, where international delegates will be negotiating a deal. He'll be looking to speak with senior Obama administration officials and members of Congress.

Ball's pet cause is a proposal for rich countries, including the USA, to send poorer countries money — at least $10 billion a year will be needed, the U.N.'s Ban says. The funds would help the countries overhaul their economies to pollute less, and cope with possible consequences of climate change such as lower agricultural yields, or rising seas that could devastate island nations.

"Our role is to remind (politicians) that this is a profound moral issue, and that the basic moral teachings of religion apply to these environmental problems," Ball says.

Such talk is relatively new. It wasn't long ago that, broadly speaking, religious and environmental groups were at odds — an echo of the age-old tension between religion and science, exacerbated by the Bill Clinton-era culture wars of the 1990s.Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, a New Jersey-based group, cites two recent turning points — the 2006 release of An Inconvenient Truth, the environmental movie featuring former vice president Al Gore, and the devastating impact the previous year of Hurricane Katrina, which Gore and others argue was made more deadly by warmer ocean water.

"When religious communities see human beings, particularly poor human beings, getting whacked like that, it's a real wake-up call," Harper says. "People saw the humanitarian side of this issue in a way they'd never seen before."

The debate is playing out worldwide. Last month, Harper attended a summit called "Many Heavens, One Earth" at Britain's Windsor Castle that sought to rally global religious leaders ahead of Copenhagen. The conference brought together leaders from nine major faiths — Bahai Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shinto and Sikhism.

The power vested in those groups is enormous. Together, the world's churches and other faith groups control 7% to 8% of the world's habitable land, are involved in more than half of all schools, and hold more than 7% of global financial investments, according to the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, the British group that organized the Windsor conference.

That explains why religious groups are uniquely positioned to not only influence the political debate, but also be an active part of environmental solutions, says Olav Kjorven, an assistant secretary-general at the U.N. who was at Windsor. He says religious institutions can use their influence to promote investment in industries that emit less carbon, support education on environmental issues in schools, and make places of worship more environmentally friendly.

"We hope to spread that message to Copenhagen," Kjorven says. "The faiths are ready to move on these issues."

Concerns about cost

There are others in the religious community who believe the proposals on the table at Copenhagen would hurt, rather than help, the world's poor.

Breisner, a theologian, says "efforts to control future temperatures by reduced use of fossil fuels would cost trillions of dollars, condemning future generations in poor countries to abject poverty."

Sen. Inhofe says that efforts to bring churches into the "liberal environmental lobby" are failing, at least in his home state.

"I can't find one pastor of an evangelical church who isn't fired up on my side of the issue," Inhofe says.

Indeed, recent polls suggest some of the public urgency on the issue is fading. A survey completed in October — before the "Climategate" scandal broke — by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 65% of Americans believe that global warming is a "serious" or "very serious" issue, down from 73% in April 2008.

That's still a majority, says Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University and co-author of A Climate for Change, which examines the global warming debate, and potential solutions, from a faith-based perspective. She says a better understanding of science has compelled senior religious leaders to join the environmental cause, even if some within their own congregations remain unconvinced.

"If you look at the heads of all major denominations — even Southern Baptists — you'll see that there's a real movement toward acknowledging the role that human activity is playing in climate change," she says.

Byron Johnson, director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, says there is evidence of a generational split on environmental issues among Evangelicals.

In a recent poll, his institute found that 73% of young Evangelicals agree with the statement that "Global climate change will have disastrous effects" — compared to 59% of older Evangelicals.

That's no big surprise, Inhofe says. "These young ones, their entire lives, all they've heard is that global warming doctrine," he says, shaking his head.

"The schools are just filling their heads with this issue."

The political debate
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., says he has been "touched" by the role that religious leaders are playing in the environmental debate — and says they may help forge some kind of middle ground.

Brownback says he is not fully convinced that man-made climate change is occurring, but welcomes "prudent" steps recommended by some religious leaders to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

"I think their premise is right," Brownback says. "The question becomes: How do you tackle the issue?"

He ruled out passage of the energy bill that passed the House last spring, saying it would damage the economy — a stance echoed by Inhofe and many other Senate Republicans.

Brownback says he prefers a focus on innovative technology that he says could be just as effective in reducing greenhouse gases.

The White House — as well as governments in the European Union, China and much of the developing world — says anti-pollution efforts will be insufficient unless they set firm targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Whatever happens, people of faith around the world will be watching closely, says Mary Dickey, a spokeswoman for Odyssey Networks, a media organization that is sending a three-person video crew to Copenhagen to cover religious implications of the debate.

"You wouldn't believe how passionate people are about this," Dickey says.

"Faith leaders are going to be a big part of the debate at Copenhagen, and beyond."



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Related:

RELIGIOUS FIGURES WEIGH IN
Since 2006, several religiously affiliated organizations and individuals have issued statements saying they believe man has an obligation to limit climate change.

They include:
Pope Benedict XVI
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians
Rick Warren, evangelical pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life
Bishop Charles Blake, presiding bishop of the Church of God In Christ
Jesse Miranda, president, AMEN (National Alliance of Evangelical Ministries)
Frank Page, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention
Royce Money, president, Abilene Christian University
Source: USA TODAY research


POOR NATIONS ON AGENDA

COPENHAGEN — Negotiators will kick off a United Nations climate change summit today with immediate talks on one of the most contentious environmental issues: how much rich countries should pay poorer ones to pollute less.

Evo de Boer, the U.N.'s top environmental official, called Sunday for the 192 countries gathering here to formulate a "strong and long-term response" to stop global warming.

He says developing countries may need as much as $10 billion a year to help adapt their economies to cleaner energy sources than coal, for example.

Developing countries such as Brazil have said that they will not agree to a broader deal to cut carbon emissions at Copenhagen unless they get the money.

