Via Prison Planet.com » World News

Mike Adams
Natural News
May 17, 2010

Over a week ago, I published an article here on NaturalNews questioning the media spin on the massive oil spill in the Gulf. That story, entitled Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we’re being told? (http://www.naturalnews.com/028749_G…), stated the following:

“It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on in the Gulf right now, especially because there are so many conflicting reports and unanswered questions. But one thing’s for sure: if the situation is actually much worse than we’re being led to believe, there could be worldwide catastrophic consequences. If it’s true that millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil are flooding the Gulf with no end in sight, the massive oil slicks being created could make their way into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them not only up the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely destroy the global fishing industries.”

Now, barely one week later, it turns out that the oil slick is FAR worse than what we were being told.

USA Today now reports:

Researchers warned Sunday that miles-long underwater plumes of oil from the spill could poison and suffocate sea life across the food chain, with damage that could endure for a decade or more. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation…)

That same article also explained:

“Researchers have found more underwater plumes of oil than they can count from the blown-out well, said Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia. She said careful measurements taken of one plume showed it stretching for 10 miles, with a 3-mile width.”

The Christian Science Monitor also reports now that as much as 3.4 million gallons of oil may be leaking into the Gulf every day!

“The oil that can be seen from the surface is apparently just a fraction of the oil that has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, according to an assessment the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology. Significant amounts of oil are spreading at various levels throughout the water column… Scientists looking at video of the leak, suggest that as many as 3.4 million gallons of oil could be leaking into the Gulf every day – 16 times more than the current 210,000-gallon-a-day estimate, according to the Times.” (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0…)

The New York Times also chimed in on the topic over the weekend with some absolutely shocking (and disturbing) revelations:

“Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/u…)

Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.”

In other words, while the government has been telling us the leak is only 5,000 barrels a day, the true volume could be more like 80,000 barrels a day.

Wiping out the Gulf

It hardly needs to be stated that 80,000 barrels of oil a day leaking into the Gulf of Mexico could destroy virtually all marine life in the region.

Oxygen levels have already fallen by 30 percent in waters near the oil. When water loses its oxygen content, it quickly becomes a so-called “dead zone” because marine species simply can’t live there anymore. (Fish and other aquatic creatures need oxygen to live, obviously.)

With this volcano of oil still erupting through the ocean floor, we could be witnessing the mass-murder of virtually all marine life in the Gulf of Mexico.

And yet we’re faced with a virtual blackout of truly accurate news on the event. Both the oil industry and the Obama administration are desperately trying to limit the videos, photos and stories about the spill, spinning everything to make it seem like it’s not really much of a problem at all.

It’s much like the media coverage of the War in Iraq, where all video footage had to be vetted by the Pentagon before being released to the public. Remember the uproar over the leaked photos of coffins draped in American flags? That’s what the Obama administration no doubt hopes to avoid by suppressing photos of dead dolphins and sea birds in the Gulf of Mexico.

The truth, as usual, is being suppressed. It’s just too ugly for the public to see.

Of course, the truth has always been suppressed in the oil industry. Even the inspections on this particular oil rig were, well, rigged. It turns out the rig wasn’t even inspected on schedule (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100516…).

It also turns out that the Obama administration actually gave the Deepwater Horizon an award for its history of safety! That was before the whole thing literally blew up in their faces.

Corruption in Washington leads to catastrophe

The oil industry, you see, is just like every other industry that’s regulated by the federal government: It has a cozy relationship with regulators.

It’s the same story with Big Pharma and the FDA, or the meat industry and the USDA. Wall Street and the SEC. Every industry that’s regulated eventually turns the tables on its regulators and ends up rewriting the rules for its own benefit.

The oil industry has been able to get away with so many exemptions and loopholes that the regulatory environment is now lenient at best. The Deepwater Horizon, for example, was given all sorts of exemptions to engage in risky drilling operations without following proper safety procedures. And who granted it these exemptions? The U.S. federal government, of course!

