Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Cartoonist Draws Ire of N.J. Irish

DECEMBER 14, 2011

Thomas Nast, whose antislavery political cartoons propelled him to notoriety in the 19th century, has ignited another uproar: whether his anti-Irish and -Catholic drawings should disqualify him from the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

Irish and Catholic groups are waging a campaign against including the father of the American political cartoon in that group of notable New Jerseyans, arguing that he routinely depicted them in an unfavorable light.

[IRISH]Harper's Weekly

Some of Thomas Nast's cartoons, such as the 1871 drawing above, have stirred opposition to plans to honor him in New Jersey.

"He portrayed the Irish as drunken apes, and the image still remains today. We have a lot to offer beyond that," said Sean Pender, president of the New Jersey Ancient Order of Hibernians, a fraternal group with 2,500 members that is campaigning against Nast's nomination. The Knights of Columbus in New Jersey has also joined the cause.

Mr. Pender pointed to "The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things," a cartoon by Nast that shows a drunken Irishman lighting a powder keg. Another, "The American River Ganges," depicts Catholic bishops as crocodiles trying to attack schoolchildren.

Nast—whose drawings gave rise to Uncle Sam, Santa Claus and the elephant and donkey that symbolize the American political parties—was critical of the Irish as supporters of Tammany Hall. He pilloried the Vatican for trying to recruit children from public schools into parochial institutions.

The anti-Nast forces are writing letters and calling lawmakers and the New Jersey Hall of Fame to make their case.

Don Jay Smith, the executive director of the New Jersey Hall of Fame, a nonprofit based in Newark, said his office had received 50 calls from critics as of Tuesday afternoon.

Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo, an Irish Catholic Democrat representing Hamilton Township near Trenton, said he was "deeply troubled" by the cartoonist's nomination and asked the group to remove him in a letter sent Tuesday.

Another Irish-American assemblyman, Scott Rumana, said, "We have come a long way as a society since the 1800s and there is no room for Mr. Nast's name in such a celebrated and esteemed venue."

State Sen. Richard Codey, a former governor who proudly described himself as "100% Irish," was less quick to judge.

"No one hates a stereotype more than me," he said. "But it seems that [Nast] just went along with the thinking of the time. I don't think he should be crucified for that."

Even Gov. Chris Christie—who is half Irish-American—has weighed in on the dispute. The governor said in a letter to Irish groups last week that he understood their concerns, but he had no direct influence over the selection. He encouraged critics to vote for alternative candidates.

Thousands are expected to cast online ballots before Jan. 1 for 50 nominees in five categories. The vote is open to the general public, and winners will be announced in January. Living inductees are invited to an award ceremony at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark in June.

Authorized by state statute, the Hall of Fame has inducted an annual crop of luminaries with New Jersey ties since 2008, including Meryl Streep, Bruce Springsteen, Shaquille O'Neal and Albert Einstein. The 56 inductees have treated the honor with surprisingly seriousness; Jack Nicholson took weeks to polish his acceptance speech, Mr. Smith said.

Nast, who lived for much of his life in Morristown, was first nominated in 2009. The German immigrant moved there in 1872 and worked for Harper's magazine in New York City.

Nast was an abolitionist who supported equal treatment for blacks and Asians. The anti-Irish tenure of his cartoons was a product of the times, said Christine Jochem, the head of special collections at the Morristown & Morris Township Library, which holds one of the nation's largest repositories of cartoons by the artist.

Nast is credited as being instrumental with the downfall of Tammany Hall leader Boss Tweed, who reportedly issued a bribe to try and stop the cartoonist.

In 1902, Theodore Roosevelt appointed Nast to be the consul general to Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he died after contracting yellow fever.

No "reputable" historian has discredited the cartoonist as a bigot, Mr. Smith said. The Hall of Fame is encouraging those with misgivings to channel them by voting online rather than calling the office.

"He really did champion a lot of minorities," Ms. Jochem said. "Unless you put his work in context, it's easy to say he was racist."