Most senior leaders won't arrive until the second week of the summit, which runs through Dec. 18. Yet the first week is when low-level technocrats do most of the detailed deal making, observers say.

"By the time the heads of state come, the negotiators are usually done," says Angela Anderson of the U.S. Climate Action Network, an environmental advocacy group.

Interest in the summit already has overwhelmed its organizers. The U.N. issued a statement Sunday saying that 34,000 people had expressed interest in attending the summit, more than double the capacity (15,000) of the conference center.

Some journalists and members of non-governmental organizations will be turned away during the busiest hours, the U.N. said.

— By Brian Winter


Source: SAA.
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From Yes We Can to Yes We Will - Whether You Like It or Not







Senate Democrats get 'pep talk' from President Obama

Exclusive Senate Democrat Sunday Matinee


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HOVERING ON THE EDGE OF TOMORROW



HOVERING ON THE EDGE OF TOMORROW

by Scott Tips, JD
December 7, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

It is a truism that bears repeating that our World is a rapidly changing one. Sometimes, I think back and imagine what life was like in 1909, a hundred years ago. What did people think about their future? Did they even imagine that in five years’ time a huge cataclysmic war would descend upon them and devastate the Western World, killing over 20 million people? That, in Europe at least, many of their male friends and family members would die and their own lives and political and social systems be forever changed?

How could they even imagine that? It was, after all, the Belle Époque. Life was mostly good. Every day, there were advances in science, health, literature, and the arts. With a few regional exceptions there had been no major general war in the World since the end of the Napoleonic era more than 90 years earlier. Most people could not even imagine that that could change – ever.

Fast Forward to the Present

One hundred years later most people have almost the same mindset. With a few regional exceptions there has been no major general war in the World since the end of the Second World War in 1945, 64 years ago. Every day, there are advances in science, health, literature, and the arts. Life is mostly good. Most people cannot even imagine that this state of being will ever change.

Of course, now, since last year, there are actual and under-currents of foreboding. The economic downturn in the Western world has seen to that, changing the mindset of many who had previously skipped blithely through life with little thought of what the future might hold for them. Eager to grasp at any straws of hope, they actually believe those self-serving “authorities” who claim that we are coming out of our economic problems. Others know what legendary financial expert Harry Schultz has said, “The financial skies only seem clear and calm because, as with a hurricane, we are in the eye of the storm.” The brunt of the storm is yet to descend upon us.

When we lift the veil from our eyes, when we look around us and see what is truly happening in the World, then the future does seem very troubled. The far-sighted and clairvoyant amongst us will take note of this actual state of events and be pro-active. It is long past time to batten down the hatches and prepare for this menacing future, but even now it is still not too late.

We Are Not Passive Objects

As the National Health Federation and other activist organizations have shown over the years, we need not be flotsam upon a river, drifting out to sea, unable to do anything other than flow with the current. As hard as it might seem, one individual in an ocean of 6.9 billion, we can take a hand in shaping our own destiny – if only we will. We are not victims, we are actors; and we should not only realize this truth but act upon it as well.

Such thinking, however, goes against the current grain of granting “victimhood” status to every member of a pressure group with clout in Congress or Parliament. These days, the media and establishment pressure upon all to accept such victims as downtrodden, deserving members of largesse is irresistible for all but the strongest. Yet, to resist becoming a passive, manipulated object is imperative if you are to survive.

They Think You Are Just Tools to Be Used

“They” treat you like trash. Living like kings and queens with their special million-dollar pensions that kick in the moment they take office, high salaries for little work, travel perks, large staffs, and elite medical health-care plans while they throw crumbs to us the peasants, “they” are nothing more than your supposed servants who, once installed in the mansion, have proceeded to ransack it and turn us into slaves. I do not care what political party they claim to be with, they are worthless leeches and parasites, feeding off of our bodies.

The saddest part of all of this is that “we” put them there! Even sadder is the fact that we have the power to remove them but never do so because of a combination of blindness, false patriotism, gullibility, exceedingly poor memory, and (for some) wanting to share in the loot. And it doesn’t just happen in Canada or the United States, it is true of every country!

So as these parasites drain your essence and vitality, they disguise their vampirism by employing code words such as “for the public good” and “protection of the public.” Whether it is the resurrected 1993 Hillary Clinton plan of government “healthcare” currently being pushed through the U.S. Congress or attempts to bind down farmers, ranchers, and organic businesses with suffocating, expensive regulations, such anti-freedom measures are always accompanied by refrains from the leeches that this is all being done for the “public good.” “The public good” – always the cry of tyrants and dictators – has fooled citizens of every country, no matter how free they originally were.

Change Means Opportunity

The World of 2009 is a very different one than that of 1909. And the World of 2014 or 2020 will almost certainly be a very different one than that of 2009. Many people can sense that we are all on the threshold of change, but are not sure what kind of change. Will it be a change in our society, a change in our political system, or a change in our economic system? Many others stumble forward in life, as our 1909 counterparts did in their own time, with not a clue as to what might strike them in just a few years’ time.

Yet, change means opportunity. It means the opportunity to get it right this time. To avoid another 1914. To see that the parasites don’t manipulate events this time, steering us into yet another set of world-changing disasters. As we hover on the edge of tomorrow, it is more important than ever that, at this critical point in history, we act quickly and decisively to steer events and our institutions towards freedom and not slavery, towards the light and not darkness.

If only the people living in 1909 could have known then what lay in store for them in five years’ time, might they have not acted differently? Hopefully more prescient, we of 2009 have the chance to change our future, if only we will seize that chance.
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Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit


6As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:

7Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

8Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

9For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

10And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

Colossians 2:6-10.
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Philippine police clash with clan supporters




(AP) – 1 hour ago

SHARIFF AGUAK, Philippines — Officials say Philippine police have clashed with gunmen loyal to a powerful clan accused in the country's worst political massacre.

