Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Dead Kennedys

Facing the Noose,

Reinvestigating the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination is what Robert Kennedy Jr. requests, after careful investigation and much thought. (I presume he is prepared to die like his father, uncle and cousin.)
Killers seized the levers of power with the murders of JFK, MLK, and RFK (and Malcolm X, Thomas Merton, et al.), and they have never relinquished them...  Robert f. Kennedy, Jr., after studying the case at the instigation of Paul Schrade, RFK’s assistant, who was the first person shot that night, and visiting Sirhan in prison, has publicly said that he doesn’t think Sirhan killed his father and has called for a reinvestigation of the case...  Sirhan was standing in front of Kennedy when, as the autopsy definitively showed, RFK was shot from the rear at point blank range, three bullets entering his body, with the fatal head-shot coming upward at a 45 degree angle from 1-3 inches behind his right ear. In addition, an audio recording shows that many more bullets than the eight in Sirhan’s gun were fired in the hotel pantry that night. It was impossible for Sirhan to have killed RFK...  That Sirhan was a Manchurian candidate hypnotized to play his part as seeming assassin is also abundantly clear. Dr. Daniel P. Brown, an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, an international expert on hypnosis, affirms the obvious: that Sirhan was hypno-programmed to shoot his pistol in response to a post hypnotic touch cue...  In his declaration to the Parole Board Dr. Brown stated unequivocally that Sirhan was hypnotized and was therefore a “Manchurian Candidate” who did not kill RFK (see the CIA’s programs ARTICHOKEand MKUltra.)...  Robert Kennedy, like his brother John, was a great danger to those virulent forces of war and oppression within his own government, and he died opposing them as a true patriot. 

Israeli snipers have been shooting a lot more of the rightful inhabitants of the country they stole, than we were told. Thanks Brad.
Dr. al-Qedra said that:
502 Palestinians were shot in the head and neck.
283 were shot in the chest and back.
225 were shot in the abdomen and pelvis.
938 were shot in the arm.
325 were shot in the leg. 

Israel and Palestine, A Story of Modern Colonialism
 “When I was arrested at 12 years old, I didn’t even know what my dreams were. But now, I have been through so much, and all the hardship has made me who I am. I know what my dreams are: to feel that I have a land, not just to live on one.” 

The Syrian Army is giving last warning to name-changing "militants" in southwest Syria, that they can give up their weapons, evacuate, or face the battle hardened Syrian Army. Iran is staying far away from this. Israel will probably carry out airstrikes to support not-ISIS-anymore, but will be somewhat vulnerable while doing so...

Korean summit update. Good factoids here, but a fair amount of attitude and presumption, also.

How Wikipedia really works. The facts will be revised by the "deciders". The story of the mysterious Philip Cross. Thanks Ray.
UPDATE “Philip Cross” has not had one single day off from editing Wikipedia in almost five years. “He” has edited every single day from 29 August 2013 to 14 May 2018. Including five Christmas Days. That’s 1,721 consecutive days of editing. 133,612 edits to Wikpedia have been made in the name of “Philip Cross” over 14 years. That’s over 30 edits per day, seven days a week...  The “Philip Cross” treatment is meted out not just to left wingers, but to all sceptical of neo-conservatism and who oppose “wars of intervention”. A list of Cross’s victims includes Alex Salmond, Peter Oborne, John Pilger, Owen Jones, Jeremy Corbyn, Tim Hayward, Diane Abbott, Neil Clark, Lindsey German, Vanessa Beeley, and George Galloway. As you would expect “Philip Cross” is particularly active in making amendments to the Wikipedia articles of alternative media, and of MSM critique sites. “Philip Cross” has made 36 edits to the Wikipedia entry of The Canary and, staggeringly, over 800 edits on Media Lens. George Galloway remains the “Philip Cross” operation’s favourite target with a quite incredible 1,800 edits.

A Trip to the ER with your Phone may mean Injury Lawyer Ads for Weeks (that's where we already are).

Why the Eurozone and the Euro are Both Doomed, Charles Hugh Smith. (There needs to be recycling of trade between export powerhouse, Germany, and countries like Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, which cannot compete with underpriced German goods, and cannot devalue their national currencies to become competitive. This is one-way production-to-landfill, not trade. There is no suggestion within the Eurogroup that any repair is being considered. Repairs have been ruled out. Imbalances are progressively hurting human beings. Humans eventually decide to change the system, or die trying.)