Source


Prime-time religion: Catholics to air national TV ads

6Dec2011
3:25pm, EST

Catholics Come Home

Catholic Come Home's upcoming prime-time TV ads are aimed at getting inactive Catholics and others to return to church.

Catholics Come Home wants Catholics to come back to church, and it’s using prime-time television ads to get across the message.

The nonprofit lay organization is partnering with dioceses across the country to launch a major, national “evangelization” campaign whose main component is nearly $4 million in network TV ads that will air across the country Dec. 16 to Jan. 8.

It’s the first such national TV ad campaign ever for the Catholic Church, says Tom Peterson, president of Roswell, Ga.-based Catholics Come Home. The goal is to reach out not only to inactive Catholics, but also to people who have never belonged to a faith or who may want to consider switching religions.

“Ads will air more than 400 times during the three-week period on major networks like CBS and NBC and cable stations like TNT and CNN inviting viewers to take a look at the church and to ‘come home’ during the holidays and New Year’s,” Peterson told msnbc.com on Tuesday.

The 30- and 60-second commercials will air in English and Spanish on major networks in every diocese, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Peterson said 250 million viewers in more than 10,000 cities and every diocese will be exposed to the ads.

In the past, Catholics Come Home has aired evangelization ads in regional markets like Seattle, Omaha, Neb., and Providence, R.I. , and a few hundred thousand people “returned” to the church as a result, Peterson said.

The goal of the national ad campaign is to bring as many as 1 million people back to the Catholic faith, he said.

Mormon campaign
It’s not the first time religious denominations have taken to the airwaves to promote their faith.


The Mormon Church, which has nearly 6 million members in the U.S., last year launched a multimillion-dollar television, billboard and Internet advertising campaign called “I’m a Mormon.” The campaign, which was recently expanded to 21 media markets, features profiles of Mormons from various walks of life. Its goal is to educate the public and dispel myths about one of the fastest-growing religions in the world, church officials say. They say the timing of the expansion doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that two Mormons are running for president: Mitt Romney and John Huntsman.

About 65 million people identify themselves as Catholic in the U.S., making it the single largest denomination in America. But according to a recent Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate poll, only 33 percent of U.S. Catholics attend weekly Mass, Peterson noted. That means 42.7 million, or two-thirds, of U.S. Catholics are not going to Mass.

That's a sizable audience of potential church-goers to be tapped.

Peterson notes that studies have shown the average American spends 38 hours per week consuming media, with TV and Internet being the top two choices, so it makes sense to reach out to them via television.

“Companies like Coca Cola, Microsoft, IBM are using advertising communication to promote a product. It makes sense for faithful Christians and Catholics to use modern media to promote the ant thing in world, and that is faith in Jesus Christ.”


Source


President What's His Name?


A long time ago there was someone who would call me hard name; He couldn't pronounce my name, so he gave me that nickname (now they call that hazing). That was way before the 2012 Election. Nowadays, my name is a household word. Oh, yeah. Wooh, Wooh!

During this Presidential race we have a very strange situation with the incumbent Obama and his Republican opponents. The President's two leading rivals are named Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney. So, here we have a President named Barack running against either Mitt or Newt. What a tongue twister that is? What weird names?

I am perfectly sure that never before did we ever have such a political situation where all the top contenders for Commander in Chief had strange names. Barack, Newt and Mitt.

What ever happened to regular, garden variety names for candidates or presidents?

There are no Theodore's, Andrew's, or Benjamin's; or no John's, or even Dwight's?


Well, as far as Mitt and Newt are concerned; these two will virtually denigrate and destroy each other into oblivion in the process of getting the Republican Party nomination. This will make it easier for President Obama to be reelected; without taking into consideration that the Democratic Party has pledged to spend ONE BILLION DOLLARS in the Presidential Campaign.

Remember how during his Presidential Campaign against George W. Bush, Senator Obama raised $750 Million just in the month of September 2008? So money is no object in this current race, and I believe the sky is the limit. We remain to see many more strange phenomena before November 2012.

The above mentioned factors along with several others not mentioned here will undoubtedly ensure that President Barack Hussein Obama will be re-elected.