National police chief Jesus Verzosa says there were no causualties Sunday in the first reported violence since the government put southern Maguindanao province under martial law.

He says about 20-30 suspected followers of the Ampatuan clan opened fire on police in Datu Unsay township, near the site of the Nov. 23 killing of 57 people traveling in an election convoy.

Verzosa says more than 2,400 gunmen have massed up in 16 of Maguindanao's 22 townships to defend the Ampatuan clan, which has ruled the province unopposed for years.

Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno says officials are trying to persuade them to disarm.
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Sunday, December 06, 2009

Fractional Reserve Lending Constitutes Fraud


Monday, October 05, 2009

Fractional Reserve Lending Constitutes Fraud


I was asked to reply to Karl Denninger's Rebuttal To Mish On Fractional Reserve Lending.

Here goes: Denninger does not phrase my arguments correctly on points 2-5, however he thinks they are immaterial so the points are somewhat moot. The crux of the matter is not whether assets are backed by collateral as Denninger suggests, but rather whether the same money has been lent out multiple times.

Let's follow through with a real life example.

Fannie Mae makes a loan of $1,000,000. Let's be more than reasonably fair and assume Fannie Mae issued bonds for the entire amount, not borrowing a single cent into existence. So far there is no fraud.

$1,000,000 goes to the home builder. That home builder deposits $1,000,000 into a Bank of America checking account. Ignoring sweeps that would allow Bank of America to loan out every cent, let's assume BofA keeps 10% in reserves and lends out $900,000 to a new furniture store on the corner strip mall.

The furniture store owner buys $900,000 of furniture from a wholesaler. The wholesaler deposits $900,000 into a Citigroup checking account. Again, ignoring the likelihood Citigroup sweeps the whole amount into a savings account thereby able to lend out the entire amount (savings accounts have no reserve requirements), let's assume that Citigroup keeps 10% in reserves and lends out $810,000 to a High Roller who takes out a home equity loan on his house that is supposedly worth $3,000,000.

High Roller buys a yacht from a boating manufacturer for $810,000. The yacht manufacturer deposits $810,000 in a checking account at Wells Fargo. Following the same pattern, Wells Fargo keeps 10% in reserves and lends out $729,000 to a plumbing supply company, because home sales are going gangbusters and the plumbing supplier needs more supplies.

I think you can see where this is headed.

On the original $1,000,000 this is what FRL allows to be lent out.

$900,000
$810,000
$729,000
$656,000
$590,000
$531,000
$478,000
$430,000
$387,000
....

See where this is going?
I am going to arbitrarily stop the chain right there, but the total so far is $5,511,000 out of $1,000,000 was lent out.

Karl claims this is not fraudulent because "it's all backed by assets".

Well for starters the value of those assets backing the loans is questionable. Clearly it does not take much of a decline in asset prices to cause some major writeoffs. But let's get to the crux of the matter with a simple example.

Imagine I had gold depository with $1,000,000 in gold and lent out receipts for $10,000,000 in gold for people to buy things. Think that is not fraud whether or not those receipts were backed by pledges (assets) to pay back the gold?

Of course it's fraud, and so is lending out $5,511,000 when only $1,000,000 really exists. By lending out more money or gold than exists, asset prices reach unsustainably high levels before they crash. Sound familiar?

This is where the Libertarian argument "it's OK if two people agree" falls flat. It is not OK because it cheapens the dollar, thereby robbing everyone saving dollars via theft of inflation (making those dollars worth less over time).

Greenspan compounded this already massive problem in 1994 by allowing banks to "sweep" checking accounts (unknown to customers) into savings accounts. This made the problem worse because savings accounts have no reserve requirements at all.

Is it any wonder credit exploded?

For more on the case against Fractional Reserve Lending please see

Fractional Reserve Banking by Murray Rothbard.
Case Against The Fed by Murray


Please click on the second link above and read it.

On page 46 of the book Case Against The Fed Rothbard says "By the very nature of fractional Reserve Lending, banks cannot honor all its contracts".

Is that not fraud?

Search that book for the word "fractional" and you will find more arguments worthy of consideration.

Fractional Reserve Lending constitutes fraud. The case is irrefutable.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com


Source: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/fractional-reserve-lending-constitutes.html


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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2009 December 6

The Magnificent Tail of Comet McNaught

Credit & Copyright: Robert H. McNaught



Explanation: Comet McNaught, the Great Comet of 2007, was the brightest comet of the last 40 years. Its spectacular tail spread across the sky and was breathtaking to behold from dark locations for many Southern Hemisphere observers. The head of the comet remained quite bright and was easily visible to even city observers without any optical aide. Part of the spectacular tail was visible just above the horizon after sunset for many northern observers as well. Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught), which reached an estimated peak brightness of magnitude -6 (minus six), was caught by the comet's discoverer in the above image soon after sunset in 2007 January from Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. The robotic Ulysses spacecraft fortuitously flew through Comet McNaught's tail and found, unexpectedly, that the speed of the solar wind dropped significantly.

Tomorrow's picture: mechanical moon

Source: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/

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Top UN climate official confident that new pact will be reached in Copenhagen


6 December 2009 – On the eve of the historic United Nations climate change gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark, a top official with the world body today expressed confidence that the event will deliver a comprehensive and ambitious new deal.

The two-week talks are set to kick off tomorrow in the Danish capital, and by the end of the summit, Governments must adequately respond to the urgent challenge posed by climate change, said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“Negotiators now have the clearest signal ever from world leaders to craft solid proposals to implement rapid action,” he noted.

Mr. de Boer acknowledged the many pledges to slash reductions made by nations – both developed and developing – and underscored that there is an unprecedented political momentum to “seal the deal” on a new deal in Copenhagen, which will be the scene of the world's largest meeting on climate change ever, with over 100 Heads of State expected to attend.