"The US is an Oligarchy, with Unlimited Political Bribery", 39th US President, Jimmy Carter

The collapse of the Roman Empire took about 150 years, but it began when the Spanish mines for silver and gold could no longer be effectively worked. The easy ore was gone, and there was scarcely any down deep. It could not be extracted affordably. the mines were flooded. The Roman coinage silver content plummeted, and so did trade and industry. The hollow shell was overrun a century later. We are on the cusp of this happening to oil, which is the super-currency of industrial civilization. Thanks Jada.

Studying History

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Heavenly Mandate

Finding Inspiration,

The Korean War ended with an armistice in 1953, after 3 years of negotiations, and mostly stalemated along the 38th Parallel, where it had started. (Russian backed and American backed Korean armies had divided along the 38th parallel after the Yalta conference.) It was agreed that a full peace treaty negotiation would begin in 3 months, that became 6 months in Geneva, and included French-Indochina by then. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles refused to discuss Korean peace with Chou En Lai. In 1956 it became clear why, as the US abrogated paragraph 13(d), agreeing that no party would change the balance of forces or weaponry on the Korean peninsula. The US moved in every sort of nuclear weapon it could mobilize, targeting both Russia and China. The US has kept this forward nuclear fire-station ever since then. What do you think "completely denuclearized Korean peninsula" means to North Koreans? Wikipedia has the historical timeline here. 

"Veterans of past negotiations with North Korea also expressed concern on Sunday about the possibility that Mr. Kim could demand that in exchange for denuclearization, the United States must withdraw its “nuclear umbrella” that protects South Korea from adversaries." (duh)

U.S. and North Korean officials huddled in the Korean truce village of Panmunjom for a second day Monday, hammering out details of a proposed summit amid media reports that South Korean President Moon Jae-in may attend the historic meeting.
​ 
[This might move blindingly fast. Who is at the table, and who is NOT at the table? According to Wikipedia, the Korean Armistice was signed by a North Korean General, commanding North Korean and Chinese-"volunteer" forces, and by an American General, commanding UN forces. No Chinese or Russian signatures were on there.Korea has been a country for over a thousand years. "North Korea" and "South Korea"​ are de-facto countries, though both sides have always declared that reunification was an essential objective. During the cold-war, Kim Il Sung effectively played Russia and China against each other for aid. Grandpa Kim did not like Mao and did not like China, and that's normal for Koreans, all Asians, in fact. China was always the overlord. China remains the main long-term threat to Korea, together or divided. Xi Jinping knows that. Trump knows that. Kissinger, not dead yet, knows Trump. Trump can be Nixon in Korea and cut out China, like Nixon went to China and cut out Russia. I see the signatories to the armistice there to undo it, and the heads of state of "both Koreas", able to make reunification arrangements, and I don't see past hated overlords of Korea, China and Japan, at the table.]

​Trump seems urgent to press some advantage and preserve his element of surprise. Negotiation team is pushed to make the Summit happen June 12.

"North Korean leader Kim Jong-un finds it hard to trust US President Donald Trump’s assertions that the US would not seek to undermine his rule after Pyongyang gets rid of all its nukes, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said... Kim reportedly reiterated his pledge to de-nuclearize, but cast doubt on Washington’s promise to provide him with security guarantees that the North seeks."   (I guess he can't unsee that bayonet up Gadhafi's bleeding rectum.)
So what guaranty is structural, certain, and not based upon promises, which the powerful side can break when it feels like it?
​Insights into South Korean President Moon Jae In:
​ Moon had been blindsided by Trump’s decision, but he was moving to reassert control over what he still hopes could be a historic breakthrough for peace on the Korean peninsula. Human history, one of Moon’s advisers told me recently in Seoul, “is ... governed by certain law of heavenly mandate. There is a time for peace—that is a dictate of nature. And Moon Jae In is following that heavenly mandate.”’...  “Nobel Prize to Trump, peace to Koreans,” Chung In Moon mused in the afterglow of the inter-Korean summit, noting President Moon’s strengths as a “good listener,” an “efficient facilitator,” and an “open-minded guy.” President Roh, who both Moon Jae In and Chung In Moon worked for, had “clear historical vision,” he said, but Roh “really cared about his name in history. Moon Jae In, he doesn’t care. He’s very pragmatic.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/trump-kim-summit-south-korea/561197/

​There is a rush to the exits in Italian bonds, as Italian president refuses a qualified eurosceptic finance minister, says he will appoint a "technocratic government" and the parliament won't permit that, so more elections, this fall to next spring, sometime.Too much uncertainty. A lot needs to happen​. The Euro is sick and getting sicker.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/italy-plunges-political-crisis-govt-talks-collapse-083238175.html

​The end of the Euro?