Stay tuned!

Arsenio Lembert



Report: 1 killed, 2 hurt in NYC elevator accident

By NBC News and msnbc.com staff

A freak elevator accident in a midtown Manhattan building crushed a woman to death Wednesday and injured two other people, reported NBCNewYork.com. The incident happened Wednesday morning when the elevator, located in a Madison Avenue office building, began rising as the woman was stepping onto it. Officials said the woman was halfway onto the elevator when it shot up without closing its doors first, crushing her between the elevator and the ceiling, according to NBCNewYork.The injured people were already on the elevator at the time of the accident, NBCNewYork reported. According to CBSNewYork.com, their injuries were minor.It is not yet known what caused the elevator to fail.The building, located at 285 Madison Ave. near East 40th Street, is 25 stories tall, according to local media. Advertising agency Young & Rubicam is located there, as well as other businesses.


Source

Vatican Astronomy


Last night 12/13/2011 (1am - 5am ET / 10pm - 2am PT), Coast to Coast AM advertised it would host a program titled:

Vatican Astronomy

Well, this morning after the program was aired the tile has been updated (changed) to Space & Faith .

I Googled the program title and found the following link; But, when you click on this link the title for last night's program gets revised:

Headlines
ufoenthusiast.org/pages/news
Coast to Coast AM : Upcoming Shows. Vatican Astronomy ... Recent Headlines Yahoo. A UFO in Moscow? ... Recent Headlines Google. A UFO in Moscow? ...

Here's the Coast to Coast AM website description of the show (last show recap):
Space & Faith

Date:
12-13-11

Host:
George Noory

Guests:
Brother Guy Consolmagno

Astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, Brother Guy Consolmagno, discussed space issues such as the question of ET life, Russia's interest in going to Phobos, dark energy, and the big bang theory as well as how faith and science can coexist. He explained that the Vatican's interest in the cosmos is driven by "the same sense of curiosity and mystery that fueled people to look at the sky since the beginning of time." In looking at the tremendous leaps in scientific insight over the last few years, he marveled that "half the things" he originally learned about space are now suspect, while radical ideas from as recently as ten years ago are now viewed as entirely possible.

Consolmagno shared an analogy that captures the difficulties faced by humans in trying to better understand our universe. He started by noting that the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are believed to have liquid water beneath a surface layer of ice. Supposing that there was intelligent life in those oceans, they would be restricted by the ice above them and the ground below, knowing only that world as their universe. These beings, Consolmagno said, would never be able to know they were just a small part of a much larger system of moons, planets, stars, and galaxies. "And then you ask, 'what are the things that we don't know that we don't know,'" he pondered, "what are the boundaries that are part of our universe that even we can't be aware of?"

Contrary to the idea that science and faith are mutually exclusive, Consolmagno said that every religion, even those that seem hostile to science, have scientists which belong to them. On a personal level, he attributed his faith as a key motivator behind his ongoing scientific work. "It's that sense that I'm touching the stuff that God made," he mused, "day in and day out, seeing how the universe works, I'm in a conversation with the creator." Additionally, he contended that greater understanding of our universe does not threaten the idea of God, but, rather, "as our universe gets bigger, I would say our understanding of the creator of the universe gets bigger."
I was able to listen to some of the interview before I fell asleep, and what I heard dealt more with the Roman Catholic faith that anything else. It sounded more like a Public Relations spot for the Vatican. The guest of the second hour of the program 'Brother' Consolmagno, as George Noory repeatedly called him is a Jesuit Astronomer.

I am well aware that this program traditionally misinforms rather than provide useful information about current events, trivia, or covert activities. However, last night's title, Vatican Astronomy piqued my curiosity; And boy was I happy I listened to some of this interview since it confirmed my understanding of Jesuit media manipulation. The program turned out to be just another promotion of the Vatican and its ongoing campaign for greater influence in the world.
Most of what I heard was about how Jesuits think.

How can anyone claim the name Jesus, and not know Him whatsoever?

Consolmagno's statements illustrated a secular mindset, despite his claim of being a cleric.