“Never in 17 years of climate negotiations have so many different nations made so many firm pledges together,” he said. “So whilst there will be more steps on the road to a safe climate future, Copenhagen is already a turning point in the international response to climate change.”

There are three layers of action, the official emphasized, that nations must agree on during the gathering: swift implementation of action on climate change ambitious commitments to curb emissions and a long-term shared vision of a low-emissions future for all.

Developed countries, he said, must provide at least $10 billion annually from next year through 2012 to help their developing counterparts plan and launch low emission growth and adaptation strategies, as well as to build internal capacity. Simultaneously, wealthier nations must also indicate how they will raise predictable and sustainable financing for the long term, as well as what their future commitments will be.

According to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an aggregate emission reduction by industrialized nations of between -25 and 40 per cent over 1990 levels is necessary by 2020 in order to avert the worst effects of climate change, with global emissions falling by at least 50 per cent by 2050.

A new report backed by the UN Environment Programme (http://www.unep.org/UNEP) has found that countries taking part in the Copenhagen summit, expected to draw over 15,000 people, may be closer than some might realize to agreeing to emissions cuts required to allow the world to prevent a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees centigrade.

The publication released today notes that the gap between countries' strongest proposed cuts and what is needed could only be a few billion tonnes of greenhouse gases.

The study was compiled by Lord Stern of Brentford, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science, in collaboration with UNEP analysts.

To ward off a more than 2 degree temperature rise, it said that annual emissions in 2020 must not exceed more than 44 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent. The new analysis shows that the gap between this target and the most ambitious cuts suggested by nations in recent months is some 2 billon tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent.

The gap could be bridged in the Danish capital, the report suggests, by actions including additional reductions from deforestation and other sources slashing emissions from the aviation and shipping industries and key developing countries offering more than their current proposals.
“What we are presenting here is underpinned by numerous provisons – not least that serious and sustained funding is provided to assist countries like Brazil and Indonesia to achieve the high end of their new proposals, and that all nations deliver on their pledges and promises,” said Achim Steiner, UNEP's Executive Director.

The “central message,” he stressed, is that limiting global temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees can be achieved in a cost-effective way with clearly-designed policies consistently applied across countries and industries and “can also set the stage for a low-carbon, resource-efficient 21st century Green Economy.”
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Global Warming - Climate Change. How about Snow?




Houston gets earliest snowfall on record
By JUAN A. LOZANO Associated Press Writer © 2009 The Associated Press
Dec. 4, 2009, 4:23PM

HOUSTON — Houston had its earliest snowfall on record Friday, with several inches accumulating in counties southwest of the city.

The previous record for early snow in Houston was Dec. 10 in 1944 and again last year, said Charles Roeseler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Snow is rare in the nation's fourth largest city. In the past 15 years, it has snowed four times, including Friday.

Accumulations of 3 to 4 inches of snow were reported in counties southwest of Houston. The city got a half inch or less of snow, and its suburbs reported 1 to 2 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

"It's going to continue to snow through the afternoon," Roeseler said in the early afternoon. "We'll pick up another inch or so across parts of Houston."

The city and other parts of Southeast Texas were under a winter storm warning that was expected to remain until Friday evening. Other parts of Texas, including El Paso and Dallas, also had snowfall this week.

Many government offices and businesses around Houston shut down early Friday, said Francisco Sanchez, a spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Houston Mayor Bill White directed city departments to send nonessential employees home Friday afternoon.

The Houston school district did not shorten its school day Friday, but many other districts and colleges around the area sent students home early.

"We're trying to make sure people stay off the roadways," Sanchez said. "We want to get them home earlier today."

Many Houstonians took advantage of the snow day to venture outside and play. Parks were filled with adults and children making snowmen, engaging in snowball fights and posing for photographs.

"We usually like to go to Colorado for some snow, but this year it came to us," said Teri Mims, 36, as she played in the snow with her 6- and 9-year-old daughters in a north Houston park.

The snow wasn't the biggest worry for officials.

It was supposed to stop by Friday evening, but then temperatures were expected to fall below freezing, with lows in the 20s. The National Weather Service issued a freeze warning for 22 Southeast Texas counties that was to be in effect until Saturday morning.

"We're really concerned with what happens overnight with the snow melting on roadways and turning into ice," Sanchez said.

Roads and elevated bridges in Houston and other parts of Southeast Texas were being covered with deicing materials to ensure they were safe to travel, but drivers needed to prepare for some roads to be closed, Sanchez said.

The forecast for Saturday was mostly sunny skies and highs in the lower 40s to upper 50s. Temperatures were expected to climb to near 60 by Sunday.

The snow would likely be gone by Saturday, Roeseler said.

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Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6753784.html
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December 5, 2009

First snow...For many of us


So not many of us would think that Houston would get snow before the northeast, but the weather world is ALWAYS wacky. That's the norm and that's what makes it interesting. Good time for people to get out and get their Christmas trees, which is what's happening around the corner from my place!


So here's what it's like in NYC right now, with the first snow of the season. Huge goose feather flakes, as my mom would always say. For those of you with an iPhone, I've got to say...the Accuweather app is really good. It's easy, got all the info you want quickly, and it's got the best pictures to represent the current conditions. The "rain" one is my favorite, but I've been looking forward to seeing how they depict "snow". Not bad!

I'm getting excited about this week....there's a big storm about to move into southern California and then the four corners. This is a typical "el nino" pattern with a lot of moisture in the southern tier of the US. Blizzard watches have been posted for southern Utah and Colorado and winter storm watches in AZ above 5000 feet. That includes my hometown Prescott, which gets people very excited there. So Monday/Tuesday will be a wintery mess in the four corners! This is a good thing, they always need the moisture, and the ski resorts are already behind.
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Source: http://weather.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/12/05/first-snow-for-many-of-us/
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Texas record snowfall
Sunday, December 06, 2009 » 01:42pm


A winter storm warning has being issued for southern states of America with record snowfall reported.