So now the U.S. government is just as guilty as the oil industry in this mass-murder of life in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the government that allowed the series of events that led to catastrophe in the first place. And now, this catastrophe could lead to a near-total wipeout of marine life throughout the Gulf (and possibly beyond).

In a worst-case scenario, this could destroy some percentage of life in oceans all around the world. It could be the one final wound to Mother Earth who bleeds her black blood into the oceans for ten thousand years, destroying life as we know it on this planet.

All for profit, of course. Let nothing stand in the way of another billion dollars in oil company profits! (Regulators? Bah!)

Collusion between government and industry always leads to disaster

I hope BP can find a way to suction some of that oil out of the ocean. If they can manage such a solution, they should then turn around and dump the entire slick across the landscape of Washington D.C. to coat all the bureaucrats in the black slimy shame they no doubt deserve. This isn’t about some random accident, you see: It’s about a failure of federal regulators to enforce safe drilling practices.

The fishing industries in and around the Gulf of Mexico could be devastated for decades. The diversity of life in the marine ecosystems there may soon find itself on the verge of collapse. And still there is no real solution for stopping the volcano of oil that continues to gush out of this gaping wound in the Earth herself.

I can only wonder what kind of hare-brained ideas these oil men are coming up with now to stop the flow. A nuke bomb expert has reportedly been sent to the area by the Obama administration as part of some sort of “dream team” of super smart people to find a solution.

But it begs the question: If we were so smart, why are we still running the world on fossil fuels in the first place? There’s enough sunlight energy striking the deserts of Arizona to power the entire nation indefinitely! Free energy technology continues to be suppressed in large part by oil company interests (and the arrogant scientific community), and renewable energy technology has received virtually no government support whatsoever.

If we were really smart, we wouldn’t be drilling holes in the ocean floor and hoping we can cope with whatever comes gushing out. We’d be installing Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) installations across the deserts of America or building more wind power generators. We’ve be investing in electric cars and alternative fuels rather than burning up our future with fossil fuels.

The smartest thing we could do right now — after capping the volcano of oil, of course — would be to make a commitment to end our world’s dependence on fossils fuels forever. But that goes against the financial interests of the oil companies who all want to keep us trapped in their system of fossil fuel dependence no matter what the cost to the environment.

And so we plug along, handcuffed to an outdated fuel source and still running our ridiculously historical internal combustion engines which should have been phased out decades ago and replaced with electric motors.

Humans are slow learners, it turns out. Our modern civilization isn’t really that “modern,” and it only seems to learn from catastrophe rather than intelligent planning.

The question remains: How much more damage can our planet handle from Man’s arrogant pollution? At what point does all the chemical contamination, fertilizer runoff, carbon emissions and runaway oil pollution of the ocean add up to a global extinction event?

We’re playing a global game of Russian Roulette right now with the future of human civilization… and the oil companies just can’t stop pulling the trigger. There’s little question where we’re all going to end up if we don’t change our ways and find a cleaner way to power our infantile civilization.

Via Prison Planet.com » Prison Planet

Mark Anderson
American Free Press
Monday, May 17th, 2010

Sherry Peel Jackson, the former IRS agent who ended up in federal prison in early 2008 over challenging the legitimacy of the federal income tax, is inching toward her scheduled official release date of Aug. 8, 2011. But it’s hard for her husband to shake the impression that prison authorities are making her suffer before she is released—even though it was a little less than a year ago that she became ill with a hyperactive thyroid, increased heart rate and chest pains.

Colin Jackson told AMERICAN FREE PRESS in an exclusive interview that she has been in solitary confinement for over five months straight—an unheard-of amount of time when hardened criminals with serious offenses typically get no more than 90 days in solitary.

But Mr. Jackson sees a ray of light in this troubling situation, even while he is disturbed that someone like Sherry—a certified public accountant and mother of two with no prior record, in prison over an alleged white-collar crime—would be given that much time in the bleak, claustrophobic confinements of such a cell.