Personally, I am not surprised at all since dissembling is the Jesuit modus operandi.

What impresses me is the blatant increase of Roman Catholic propaganda passed off as news on commercial media, and on public radio. This constant and determined promotion of this religion is an additonal confirmation that the Vatican will soon control the whole world; The ambitious Catholic agenda is prophesied to first dominate the United States of America, and then spread throughout the planet.

  • Vatican Astronomy?
  • Space & Faith?
  • Or, Roman Catholics on the radio flaunting their control of the media?

I feel that the third title best describes what took place on Coast to Coast AM, last night.


Imsomnia can sometimes be beneficial, especially when it confirms prophecy.


"Rose is a rose, is a rose, is a rose, is a rose." Even if you don't wear 'rose' colored glasses.

Right now, I'm seeing crimson and violet all over the place. Which can only mean one thing...



Arsenio.



Note: The Program with Consolmagno S.J. will be rebroadcast online here on 970 WFLA Fox Newsradio Tampa tonight 12/14/2011 @ 10PM - 1AM ET



Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Climate Change and Catholic Higher Education



Uploaded by on Apr 4, 2011

Dr. Nancy Tuchman, Associate Provost and Professor of Aquatic Ecology at Loyola University Chicago, speaks about the global impact of climate change, its implications for the future of humanity, the Jesuit vision for the environment, and the creative efforts that students, faculty, and administrators are undertaking to make Loyola University a more ecologically-friendly campus.



Global Economy and Cultures



by James L. Connor, S.J.

[Woodstock Report, October 1999, No. 59]
Copyright © 1999 Woodstock Theological Center
All rights reserved

http://www.georgetown.edu/centers/woodstock/report/r-fea59.htm

Introduction. From September 10 to 17, 1999, 14 Jesuits from research and social action centers in 11 countries gathered in Washington under the auspices of the Woodstock Theological Center to reflect on the impact that the globalization of the free market economy is having on local cultures worldwide (see page 4). It was the kick-off session of the most ambitious—and expensive ($1.2 million) —project that Woodstock has ever undertaken.

This project is a direct response to a mandate of the 1995 Jesuit General Congregation, which, when in session, is the highest governing body of the Jesuit Order. This was the 34th such Congregation in the 450-year history of the Jesuits. On the topic of the global economy and culture it said:

The globalization of the world economy and society proceeds at a rapid pace, fed by developments in technology, communications, and business. While there can be many benefits from this phenomenon, it can also create injustices on a massive scale ... In justice, we must counter this by working to build up a world order of genuine solidarity, where all can have a rightful place at the banquet of the Kingdom. (General Congregation 34, Decree 3, no.7)

I was one of the 220 Jesuit members of that Congregation. During the course of those three months, 25 of us who worked in Jesuit social research or social action centers got together informally several times to share experience and to discover whether there were any issues on which we could profitably collaborate. After much discussion, we landed on the globalization of the economy and its impact on cultures. I volunteered Woodstock as the coordinating agency.

Launching the project. Once home I asked Woodstock fellow Father Gasper F. (Gap) Lo Biondo, S.J., to head up this project. And we started the process by enlisting an international sponsoring committee: Irudayam Aloysius, S.J. (India), Jean Yves Calvez, S.J. (France), Marcos Recolons, S.J. (Latin America), Jean Illboudo, S.J. (Africa), Francisco Ivern, S.J. (Brasil), and Ismael Zuloaga, S.J. (East Asia). Next, we invited 44 Jesuit centers to participate (see Core Participants in Global Economy and Cultures Project). The enthusiastically affirmative response confirmed our confidence in our choice of topic. The ultimate aim of the project would be to decide on, publish, and try to have implemented some policy level recommendations for the improvement of the way the global economy is affecting cultures and peoples. Policymakers envisaged range from the international level (World Bank, IMF, multinational corporations) all the way down to the grassroots (local government, social action centers).