Bitcoin mining is crashing more electricity markets than just Venezuela. Look at hydroelectric power in Washington State:  
  Chelan County, along with neighboring Douglas and Grant counties, has been at the center of the U.S. Bitcoin boom since 2012, when the region’s ultracheap hydropower began attracting cryptocurrency “miners.”...  By the end of this year, according to some estimates, the Mid-Columbia Basin could account for as much as 30 percent of the global output of new Bitcoin and large shares of other digital currencies, such as Litecoin and Ethereum...  By February, the Bitcoin “gold rush,” as Wright calls it, had become so overwhelming that Chelan County PUD declared a three-month moratorium on new mines to determine whether the county can absorb even a fraction of that demand. But answering that question was more complex than the utility anticipated — and at the recent hearing, the commission voted to extend the freeze another three months.

Kids across the world, poor to rich, pose with "their favorite toy". It is easy to feel the gut punch from the poorest of these children. In the middle (below us) they like smartphones and tablets. Though the poorest kids have a trash item like an old bike tire, the richest kids like stuffed animals best. What are the different forms of poverty? What is the need being met? (If you need to be cuddled more, you will like a stuffed animal that you can cuddle.)

Mediterranean kids can't afford to eat the Mediterranean diet any more. They eat sodas, fats, carbs, salt and sugar like Americans and Mexicans. they are fat and sick, too. Swedish kids are coming the closest at the moment, but all kids, everywhere are losing ground to processed "foods" with long shelf lives, junk calories. Fresh food is priced out of the market, and nobody grows their own any more. Where would they grow it?

40 Years Ago This Man Sold Everything To Buy A Bike And Travel 6,000 Miles From India To Sweden To See His Love
Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia was born an “untouchable” in a remote village of India in 1949. According to prophecy, told by an astrologer after Kumar’s birth, he was meant to marry a musician woman from a faraway country, who is born under the zodiac sign of Taurus and owns a forest. 
indian-man-6000-miles-marry-swedish-woman-pradyumna-kumar-mahanandia-20
Guided by Voices

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Unstoppable

Programmed Not to Brake,

The investigation into the Uber Robocab that killed 49 year old Elaine Herzberg walking her bike at night in Tempe, Arizona, reveals that there were automatic sensors that detected her 6 seconds before the car hit her. They were set to NOT alert the driver. The sensors were also integrated into an automatic emergency braking system, that Uber Always Turned Off, to make the ride smoother. The human driver was the only protection against machine-murder. She didn't know that. She was kind of looking around at things, like a passenger would.
The Uber car's radar and lidar sensors observed the pedestrian about six seconds before impact. Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was walking her bicycle across the street, was identified by the sensors first as an unknown object, then as a vehicle and then as a bicycle, the NTSB said...  "The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action," the NTSB wrote in the report. "The system is not designed to alert the operator... It's further evidence that people just don't experience driverless cars as being their responsibility even when they've been told that it is, even when the system relies on them," said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington...  "This is a human failing, specifically it is a human failing of the engineers who have made certain choices," Calo said about the Uber collision. "You jerry-rigged things to make it work more smoothly."

Tesla in autopilot mode ACCELERATED into parked red fire truck...

 James Anderson — a professor of atmospheric chemistry at Harvard University — is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years. Professor Anderson warned that climate change is drastically pushing Earth back to the Eocene Epoch from 33 million BCE, when there was no ice on either pole. Anderson says current pollution levels have already catastrophically depleted atmospheric ozone levels, which absorb 98 percent of ultraviolet rays, to levels not seen in 12 million years. Anderson’s assessment of humanity’s timeline for action is likely accurate, given that his diagnosis and discovery of Antarctica’s ozone holes led to the Montreal Protocol of 1987. Anderson’s research was recognized by the United Nations in September of 1997. 