“She has been granted an evidentiary hearing that is going to be coming up next month,” Mr. Jackson said on May 8, during this writer’s weekly radio show on the Republic Broadcasting Network. He also spoke to AFP off the air.

“From what I understand . . . evidentiary hearings are very rarely granted. Obviously the judge found that there is enough evidence . . . or points of interest, that Sherry needed to be heard again,” Mr. Jackson said.

While he is not yet at liberty to get into details, the hearing will “[focus] on some of things that should have been presented and weren’t. If this evidentiary hearing goes in our favor she could be home as early as this summer.”

Thus, the evidentiary hearing would provide a way for presenting items that were never explored in court.

On Feb. 14, 2008, Mrs. Jackson was imprisoned after being found guilty in the Atlanta, Ga. federal court of “willful failure to file” federal income taxes. Since it appears she was convicted and imprisoned for her beliefs (and acting on them), many supporters see her as a political prisoner—something that many Americans assume is impossible in America, except for enemy combatants in military custody.

When AFP last spoke with Mr. Jackson in early January, he was shocked his wife had recently been placed in solitary. He can hardly believe she is still there after all this time.

“The reason she is in solitary confinement is, what I believe, in retaliation for the media attention the prison system got and that the representative [local congressman] got when she was ill,” Mr. Jackson also said. The congressman is Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.).

“The prison system was operating much too slowly to give her medical attention, and she wrote a letter to Johnson letting him know that she was . . . severely ill and the prison system was not doing enough to help her physically,” Mr. Jackson said, adding that his wife sent a copy of the same letter to him, and he sent copies to several supporters and friends.

“Well, it went viral and people literally from all over the world began to call, write—they tied up our congressman’s phone line for two or three days. So I imagine the same thing happened to the prison system.

Shortly thereafter she was transferred to a solitary holding unit in Tallahassee, Fla. for what they say—and I have the letter from the prison system—for what they say is for her ‘protection.’ ”

This writer speculated in conversations with Mr. Jackson that perhaps prison authorities, in some form of twisted logic, wanted to make it seem like a strong showing of support would only make things worse for Sherry; thus they moved her from the Coleman, Fla. federal prison to the Federal Correction Institution in Tallahassee, Fla. because the Coleman facility does not have a solitary confinement cell and the other prison does.

“If these were her supporters writing and calling, what does she need to be protected from? The only people who have done her any harm in the past three years was our government,” said Mr. Jackson, who feels that an aide to Rep. Johnson “tried to placate the situation,” claiming the congressman’s office lacked the authority to do anything to help.

Mr. Jackson’s understanding is that one letter the prison received stated something to the effect of “we’ll be watching you,” though not necessarily those exact words. The prison system was looking into the letter, but now the FBI is investigating it. Even so, the prison is still accepting mail, though it’s very closely screened. However, Sherry’s subscription to AFP was denied by the prison, so she no longer receives this newspaper, Mr. Jackson said.

Those who want to write to the prison are asked to be brief, polite and to the point regarding Sherry’s treatment and to urge for her expedited release after the evidentiary hearing. The address is still: Sherry Peel Jackson, FCI Tallahassee [inmate number 59085-019], 501 Capitol Circle, Tallahassee, Fla. 32301. Those who prefer to contact Mr. Jackson to share thoughts or ask that their letter be forwarded to Tallahassee can write to him at this address: 1560 Fieldgreen Overlook, Stone Mountain, Ga. 30088.

Another American in prison, mainly for acting on her beliefs about the income tax, Elaine Brown, is in Federal Medical Center/Carswell prison, located adjacent to a naval air base by that name, just outside Fort Worth,
Texas. A persistent attempt by this writer to visit her in prison in early February was denied by the Bureau of Prisons office in D.C., which claimed AFP did not meet its “definition of news media.”