The first step was to ask the participating centers for stories! Our motive here was to head off the Jesuit penchant to give an opinion, insist on a theory, cite an authority, or even offer a solution, before we were sure what the facts were! And the facts are imbedded in actual experience. Fortunately, Jesuit centers are in contact with the whole range of people who are being variously affected by the new economy, from the poorest of the poor, to those at the highest levels of government or corporate life, including scholars and experts in and out of academia.

Besides the expert advisers (see page 8) that we are and will be consulting, we are reading the recent rash of literature that authors are producing on this topic of globalization and its influence on society and culture. (See bibliography on page 7.) They all agree that what is uniquely characteristic about this new wave of globalization —that of the 1990s—is its "engine" or "power-source," namely, the technology of electronic communication. Precisely how this technology is shaping not only business, society, and culture, but human consciousness itself is a core question deeply imbedded in this project on "globalization and cultures!" Its ramifications are profound.

"So, what’s happening?" That’s what we asked people in this first go-around. And they told us their actual experience in the form of story, anecdote, or example. We got dozens of stories back from the centers. We collated them, summarized them, and mailed all of them back out to the 44 participating centers, so that all could see what each sector was experiencing. And that’s when we convened here in Washington, D.C., with representatives from roughly a quarter of the participating centers to re-read, analyze, and discuss with one another this welter of evidence. We hoped to discover in these stories some patterns, common themes, regularly recurring relationships, and the underlying explanation for both successes and failures of the global economy.

This method of starting with concrete experience, and struggling to understand its meaning and implications, before moving to decide what to do to improve or remedy a situation, is the pattern St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, commends in his "Spiritual Exercises." General Congregation 34 (quoting GC 32) described it, as "the Ignatian method of prayerful discernment which can be described as ‘a constant interplay between experience, reflection, decision and action, in line with the Jesuit ideal of being contemplative in action.’" This is the process we followed at the September meeting and it is the process which, with appropriate adaptations, the entire three-year project will follow.

By meeting’s end this September, the group issued a 16 page consensus statement that was appropriately tentative in tone. Even simple declarative sentences were regarded more as questions for future study than closed doors on issues. A sampling will illustrate the point.

An opening "Note" gives the flavor of the meeting.

Globalization is a complex reality. Like capitalism, as described by Joseph Schumpeter, globalization consists of a process of "creative destruction" in which there are economic winners and losers. Globalization stimulates economic growth and social improvement for some, while at the same time, it lays economic burdens on many people and disrupts human development.

The harms and benefits of globalization are not evenly distributed either among nations or within them. Given the economic gap between the First World and the Third World, however, our effort to see globalization from the perspective of the world's poor inevitably means that, while the participants did consider the benefits of globalization and endeavored to correct an overly negative bias, the discussion reported here did not view globalization in a neutral way. Our concern is for the victims of the process.

Defining globalization and culture. Two basic questions that the group bumped into almost immediately were, "What is globalization?" and "What do we mean by culture?" And when they took a shot at defining terms this is what they came up with:

Globalization encompasses the process of an increasingly open flow of information and movement of money, goods, images, ideas, and people between different countries and cultures. Economic globalization refers to the progressive incorporation and networking of nations in the international (global) free market economy through agreements on policies of rapid liberalization or the opening up of local markets to international flows of capital, labor, goods, services, and technology under the control of transnational institutions.

In defining culture, they went back to General Congregation 34 and expanded on it:

"Culture is the way in which a human group lives, thinks, feels, organizes, celebrates, and shares life." (GC 34, D 4, n. 1) Underlying all manifestations or expressions of culture there is a set or system of meanings, of values and criteria, of world views that are translated into languages, gestures, symbols, roles, styles, and patterns of life.

While cultures possess an enduring core of values, etc., they are also pluriform and subject to change through interaction with other cultural influences.

The group then moved to list beneficial and negative influences of the economy on cultures.

First, the benefits:

(1) The development and use of information technology, especially the internet, in the ease with which knowledge can be communicated to people in distant places,

(2) The increase in economies of scale results for some people in wealth and opportunities for upward mobility,

(3) The capability of promoting common cultural values, in that people in different parts of the world can identify and act in light of "best practices,"

(4) Modern communication and travel enabling groups, people, and countries struggling for justice to achieve greater solidarity,

(5) A greater concern for human rights as part of, and in response to, the globalization process,

(6) An explosive increase of healthy spirituality, and

(7) Greater community activity.