In Texas a state more accustomed to hurricanes and thunderstorms Houston received its earliest snowfall on record.

Locals made the most of the unexpected weather as four inches of snow covered footpaths.

The snow did cause an impact on the city as airports were closed and flights were delayed.

The snow is thought to be caused by an active jet stream which is dipping all the way down to the Gulf coast with cold air above and moist air below causing a record snowfall.

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Source: http://bigpondnews.com/articles/World/2009/12/06/Texas_record_snowfall_402628.html
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A Church Torn Apart by Confusion



The Anglican church, a.k.a as the Episcopal Church in some instances, is being torn apart by several factors simultaneously. As the Bible states in Revelation13:3, the world is wondering (wandering) after the Beast.

The Anglican denomi-nation boasts of 77 million adherents in Great Britain, North America, and the former Commonwealth of Nations.

One of the reasons why the Anglican/Episcopal (USA) Church is being destroyed is the plan of Canterbury to return to the fold of the mother church, the Roman Catholic Church. Another motive is the moral/cultural divide that has been created by several appointments of homosexual and lesbian bishops to head the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (A-mary-ca). I pity the poor souls that are attached to such a obviously sinful organization. The old adage: "One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch", comes to mind when I contemplate this deplorable situation. It seems that the blind are leading (the blind) this fallen church; and, if these 77 million souls continue in their paths they will also follow their "leaders" into that deep ditch. Can any honest Bible student forget what happend to Sodom and Gomorrah?

I hate to think that what really distinguished the Anglican/Episcopal Church from the Vatican since the start was just Henry VIII and a divorce. The Lord knows that there are many true Christians within both those churches; And, I believe the Lord Almighty wants them to listen to Him and heed His words; Not, the voice of confused and sinful mortal men whose ultimate end is destruction.




Revelation 18

1And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

2And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

3For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

4And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

5For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.


6Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

7How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

8Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.

9And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

10Standing 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.

11And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:

12The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,

13And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

14And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.

15The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,

16And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!

17For 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,

18And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!

19And 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.

20Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.

21And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

22And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;

23And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

24And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
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EducateTruth.com promoted on 3ABN

Uploaded October 30, 2009

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About This Video

This video is Public

David Assherick and Sean Pitman appeared on 3ABN Today Thursday 29, 2009. In a two hour special, "The Science of Faith--Seeing God Through His Creation," they discussed questions regarding creation and evolution. This clip is of Asscherick and Pitman responding to a viewer's question about EducateTruth.com and their petition.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/educatetruth/videos/3/


'>http://

Creating Controversy



September 1, 2009

Ever a thorny issue, the teaching of evolutionary biology at a small Christian university in California has sparked debate on the campus and within the Seventh-day Adventist church.
Now-public e-mails between a recent La Sierra University graduate and his biology professors provide a firsthand glimpse of a debate no doubt playing out at many colleges, where students of faith struggle to reconcile their beliefs with scientific theories on the origins of humanity. Unlike so many such academic discussions, however, the private interchange between Carlos Cerna and his professors has moved beyond the campus walls -- thanks to the Internet -- and generated a review within the church about the appropriateness of evolutionary studies for Seventh-day Adventists, a Christian denomination that embraces the six-day creation story outlined in the Book of Genesis.

Cerna butted heads with professors in a capstone biology course when he sought to insert his creationist beliefs into a paper about evolutionary theories, the e-mails indicate. One of two professors who taught the course had “reluctantly” agreed to Cerna’s approach in principle, but found the final product “unacceptable.”

“The paper you sent me is unacceptable in its present form,” Gary Bradley, a professor of biology, wrote to Cerna May 12. “You said you would address the geological issues presented in class, demonstrating that you understand the data and the mainstream interpretations. Only then would you attach a paragraph taking issue with that interpretation. You have not done this. You have demonstrated only superficial knowledge with what was presented in class and even that was done with clear apologetic skepticism.”

Cerna responded, saying he was “flabbergasted” by Bradley’s e-mail.

“I don’t see why I’m ‘getting the shaft’ for questioning these [scientific] methods, especially at an Adventist university,” he wrote.

The e-mails, as well as Cerna’s paper and other related documents, were leaked to a Web site called EducateTruth.com. Shane Hilde, a La Sierra alumnus critical of what he describes teaching “against the Bible” at the university, is the site’s creator. Hilde says Bradley and Lee Greer, who co-taught Cerna’s class, should both resign because their clear belief in evolution is contradictory to the teachings of the church that founded the university.

“For me it just comes down to employee misrepresenting an employer,” Hilde told Inside Higher Ed. “Someone employed for Pepsi is not going to retain their job promoting Coca-Cola. It’s pretty black and white.”

Hilde’s site, which he says attracts about 1,000 unique visitors each day, has spread the debate about La Sierra among Adventists. But it was an e-mail from David Asscherick, a popular evangelist, that appears to have pressured church leaders to weigh in on the issue. Asscherick, who appears regularly on a 24-hour radio and television station called Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN), wrote members of the church’s General Conference urging them to “do something.”

“It is a matter of incontestable fact that naturalistic evolution is being taught at La Sierra University,” Asscherick wrote in the e-mail dated April 30, “This is not in and of itself a bad thing. Evolution should be taught at our denominational universities. But it should be taught as a competing and inimical worldview to the biblical worldview. We need our young people to know what it is they are up against, yes, but when naturalistic evolution is taught as fact or as the preferred and normative worldview, then we can be sure that the enemy has breached our lines.”