Cover Pedophiles in government, go straight to prison. That will teach everyone to observe the news blackout:
UK activist and English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson was arrested on Friday outside of Leeds Crown Court for reporting on a pedophile grooming trial. Within six hours of his arrest, Robinson was handed a 13 month prison term for violating a prior suspended sentence for a similar offense, while media outlets were banned from covering the incident by the court - with several removing reports which had already been published. 

A controversial new bill set to go before Israel's Ministerial Committee for Legislation in the Knesset on Sunday would ban taking videos or photos of Israeli soldiers in the process of arresting or subduing Palestinians.  (Only good stories about Israel are allowed. You're not "anti-semitic", are you? Are you?)

How Russia and China gained a strategic advantage in hypersonic missile technology. (They had to negate the US military outspending them 15:1. Sinking aircraft carriers and sending ICBMs that are way too fast to shoot down sustains the Mutuality of Assured Destruction (Worst fear, now our best hope?)

Dmitry Orlov looks at the US-Russia rivalry. It's not all in the budgets... Thanks Hubert.
Russia will not resort to military measures against the US unless sorely provoked. Time and patience are on Russia’s side. With each passing year, the US grows weaker and loses friends and allies, while Russia grows stronger and gains friends and allies. The US, with its political dysfunction, runaway debt, decaying infrastructure and spreading civil unrest, is a dead nation walking. It will take time for each of the United States to neatly demolish themselves into their own footprints, like those three New York skyscrapers did on 9/11 (WTC #1, #2 and #7) but Russia is very patient. Russia is ready to respond to any provocation, but the last thing the Russians want is another war. And that, if you like good news, is the best news you are going to hear. 

Vladimir Putin and other European financial bigwigs sit around and talk about the current American financial warfare, using the $US against friend and foe alike, threatens the current global financial regime (Hint, HINT!)
Despite his absence from Vladimir Putin's annual economic showcase - which included such US allied luminaries as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, French President Emmanuel Macron, China’s Vice President Wang Qishan and IMF chief Christine Lagarde - the conversation kept coming back to President Trump.
“The free market and fair competition are being squeezed by confiscations, restrictions, sanctions,” Putin said.
“There are various terms but the meaning is the same -- they’ve become an official part of the trade policy of certain countries.”
The “spiral” of U.S. penalties is targeting “an ever larger number of countries and companies,” undermining “the current world order,” he said.
Macron replied: “I fully share your point of view.”
Putin also expressed frustration at having little contact with Trump and faulted the investigation into whether there was collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia and whether Russia tried to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election.
"We are hostages to this internal strife in the United States," Putin said. "I hope that it will end some day and the objective need for the development of Russian-American relationships will prevail."
The Russian president spoke out against the growing trend of using unilateral restrictions to achieve economic advantage, as he addressed guests of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday.
“The system of multilateral cooperation, which took years to build, is no longer allowed to evolve. It is being broken in a very crude way. Breaking the rules is becoming the new rule,” he said.
Putin sharply criticized the sanctions, saying they signal "not just erosion but the dismantling of a system of multilateral cooperation that took decades to build."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-26/russias-gold-hoard-soars-putin-warns-us-sanctions-hurt-trust-dollar-reserve

Well this is going to hurt: Der Spiegel reports that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has ordered that all government contracts cease being awarded to German companies in what's being interpreted as an aggressive punitive measure after a year of already deteriorating Saudi-German relations and as Germany has expressed its plan to stick by the Iran nuclear deal.  ​https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-25/saudis-halt-orders-german-companies-crown-prince-deeply-offended

​How long can they wait for this man to die of old age? He looks pretty healthy.
ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s would-be coalition parties turned up the pressure on President Sergio Mattarella on Saturday to endorse their eurosceptic pick as economy minister, saying the only other option may be a new election.  Mattarella has held up formation of a government, which would end more than 80 days of political deadlock, over concern about the far-right League and anti-establishment 5-Star Movement’s desire to make the 81-year-old economist Paolo Savona economy minister. Savona has been a vocal critic of the euro and the European Union, but he has distinguished credentials, including in a former role as an industry minister.