Second, the negative impacts:

(1) The ideology of the free market advances the interests of business and increases the power of economic decision-making groups. Globalization is driven by the imposition of business values—particularly, the assertion of the primacy of the market and the diminution of the role of the state in economic life.

(2) In many poor and indebted nations, the imposition of Economic Structural Adjustment Programs forces countries into a liberalized global market on whose rules they exercise no influence.

(3) The growth of international media tends to alter (homogenize) local consumption habits and displace traditional, domestic forms of production and consumption. Through cinema, television, and the internet, global media reach into remote corners of the world, establishing a global culture but also relativizing and subverting local cultures.

(4) Globalization has led to "the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer," among and within nations. The majority of the world population has been excluded from the benefits of globalization.

(5) A "culture of illusion" has arisen, characterized by unrealistic expectations and wants.

(6) The migration of people has grown.

(7) The Third World has become more dependent on multinational/transnational corporations.

Next steps. The participants concluded by listing 25 (!!) topics that need further study before this project can complete its work responsibly. That shows how tentative current con-clusions are, as well as how much the project has yet to do.

The report was mailed out to all 44 participating centers. Grateful and congratulatory responses started coming in immediately. The report is being shared with the full membership of the centers’ research teams, with their Jesuit province leadership, with other scholars, and organizations with whom they work. The report will be the basis for the next phase of discussion, criticism and constructive suggestions.

Gap Lo Biondo will start moving around the world to promote regional meetings of the participating centers. He left on October 8 to spend two weeks in India. Thereafter, he will go to South America, Africa, East Asia, Eastern and Central Europe, Western Europe, and North America. He will be cumulatively communicating at each location what other locations are thinking, saying, and concluding.

There is also a "chat room" being set up, wherein participants can interchange with one another directly. There will certainly be at least one large, long, international gathering of all the participating center members before the final statement of policy recommendations is finished for publication and distribution. Depending on funding, there might even be two such large meetings, appropriately spaced.

Fulfilling a dream. I must confess to enormous enthusiasm for this project. It is the realization of a dream of our late Father General Pedro Arrupe, S.J., for whom I have deep affection and great gratitude. I came to know him well when I was provincial superior of the Maryland Province and president of the U.S. Jesuit Conference, assignments which took me rather often to Rome.

Father Arrupe dreamed of Jesuit centers all over the world in active communication with one another to address major social issues of our day. He called them "poles of reflection," which made me think of telephone poles con-nected together by world-girdling wires! A better world for all people is what drove Father Arrupe relentlessly. (One major influence on him was the fact that he was the first medically trained person to treat the victims of Hiroshima!)

Fulfilling Father Arrupe’s dream would alone suffice to make this project a "labor of love" for Woodstock and its companion centers. The second reason is to share in his passion for a better world for all people.

PARTICIPANTS IN THE SEPTEMBER MEETING

Marcello Azevedo, S.J., Centro Cultural de Brasilia, Brasil
John Carroll, S.J., Institute on Church and Social Issues, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
Ricardo Falla, S.J., Central American Province Social Apostolate Commission, Honduras
Muhigirwa Ferdinand, S.J., CEPAS, Kinshasa, D.R. Congo
Michel Guery, S.J., INADES, Abijan, Ivory Coast
Savarimuthu Lazar, S.J., Indian Social Institute, Bangalore, India
Stanislaus Opiela, S.J., Moscow, Russia
Ambrose Pinto, S.J., Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, India
William F. Ryan, S.J., Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice, Toronto, Canada
Dieter B. Scholz, S.J., Silveira House, Zimbabwe
William Toner, S.J., Centre for Faith and Justice, Dublin, Ireland
Jean-Yves Calvez, S.J., Paris, France
James L. Connor, S.J., Woodstock Theological Center, Washington, D.C., USA
Wilfredo Gonzalez, S.J., Centro Gumilla, Caracas, Venezuela