By June 19, the president of the worldwide church had written a letter affirming the church’s belief in a “literal, recent, six-day creation” and that “the Flood was global in nature.” Jan Paulsen, the church's president, went on to say that church-sponsored colleges and universities should teach students about evolution, but mindfully steer them back toward the church’s contrary view.

“As part of that exercise [in teaching] you will also expose them to elements and concepts of evolution. That is understood,” he wrote. “As your pastor, however, I appeal to you that when you take your students out on the journey, you bring them safely back home before the day is over. And their home must always be in the world of faith. You owe it to the students, you owe it to God, you owe it to their parents, you owe it to the church, and you owe it to yourself as a believer to safely guide them through difficult moments on their journey.”

Jay Gallimore, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Michigan Conference, also wrote about the debate on the conference's Web site.

"Adventist parents should be able to trust their colleges and universities to build the faith of their young people," he wrote. "They should not have the additional burden of trying on their own to figure out whether their youth are going to be taught evolution rather than creation."
Cerna, who graduated from La Sierra with a biology degree, said he was not opposed to evolution being taught, so long as it wasn't depicted as the lone viable explanation for the origin of of human beings.

"We should all be very aware of what the leading theory of the origin of life is," he said. "What I have strong feelings about is the way it's being taught. If you’re going to come out at an institution that is a Bible believing institution and say evolution is the only logical theory that makes any sense, then that’s what I have a problem with.”

Professor Not Changing Course

Bradley, who is semi-retired after 38 years at La Sierra, has seen evolution debates erupt on campus before -- and his traditional response is to “dive under the desk and wait for them to blow over.” In this instance, Bradley says he has the backing of his president, who wrote a letter to faculty, staff and trustees affirming the university’s role in the “important conversation of science and faith.”

“We at La Sierra University are continuing to examine how we teach the science relevant to origins in supportive, Adventist, Christian environment,” wrote Randal Wisbey, the university’s president. “We continue to welcome input made in a spirit of constructive Christian fellowship and which is respectful of scientific integrity -- recognizing that while we may not fully agree on everything, our mutual concern is always for unity in love to our Lord and service to His children.”

Wisbey did not respond to interview requests Monday.

The university plans to add a seminar for biology students in which theologians and scientists will discuss the intersections of faith and science. The university has also updated its Web site, listing “important reasons to study biology” on the campus. Students can expect to “study with professors who all deeply believe in God as the Creator of everything,” the site notes. While biology students will be expected to learn theories of evolution, they also “will be introduced to Seventh-day Adventist understandings of Creation, centered in the Genesis account, which reveals the Creator as a personal and loving God,” according to the site.

Bradley says he’s felt no pressure to change anything about his course, and says bluntly that he doesn’t plan to turn his class into a theological seminar, or to present evolutionary theory only to then dismantle it for students. While he’s fine with helping students work through struggles of faith, Bradley says he won’t undercut decades of peer reviewed scientific research in the interest of religious consistency.

“I am not OK with getting up in a science course and saying most science is rubbish,” he said.
Neither Bradley nor Greer have the protections of tenure. Bradley had tenure, but willingly gave it up in a deal to scale back his responsibilities in a phased retirement. Greer, who did not respond to an interview request Monday, is on the tenure track.

Faculty at La Sierra do not have to be members of the Seventh Day Adventist church -- unless they want tenure.

“I hope this will change,” Bradley said. “One cannot be tenure-track if they’re not a member. I’m embarrassed to say that, but it is true.”

Bradley joined the church as a boy, but when asked if he was a practicing Adventist, he said “On record, yes. You can read into that whatever you want.”

“It’s very, very clear that what I’m skeptical of is the absolute necessity of believing that the only way a creator God could do things is by speaking them into existence a few thousand years ago,” Bradley added. “That’s where my skepticism lies. That’s the religious philosophical basis for what I call the lunatic fringe. They do not represent the majority position in the Church, and yes I’m skeptical of that. But I want to say to kids it’s OK for you to believe that, but it’s not OK for you to be ignorant of the scientific data that’s out there.”



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Note: Rubbish used to substitute for a vulgar expression.
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The Secret Behind The Secret Societies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1NdVL74LEQhttp://

alydhiends
May 20, 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1NdVL74LEQ&feature=player_embeddedhttp://

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The Facade of “Global Salvationism”



Terry Melanson (4/12/2009)



According to Mr. Henderson, the great psycho-wave of the past 35 years is “global salvationism.” This quasi-religious belief has two ill-fitting articles of faith: environmental alarmism, and the assertion that Third World poverty is in some way due to the West taking more than its fair share of global resources. Both problems are alleged to require top-down global political solutions, including giant corporations accepting more “social responsibility.”

The focus of this global master-plan is the bland but subversive notion of “sustainable development,” that without extensive UN-administered government controls the world is going to Hades in a handbasket …

- Peter Foster, “The Prince of Power [Maurice Strong],” Financial Post (May 19, 2005)

I can’t think of a better way to put Climategate into proper perspective than to revisit a 1998 Financial Post editorial titled “Global Warming: The Real Agenda.” Its author, Terence Corcoran, quoted from statements given to the Calgary Herald by the former Environment Minister, Christine Stewart.

As “minister of the environment, I am very worried about global warming,” Stewart said, “no matter if the science is phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.”

“Environment Canada, therefore,” Corcoran commented immediately after, “is prepared to act on global warming even if there’s no such thing as global warming. On the strength of phony science, the federal government would still be willing to impose new taxes on energy consumption, cut economic growth, reduce our standard of living, and create bookshelves filled with new regulation governing most facets of the lives of Canadians.”