More about American straws breaking the EU camel's back...
“As we see, restrictions imposed by the American partners are of an extraterritorial nature. The possibility of switching from the US dollar to the euro in settlements depends on Europe’s stance toward Washington’s position,”said Siluanov, who is also Russia’s first deputy prime minister.
https://www.rt.com/business/427654-russia-euro-payments-trade/

America 2018, "Dicier by the day", Charles Hugh Smith
As the tent cities of the homeless proliferate, cities and counties are finding their revenues are devoted to pension obligations, leaving less and less to education, filling potholes, addressing the homeless crisis, the opioid crisis, etc. When the "everything bubble" pops and assets crater, the impossibility of fulfilling promises made in "good times" will be apparent to all but those demanding "their fair share." 

Of Course the US Birth Rates are Falling- This is a Harsh Place to Have a Family:
The US is one of only four countries in the world with no government-subsidized maternity leave while 36% of the workforce are contract laborers with no access to benefits.  The other three are Lesotho, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea.  (Is that a bug or a feature?)

There are 101 Americans who each owe over $1 million in student loan debt. ("Holy Debt-Slavery, Batman!")
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-26/there-are-101-americans-over-1-million-student-loans

Korean leaders "held a surprise meeting", so the peace negotiations between Kim and Trump may be back on track.  (Good, they're doing what I said, keeping the initiative. The US better keep up!)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles/prospects-of-u-s-north-korea-summit-brighten-after-trumps-tweet-idUSKCN1IR06U

“For the success of the North Korea-U.S. summit, we’re exploring various ways of clearing North Korea’s security concerns at the working level,” the senior South Korean presidential official told reporters. “That includes an end to hostile relations, mutual non-aggression pledge, a launch of peace treaty talks to replace the current armistice,” the official said.  
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-southkorea-pledge/koreas-discussing-possible-non-aggression-pledge-peace-treaty-talks-ahead-of-north-korea-u-s-summit-idUSKCN1IS01D

North Korea, The Undaunted State, Tests The Limits of Empire (Good strategic discussion of the plucky and tough "hermit country")
https://zeroanthropology.net/2018/05/25/north-korea-the-undaunted-state-tests-the-limits-of-empire/#comment-25726

​Moon of Alabama: ​
The Syrian government and its Russian ally plan to clean up the southwest region of Syria around the city of Daraa. The move should open the M5 highway, Syria's lifeline, between Damascus and Jordan and secure the border with Jordan as well as the demarcation line with the Israel occupied Golan Heights. The operation was supposed to start in a day or two, but the U.S. has now threatened to intervene. As the southwest Daraa governorate is infested with a large Islamic State (ISIS) group as well as al-Qaeda and associated groups the U.S.move must be interpreted as protection for these terrorists...  Last night the U.S. State Department published this threat: The United States is concerned by reports of an impending Assad regime operation in southwest Syria within the boundaries of the de-escalation zone negotiated between the United States, Jordan, and the Russian Federation last year and reaffirmed between Presidents Trump and Putin in Da Nang, Vietnam in November. The United States remains committed to maintaining the stability of the southwest de-escalation zone and to the ceasefire underpinning it. We also caution the Syrian regime against any actions that risk broadening the conflict or jeopardize the ceasefire. As a guarantor of this de-escalation area with Russia and Jordan, the United States will take firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations...  I have not seen any reaction yet from the Syrian or Russian side.

Investigation in the Netherlands finally announces what it was always required to eventually announce, that Russia shot down MH-17 over Ukraine on July 17, 2014, by smuggling a missile launch system across the border, using it once to shoot down civilians, and smuggling it back into Russia. There is evidence we can't be shown. (Of course this was a big mistake for Russia to do. Why would they do it? Putin?)

Madrid excludes cars of non-residents from the narrow city streets, and will soon enforce the ban with smart cameras and fines-in-the-mail. (Little robo-cabs will be allowed, it seems.)

A group of US Air Force air men who were part of an elite squad responsible for safeguarding America's nuclear weapons have been busted for using and distributing the hallucinogen LSD and other drugs, according to the Associated Press, which published details from several courts martial involving members of the purported ring...  "Minutes felt like hours, colors seemed more vibrant and clear," Morrison testified. "In general, I felt more alive." He said he had used LSD in high school, which could have disqualified him from Air Force service; he said that his recruiter told him he should lie about it and that lying about prior drug use was "normal" in the Air Force. 