NKJV - The Subtle Deception

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SD2uohA2No&feature=player_embedded





NKJV - The Subtle Deception / 2011-10-26 - Ben Jones


Uploaded by on Oct 28, 2011

Is the NKJV just the KJV with the Thee's and Thou's changed? Is it based on the Textus Receptus or The Sinaiticus / alexandrian texts? The answer may surprise you.


http://markwoodman.org/

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Monday, December 12, 2011

Gerald Celente: Brace for Economic 9/11



Founder of Trends Research Institute Gerald Celente predicts an economic 9/11 for the United States is just around the corner.

Though last Friday’s U.S. Labor Department employment report showed a remarkable drop in the unemployment rate to 8.6 percent for November, down from 9 percent in October, Celente’s said nothing has changed in the employment picture. In fact, he said, the economy will get worse.

Moreover, because of the Celente’s deteriorating jobs outlook, continued inflation and a deepening recession slated for the first quarter of 2012, American will explode into “economic martial law,” according to him.

America is being fed the hope of a recovery; it’s all a “lie,” Celente said, and will blindside many Americans who still believe Washington’s propaganda and numbers fudging.

“It’s food stamp employees. Oh, there were jobs created in retail,” Celente told Russia Today. “You know, those wonderful jobs where you take people’s money and say, ‘Have a nice day’. And there were jobs in hospitality. That’s another word for cleaning up somebody’s room. Oh, and there were jobs in healthcare. You know, working in nursing homes, making $62.50 a week by the time after taxes. You know, so these aren’t real jobs. This is a plantation economy.”

Not only are poor quality jobs created, but buried in the November labor data reveals 315,000 unemployed workers haven’t found jobs in the last 12 months. These long-term jobless Americans fall off the radar, no longer counted by the Labor Department, thereby artificially lowering the unemployment rate. (For more on government manipulation regarding employment statistics, see Shadowstats.com)

The number of Americans who want to work but still cannot find work stands at 13.3 million. And the jobs picture gets worse after taking into account a naturally growing U.S. labor pool.

“And the big lie, that no one’s talking about as they pump up this weak number, is that, you need a 125,000 jobs a month to account for the new people moving into the economy and population growth,” Celente explained. “So that leaves all the people that have lost all these jobs since the Great Recession hit still out of work.

“It’s going to get worse,” he added. “As a matter of fact, we’re coming out with our top trends for 2012, and one of them is going to be economic martial law. We’re going to go into an economic 9/11.”

Celente notes a disconnect between the reality of an impending economic collapse and Americans taken in by hype surrounding the day after the Thanksgiving Day holiday, or ‘Black Friday’. While the U.S. economic ship sinks, the passengers seem not to notice, according to Celente.

“What they’re [the Fed] doing is that, they’re pumping this up to get the people to spend their last pennies that they don’t have on Christmas junk,” he said. “And you saw with all the hype with this Black Friday. They’re not solving the problems over in Europe.

“The European Union is collapsing, the European monetary union. What did they do? They just came out with credit ratings, showing 15 of the banks have lost their credit ratings because they’ve been degrading. The same day they come out, central banks around the world are pumping trillions of dollars into them to keep it afloat.”

The so-called smart money, however, isn’t fooled. Stock prices, which are regarded as a reliable leading economic indicator of future economic growth, have stalled from the bear market rally of March 2009.

And the Fed appears to be confirming the fear on Wall Street. On Dec. 8, the U.S. central bank released a report showing a $2.4 trillion drop in U.S. household net worth for the quarter ending Sept. 30.

“Americans’ wealth last summer suffered its biggest quarterly loss in more than two years as stocks, pension funds and home values lost value,” according to Reuters. “It was the sharpest drop since the tumultuous period after the September 2008 bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers.”

Adding to the worries of a renewed downturn in the U.S. economy include Europe’s and Japan’s financial problems as well as a China slowdown, which, taken together, have never conspired simultaneously since the Great Depression.