And further:

In another statement quoted by the Herald, Ms. Stewart gave another reason for adopting the religion of global warming. ‘Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.’ Here she gets closer to the core motivation of some of the leading global warming activists. Where socialism’s attempt at a global redistribution of wealth ended in economic catastrophe, global warming is being wheeled in as the next new economic crusade.
Consolidating Ms. Stewart’s statements, we reach some horrific conclusions. Whether global warming actually exists is irrelevant. It is, in the hands of government and environmental activists, a convenient front for the introduction of programs and economic policies that Canadians - and most citizens of the world - would not otherwise accept.

Ms. Stewart, perhaps unintentionally, has identified the two key foundations of the global warming movement. One is based in environmentalism, which essentially claims that human beings are a problem in nature. The other foundation is the old business of economic redistribution. Both these movements are linked in the international climate change treaty Canada signed in Kyoto. Environment Canada has already given up trying to examine the science. It never really tried. Instead, it spends hundreds of millions of dollars churning out propaganda on the hypothetical effects of global warming.

Putting aside for the moment the socialist proclivities of environmentalists, one salient point brought up in the article was their overt misanthropy – typical of which are statements such as these:

We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster, or for dramatic social change to come and bomb us into the Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our Appropriate Technology, our gardens, our homemade religion, guilt-free at last.
- Stewart Brand, 1980 (quoted in: Rodes and Odell, A Dictionary of Environmental Quotations, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, p. 90)

Curing a body of cancer requires radical and invasive therapy, and therefore, curing the biosphere of the human virus will also require a radical and invasive approach.

- Paul Watson (founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society), May 04, 2007
We have become a plague upon [ourselves and upon] the Earth…Until such a time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.
- David M. Graber, Los Angeles Times, 22 October 1989 (in Rodes and Odell, op. cit., p. 149)
[T]he hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens… us. …When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory…

- The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
Given the total, absolute, and final disappearance of Homo sapiens, then, not only would the Earth’s Community of life continue to exist but in all probability its well-being would be enhanced. Our presence, in short, is not needed. And if we were to take the standpoint of that Life Community and give voice to its true interest, the ending of the human epoch on Earth would most likely be greeted with a hearty “Good riddance!”

- Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics, Princeton University Press, 1986, p. 115

And so on.

There’s some primitivist longing (ala Rousseau or Weishaupt, with a bit of Unabomber- and Gaia-worship for good measure) in the mix, but the main sickness is a bad strain of eco-nihilism – originally diagnosed, perhaps, in George Reisman’s “The Toxicity of Environmentalism.”


Eco-Socialism; Eco-Fascism; Eco-Imperialism

There’s a quote – traced to a single sourceattributed to Communist Party USA National Chairman Gus Hall in 1972: “in the struggle to save the environment….we must be the leaders of these movements…. Human society cannot basically stop the destruction of the environment under capitalism. Socialism is the only structure that makes it possible.”

If the quote is genuine, apparently his wish has come true: ample evidence can be had – from the “horse’s mouth” – in books such as The Greening of Marxism; Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature; or in wiki offerings (such as this, this, this, and this).There’s nary a mention of this, though; much less the validity, and inherent hypocrisy, of this.

The “Wise Men” of Globalism

While it’s inconclusive whether the scientists at East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) are infected with fatalistic, anti-man Malthusian angst, they have in the past received some intriguing email.

On Thu, 27 Mar 2003, self-proclaimed president of “Earth Government,” Canadian Germain Dufour, sent CRU his Earth Government April newsletter titled “Formation of Earth Government for the good of all.” Dufour is perhaps an idealist, but his longing for a one world government is shared by the transnational elite (their think tanks in conjunction with the behemoth UN/UNESCO/NGO/Foundation apparatus) and, presumably, the high priests of climatology as well.

(Contrary to some articles, blogs, and forum posts on the web, it is unlikely that “Earth Government” Germain Dufour is one and the same as the Belgian Germain Dufour, who, according to the French journal l’Humanité in 1999, was a labour activist, a former worker-priest, former green party senator [Ecolo], and a Belgian Communist Party candidate. For one, Joseph-Germain Dufour – if his auto-bio is legit – was in Canada in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s,establishing academic credentials, while studying and working on environmental projects; while the “capuchin Monk” Germain Dufour was variously involved in socialist Belgian labour politics as well as being featured in a 1997 documentary called “Seeker of Silence.” See also the photo comparison below.)
Eco-totalitarianism integrates zealous ideologues, of seemingly disparate persuasions, who collude for top-down control of the planet’s resources. “The climate conference in Copenhagen,” Bilderberg-vetted Herman Van Rompuy said at his first press conference as the newly “appointed” President of the EU, “is another step toward the global management of our planet.” Likewise, the totalitarian bent of the original “wise man” of environmentalism, Maurice Strong, has not diminished with age. In a recent essay for the World Policy Journal, he spewed forth that “our concepts of ballot-box democracy may need to be modified to produce strong governments capable of making difficult decisions.” “This is a man, we might remember,” writes Peter Foster of the Financial Post:

who welcomes the collapse of industrial civilization, and has described the prospect of billions of environmental deaths as a “glimmer of hope.” My editor didn’t believe me when I wrote this, so here’s what Mr. Strong actually said, in his autobiography, in a section described as a report to the shareholders, Earth Inc, dated 2031: “And experts have predicted that the reduction of the human population may well continue to the point that those who survive may not number more than the 1.61 billion people who inhabited the Earth at the beginning of the 20th century. A consequence, yes, of death and destruction — but in the end a glimmer of hope for the future of our species and its potential for regeneration.”

Strong’s Green-comrade is, of course, Mikhail Gorbachev.

A recent article by Kim Campbell – former Prime Minister of Canada, founding member of the Club of Madrid, and Senior Fellow of the Gorbachev Foundation of North America – is titled “Gorbachev continues to shape history.”