Preparing for Impact

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Economic Transition

Full Grown,

Exponential growth on a finite planet is the economic problem with our current financial system. Our money is based on debt-at-interest, which has to grow or collapse. There is a school that says we CAN have infinite growth, as long as it is not physical stuff, just more expensive iPhones, more expensive information, more expensive cardboard boxes to live in, more expensive Cheerios to eat... That'll work. Just adjust the definition to fit it.
Alternatively, we can have a world without perpetual compound interest transferring ownership of all things to Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.
In nature, things are born, grow, wither and die. Corporations had mortal lives until quite recently. For thousands of years, throughout the ancient world, there was real investment in real projects, for a finite time. There was debt slavery and unpayable debt, and there was widespread "jubilee" debt forgiveness. This worked easiest when all debt was to King and Temple. King and temple wanted society to continue, not crash. Private debt taking over changed all that. Private creditors ALWAYS want somebody else to take the losses, and they bribe politicians, and crucify guys like Jesus who call for reviving the jubilee.
We may foresee a transfer of most debts up the food chain to governments and central banks. That could have happened in 2008, but instead governments and central banks just gave a tsunami of debt money, with our promise to pay, to all the bankers everywhere, who we still have to pay every month, too.
I'm putting on my Cassandra-wig and predicting that in the financial reset to come, only central banks will retain the right to create money at interest. If the interest is very low, the problem of compound interest can go away, without having to redefine money. We will get postal banking and maybe we can keep our credit unions. 
Alternatives banking systems will probably flourish when there is permanent, low central-bank-only interest. It's not very different from Islamic finance, where an investor takes risk, in search of financial return from a profitable venture. Christian finance was this way, too, until it wasn't. Greek/Russian Orthodox Christianity still teach the sinfulness of usury. It led to slavery and prostitution through most of recorded history, after all...
What is happening with Iranian banking? China has several plans-B, we may presume. China knows the problems with fiat-money and has for thousands of years. Russia has had a lot of opportunity to deeply investigate banking and financial alternatives in the past century, especially recently.
We will need to pay personal attention to productive, high-yield, local ventures, like kitchen gardens. Fuel will keep getting dearer and rarer this time. It's better to be a year early than a day late on these things. Global retirements are predicated upon perpetual economic growth, averaging 7% per year. That, and so much more, will fall to the political realm to deliver by teaspoonfuls, to keep chaos away, to keep society intact. 
It looks like the top tier of financial elites always keep their places, but everything below the top 0.5% will get rudely awakened. Some of those folks are bright and talented, and can help in the new economy, though there will be a lot of role-changing.
The new economy will need to be more efficient, without being controlled for the benefit of parasites, because there won't be extra for the parasites. Partial-parasites can get by with less and keep working. Complete parasites might get a little pension and a dorm room. I'm guessing... Economy will be more local, with less fruit flown to Phoenix from Argentina.
Trade between nations and regions will need to balance again. No more printing unlimited dollars to spend into the global economy.
I also think we'll have to stop making disposable things.
All of this was the way things were until we struck oil and international banking...

Peace talks are off again. John Bolton's success. Trump and Kim won't talk. You've probably heard. North and South Korea should get their unification show going quickly and just do it and tell the US military to leave. (When the world does not take dollars, the imperial military will be unaffordable.)

This article about playing for peace on the Korean peninsula was written before today's Trump announcement, and remains pertinent. It's the strategic view.

Eleni sent this article about Trump showing Europeans for fools, with IRan sanctions. The main point is that the EU is structured to be subservient to NATO, and NATO is always commanded by a US General. Individual European countries have to leave the EU to defy NATO orders.

The M5 highway is Syria's main artery. It is getting cleared of rif-raff about now.