If the U.S., Europe, Japan and China, together representing more than half of global GDP, how will America, Europe and Japan pay on its sovereign debt?

Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, governments backstopped the financial system to prevent financial Armageddon. Today, it’s the governments that need backstopping. Who will backstop them?

“When the New Year comes, the Winter of Discontent is going to set in, reality is going to bite,” Celente concluded. Brace for an economic 9/11.


Source

Police to test laser that 'blinds rioters'

A shoulder-mounted laser that emits a blinding wall of light capable of repelling rioters is to be trialled by police under preparations to prevent a repeat of this summer's looting and arson.

London riots: send in water cannon to clear streets, Theresa May told
Police will trial a laser-firing rifle to suppress riots, the Home Office said.

The technology, developed by a former Royal Marine commando, temporarily impairs the vision of anyone who looks towards the source.

It has impressed a division of the Home Office which is testing a new range of devices because of the growing number of violent situations facing the police.

The developer, British-based Photonic Security Systems, hopes to offer the device to shipping companies to deter pirates. Similar devices have been used by ISAF troops in Afghanistan to protect convoys from insurgents.

The laser, resembling a rifle and known as an SMU 100, can dazzle and incapacitate targets up to 500m away with a wall of light up to three metres squared. It costs £25,000 and has an infrared scope to spot looters in poor visibility.

Looking at the intense beam causes a short-lived effect similar to staring at the sun, forcing the target to turn away.

"The system would give police an intimidating visual deterrent. If you can't look at something you can't attack it," said Paul Kerr, the firm's managing director, told The Sunday Times.

"If police spot someone trying to do something untoward, painting them with this would certainly make them think twice about it," he said. He said it could also be deployed during hostage rescues.

The Home Office has been considering new forms of non-lethal equipment since the August riots, with the limited range of tasers and CS gas leaving a "capability gap".

A Home Office spokesman said scientists at its Centre for Applied Science and Technology believe the use of lasers "has merit" and that it will be piloted by at least one police force. However, they will have to be satisfied the technology does not cause long-term health damage before it can be approved by the Home Secretary.

Other technology being studied includes 'wireless electronic interceptors' that can be fired a greater distance than Tasers, and long-range chemical irritant projectiles, the newspaper said.

The Metropolitan Police is exploring the possibility of buying three water cannons at a cost of £4m. Currently the only police force in the UK to operate water cannon is the Police Force of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which has six. Scotland Yard is also increasing the number of officers trained to fire plastic bullets, as a direct response to the riots.


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Latvia’s largest bank fights off depositor run after rumors of imminent collapse


December 12, 2011LATVIALatvia’s largest bank scrambled Monday to head off a run among depositors who were gripped by rumors of the bank’s imminent ruin. Weekend rumors that Swedbank was facing legal and liquidity problems in Estonia and Sweden sent thousands of Latvians to bank machines on Sunday, with some lines reaching as many as 50 people. Latvians are particularly sensitive to speculation about banks’ health. Latvijas Krajbanka, the country’s 10th largest bank, was nationalized last month after regulators discovered evidence of massive fraud allegedly carried out by the bank’s former owner, Russian businessman Vladimir Antonov. Depositors were deprived of access to their funds for days. And three years ago the country’s second largest bank, Parex Bank, entered technical default and had to be taken over by the government, which in turn forced Latvia to appeal to international creditors and the European Union for a €7.5 billion ($10.5 billion) bailout. Prime Minister Vladis Dombrovskis told journalists that the rumors were spread maliciously with the intent to harm Latvia’s banking system, the Baltic News Service reported. Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis said that police have opened a criminal investigation. The rumors were contained to Latvia and did not spread to neighboring Estonia and Lithuania, which also have affiliates of the Swedish-controlled Swedbank. Maris Mancinskis, Swedbank’s Latvian chief, slammed the rumors as “absurd” and said in a statement that the bank was functioning normally and that all deposit holders would have full access to their money via bank machines and branch offices. Mancinskis told LNT television that the rumors started last week and proliferated over the weekend, culminating in Sunday’s rush to bank machines. -CBC

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