“Gorbachev is today not merely a man of historical significance,” Campbell writes affectionately, “but a man who continues to shape history with his world-changing ways.” Behind the scenes he continues “working the world leaders’ circuit selling climate change — the UN in Geneva in early October, the Club of Rome in Amsterdam two weeks later, Nobel laureates in Berlin and the Club of Madrid last week — and then on to Copenhagen next month.”

The Club of Rome has been ramping up its activities as COP15 approaches. The conference that Gorbachev had attended in October was, according to one of its websites, the “last of seven stepping stones, seven global meetings, starting in Turin early 2008, in the run-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Copenhagen in December 2009, on which depends so much.” Club of Rome Global Assembly 2009 featured speakers such as global warming propagandist James Hansen (whose presentation was titled “Global Warming Time Bomb: Actions Needed to Avert Disaster”), and was attended by Bilderberg luminary Queen Beatrix.

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlans and Gorbachev at the Club of Rome Global Assembly 2009

“The Club of Rome was deliberately fashioned to influence policy,” wrote one of its founders, Alexander King in 1979. It originated 12 years earlier:

when Dr Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist, met the present author, a British scientist. They agreed on what later became the central concern of the Club of Rome: to find solutions to the tangle of interacting problems, now facing all mankind. So far the Club’s greatest impact on world opinion was the report it commissioned from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Limits to Growth.

The interdisciplinary concept is predominant in this and the Club’s five subsequent reports. Regular meetings of Club members with Heads of States and other high officials is a further important activity. Like its small and local precursor, the Lunar Society of Birmingham, two hundred years ago, the international Club of Rome derives its strength from its eminent membership of private citizens, working together as a catalyst and a spur to the world’s conscience.

It comes as no surprise that one of the inspirations behind the work of the Club of Rome was Harrison Brown. J. Rennie Whitehead, one of the founders of the Canadian Association of the Club of Rome (CACOR), writes:

In 1954, Dr. Harrison Brown of the USA had written a book The Challenge of Man’s Future, in which he outlined, with great clarity and foresight, most of the major problems that, fifteen years later, became the preoccupation of the Club of Rome and which now, forty years later, seem to be even further away from solution. Even today, Harrison Brown’s book is still one of the best analytical presentations of the probable consequences of population growth and the inevitable shift from fossil fuels to other sources of energy.

As you may recall “mass sterilization” John Holdren was profoundly influenced by Harrison’s 1954 book as well. Like Harrison and Holdren, pessimistic Malthusian preoccupation has always been the raison d’être of the Club of Rome. Holdren was co-author on a book and few papers with Club of Rome luminary Paul R. Ehrlich. In the latter’s 1968 The Population Bomb (pp. 130-1), we find the stark admission that:

The first task is population control at home. How do we go about it? Many of my colleagues feel that some sort of compulsory birth regulation would be necessary to achieve such control. One plan often mentioned involves the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired population size.

Another admission, in 1991, was that the Club of Rome used “environmentalism” as a vehicle for misanthropic gloom and doom:

In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill … All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.

- Alexander King, Bertrand Schneider (co-founder and secretary, respectively, of the Club of Rome), The First Global Revolution, p. 115

Lest the reader entertain the incredulous notion that these globalization kingpins have somehow redeemed themselves, and have all joined the choir; one need only peruse the 2007 CACOR Proceedings.

An article by Fred G. Thompson (“Turning the Elephant Around”), in particular, has this to say:
[W]e have temporarily acquired the means to defy Nature, it is only for a short time. If we do not design policies to halt, and then reverse population growth, Nature by default will soon exact a most punishing solution. [...] The reduction of human population by default means in plain language the reduction of human numbers by war, disease and famine. [...]

Over-consumption is, of course, the basic cause of polluting the atmosphere and global warming. So it must be dealt with.

One possible scenario would be the imposition of birth control by a world government which possesses the capacity to enforce it globally. Not a pretty scene, but an alternative to global war, disease and starvation.

(Notice that it’s “Nature” with a capital “N”.)

In the same issue Charles Beaubien proposed that the Club of Rome work toward a super-ordinate (of a superior kind, rank, status) “World Community,” that “would make of the quarrelsome UN a central World Government, interacting with present national governments (minus today’s Security Council).”

And only a few weeks ago there was a press release by Francesco Stipo, Director of the USA Club of Rome. He was promoting his book, World Federalist Manifesto: Guide to Political Globalization, at a National Press Club Luncheon. “A world government is the only solution to world problems, such as climate change and the global economic crisis,” he wrote. “A world confederation that respects the sovereignty of world nations and that deals with the issues of international economy that cannot be dealt by one nation alone.” Which is it – a Federation or a Confederation? The title of the book suggests the former, while the latter seems like a bit of semantics to trick those who may still entertain the notion of patriotism.

The Club of Rome are also funds and supports the major players of the New Age apparatus. An offshoot was established in 1978 by Club of Rome founder Aurelio Peccei and Ervin Laszlo. The Club of Budapest is a network of consciousness and evolutionary thinkers – new age, communitarian, change agent (paradigm shift), deep ecology humanists – who comprise a World Wisdom Council (WWC) and a World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality.
Dr. Ervin Laszlo is President of the Club of Budapest. He’s a philosopher and “Systems Theory” expert; the “author of more than 400 papers and articles and over eighty books of which the most recent are ‘Science and the Akashic Field’ (2007) and ‘Quantum Shift in the Global Brain’ (2008), and co-founder and president of the board of trustees of the WorldShift Foundation”; and a purveyor of an imminent world shift in 2012 – the last of which fits like a glove with the scaremongering tactics of his Club of Rome benefactors.

In short, the “Aquarian Conspiracy” first identified by Marilyn Ferguson in the 1980s has not only achieved full bloom, but has graduated from infiltration into a consensus-making, global establishment of “powerful networks, partnerships and collaborations in the interest of fostering growing circles and forces for creative transformation on a planetary scale.”

Source: http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Blog/?p=3176

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