Restoring Circulation

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Creating 2028

Villagers,

Where Are We Going? asks Nate Hagens
The future exists as a probability distribution of: very bad, bad, so-so, benign and very good futures.  But people dislike uncertainty...  The reality is that future is not yet determined and exists as a constantly shifting probability distribution based on events, technology, wisdom, risk and the actions of individuals and communities.  We need more people to avoid the two poles of denial and nihilism and stay in the center, own a bit of dissonance, and engage...  We have financialized the human experience, parsing everything of substance, depth and meaning from our tribal past into electronic/linen markers.  Once our basic needs are met we don’t really want more, we just want more than the guy/gal next door...  What we lack amidst this smorgasbord of riches is a feeling of community and a true sense of purpose.  Inferred by all the other points in this presentation is the obvious fact that the future needs our help.  Yet most people have no concept or even belief in ‘the future’.  Perhaps from awareness of our situation, the stakes, and the possibilities there may emerge a (very large) tribe connected to Tomorrow...  As our fossil slaves cease to be woken, we will increasingly have to resubstitute human labor for carbon – and it would behoove each of us to learn a physical skill. Or three...  We cannot know the future, but we have reasonable confidence of what it will not be.  The peak in fossil sunlight flow rates and resultant higher costs will mean major changes in our lifetimes. We can be reasonably sure the average energy/material throughput for Americans – and global citizens, particularly in advanced economies, will decline in coming decades.  It’s important to point out that a 30% drop in material wealth per capita (for those in the United States and Canada) though sounding draconian, brings us back to 1993 levels – a 50% drop would bring us back to 1977 levels– both periods nobody considers economically challenging.  How we respond to this energy descent as individuals and as a culture will be a deciding moment in our history...  We are capable of much more, but are unlikely to alter our current trajectory until we have to. And when we add in the economy and environmental points: we will soon have to.  Recognizing this, the next step is urgently discussing and cataloguing what initiatives might be worked on by small groups using intelligent foresight nationwide. 

Pat Buchanan looks at President Trump's upcoming visit to Singapore, to meet Kim Jong Un. There has been lots of chatter about this, but there are rational goals that need to be negotiated even-handedly, or they won't get negotiated. How is the "Trump Doctrine" of "America First" developing? Multipolar world or dead world? What's looking good?

There is one Korea. The 1953 armistice between the US, China, and military forces of both parts of Korea, needs to become a peace treaty all around. What stalls that is that South Korean military forces are under the command of a US General, not the South Korean President. This remnant of war would change with a peace treaty. It was rigged through a crooked Korean President before he  was impeached, anyway. As long as denuclearization is proceeding, this can be presented to Americans as a "peace dividend". United Korea will need to be free of foreign occupation forces and nuclear weapons at the same moment in time. Other interested parties would like very much to help.

"The Friendly Mask of the Orwellian Oligarchy Has Fallen Off", Caitlin Johnstone, Thanks Cat
The real currency of this world is not backed by gold, nor by oil, nor by bureaucratic fiat, nor even by direct military might. No, the real currency of this world is narrative, and the ability to control it...  The only thing keeping money and government moving in a way that benefits our current rulers is the fact that those rulers have been successful in controlling the narrative. They’ll never get that cat back into the bag once it’s out, and they know it. We the people will be able to create our own narratives and write our own rules about how things like money and government ought to operate, and there is no way that will work out to the benefit of the ruling manipulators and deceivers. So they fight with increasing aggression to lull us back to sleep, often overextending themselves and behaving in a way that gives the public a glimpse behind the mask of this entire corrupt power structure. Someday soon that mask will slip right off and come crashing to the floor. That crash will wake the baby, and that baby will not go back to sleep. 

Israel and Egypt prevent Turkey from airlifting thousands of Palestinians, shot and wounded bu Israeli snipers, following orders, to Turkey for emergency surgery and other medical care.

President Trump tells Chancellow Merkel to stop the Nordstream-2 gas pipeline from Russia or face trade-war from the US. Merkel fidgets and makes diplomatic sounds. A lot of parties are committed to this, and it would be semi-suicidal for Europe to stop it. Europe really needs natural gas. Russian gas has been cheap and reliable.

The Atlantic Alliance may actually be splitting this time...  
Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the EU Commission, believes that “Europe must take America's place as global leader” because Washington has turned its back on its allies. Washington “no longer wants to cooperate.” ...  The EU is to ditch the use of the US currency in its payments for Iranian oil. It can be done. Russia and Iran have already launched an oil-for-goods exchange program in order to leave the greenback behind...  Iran and Nord Stream 2 unite Moscow and Brussels in their opposition to this diktat.  On May 17, Iran signed a provisional free-trade-zone agreement with a Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)...  If Europe is resolved to fend off US attempts to dictate its policy on Iran, why should it reconcile itself to the pressure to keep the sanctions against Russia intact?

Look at this article for details about the critical dependence of humans in our world, upon subsistence staples like wheat, corn and soybeans getting through these 3 critical choke-points of shipping. The article is sort of glibly globalist/neoliberal, but the facts are useful.

Agricultural commodity maritime chokepoints

Trade volume, in millions of tons, for 2000 and 2015

8 / 75
Turkish Straits
57 / 91
Panama Canal
28 / 108
Strait of Malacca
Source: Chatham House
Bitcoin is projected to use 0.5% of total global electrical generation by the end of this year. (It grows exponentially, too, as you'll recall.)

Definancializing

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Kissinger-Borg

Apprehending Threat,

Skidmore... and Catherine Austin Fitts … conducted a search of government websites and found similar reports dating back to 1998. While the documents are incomplete, original government sources indicate $21 trillion in unsupported adjustments have been reported for the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015.” 
(That is bigger than the American GDP. that money went into a parallel Universe controlled by Dick Cheney. We don't know where. We don't know how much more. What are the self interested motives of the people Dick works for? How do we stack up in that equation?)

Preventing an AI Apocalypse. This is a real threat. Vladimir Putin said it out loud recently, that it is the big threat in the next 20 years. AI is already weaponized. What it the remaining threat? AI can already teach itself to beat the best humans at anything, but not yet at EVERYTHING. 
What is difficult to create is General Artificial Intelligence. The human mind still has a vast advantage in that category, which it is being directed to use to obsolete itself. (The big leap forward would be to deeply integrate a superior human general intelligence (some genius) with all of the vast computing power on planet earth. The Borg would have a bigger advantage than Gene Roddenberry grokked.)

Thanks for this story, Ray: " The United States has not yet, as a nation, systematically explored its full scope, studied its implications, or begun the process of ultimate learning. This should be given a high national priority, above all, from the point of view of relating AI to humanistic traditions.  AI developers, as inexperienced in politics and philosophy as I am in technology, should ask themselves some of the questions I have raised here in order to build answers into their engineering efforts. The U.S. government should consider a presidential commission of eminent thinkers to help develop a national vision. This much is certain: If we do not start this effort soon, before long we shall discover that we started too late." 
This is the concluding suggestion of a very reasonable sounding article about safeguarding AI developments, in The Atlantic. We can assume that an interested party has some plans to hatch in such a "presidential commission of eminent thinkers". I personally wonder if the $16 trillion we can't locate in this "New American Century" would have anything to do with this presidential-level guidance of Artificial Intelligence in our newish-millennium. I also wonder about the big leap forward of linking a brilliant human brain to the vast computer intelligence of the world, maybe with permanent life support for that precious brain. The brain would have to have very broad reasoning capability, as well as decisiveness in taking action. Who would volunteer? Who could do it? Oh, the author of this piece might do ok. He's really smart, and pretty old, anyway. What would he have to lose. Henry Kissinger will always have his Nobel Peace Prize, after all...

Can Humans Live Well Without Pillaging The Planet? Scientific American says it is technically possible, and to live well. What would that take? Universal honesty and cooperation?

The Ozone Hole is BAACK! Somebody, somewhere is bootlegging a Whole Lot of Freon. This is massive. Nobody seems to know who or where, like finding that $16 trillion. Weird...

Eurocrats rebel against President Trump's plan to sanction Europe in 6 months if it does $US business with Iran. The Eu illegalizes any European compliance with this US law by European companies. The trade will be worked out in Euros, to sidestep any dollar-based sanctions. This seems like it would end the $US as the global trade and reserve currency. What a field-day for global banking to run currency arbitrage and strip assets everywhere! "America First!"

The bridge from Russia to Crimea is finished. Vladimir Putin drove a truck across it. Ukraine is advised to uphold national honor by bombing it. We'll see how that works out... (Sly Putin, looking "reasonable".)

The Golan is the new Mideast battlefield. Israel claims it, but it is Syria. It has oil, and supplies about 1/3 of the fresh water which Israel uses. Did Israel bomb Syria one too many times?

Unforeseen Consequence