Mrs. Brown is a former dentist who, with her husband Ed, was arrested for income tax and weapons charges. She was sentenced to a brutal 35 years in prison—a life sentence at her age of 68. The Browns were arrested in 2007 by U.S. marshals at their rural New Hampshire home after agents posing as allies infiltrated their residence.

The Bureau of Prisons lists an “Ed Brown” in the Talladega, Ala. federal prison with a 2017 projected release. Rumors circulated that he was in the Marion, Ill. pen, but a Marion spokesman earlier this year told AFP no one by that name is there.

Via Prison Planet.com » Sci Tech

creativeminorityreport.com
May 17, 2010 

So Tiny Tim was the father of the global warming movement? Yeah, that fits. Make sure you at least make it to the chorus where he starts screaming “The Icecaps are meltin Oh-oh-oh-oh-OOOOOOOh!”

But you’ve got to decide who’s crazier? Tiny Tim is the obvious kind of bonkers that you see on street corners and cross the street to avoid whereas Al Gore is the more dangerous kind of looney that isn’t immediately apparent and you don’t know he’s flipped until he’s sitting in your living room eating your Chinese food and lecturing you that your freezer’s running too high.

So compare Gore’s performance with Tiny Tim’s and tell me who you think is crazier.

Now, you tell me how Tiny Tim’s performance is any more embarassing or less looney than this:

Two walk into the cage. Only one walks out. You decide. Who is crazier?

About a week ago I wrote about the cool roof project in Philadelphia [LINK].  The winning block was just announced … the 1200 Block of Wolf Street.

The residents on this block showed tremendous enthusiasm and community spirit in their quest to become the ‘Coolest’. Plus, every roof on the block is suitable for a ‘cool roof’ coating! 

"In the coming weeks, … this block … receive its prize-an energy audit and energy-efficient upgrades, such as insulation, air sealing and a ‘cool roof’! And we’ll celebrate with a block party in June!"

" …  check out their winning essay!"

"Cool roofs reflect the sun’s heat … are about 50-80 degrees cooler than typical asphalt roofs and come in a variety of colors.  White is the "coolest" because it most efficiently reflects the sun’s rays. "

 

Via:  RetroFit Philly LINK

 

 

Like everything else, the way cities are built and function in the future will be a whole lot different than they are today. The simple space saving and environment hugging option to ever expanding cities in the future is vertical growth, instead of spreading out horizontally and eating up land and greenery. So, our future cities will be way up there, in the skies above. The Green Float city in the sky will tower up, 1000 meters high, in the shape of a flower, and a surface area above ground of 1000 meters. Gaining inspiration from lilies floating on water, the cities are designed to accommodate 30,000 residents, above ground, and 10,000 at ground level, besides the water body surrounding the city island. The tower will also incorporate a factory that will make the city self-sufficient, providing it with food.

Temperatures of ground level will remain a pleasant 26-28°C year round. Recycling, livestock farming, waste-to-energy conversion and other processes will be carried out in the tower factory. Countries, with these floating lily cities will crop up in the future, a great way to live in peace with our degrading environment.

Thanks Jason!

Russell Brand and Katy Perry are planning a week of celebrations to commemorate their Indian wedding ceremony this October.

After just three months of dating, last New Year’s Eve the British funnyman proposed to the “California Gurls” singer during a romantic trip to India. Perry has stated the couple is planning a “small” wedding, insisting she doesn’t want the ceremony to turn into a “drunkfest of people.” Nonetheless, the couple is rumored to be planning to return to the country for an extravagant affair that will kick off Oct. 18 and conclude with Perry and Brand tying the knot on Oct. 25.

Katy and Russell are already sending out Save The Date cards to their friends and family, and snoops for England’s News of the World reportedly managed to get their hot little hands on the invite.

The card, which features a picture of Indian henna tattoo, urges guests to “Save The Week for the wedding of Katy and Russell” and reminds attendees that they “will need a passport.”

The invite also states guests “will be contacted soon with more information.”

Via Prison Planet.com » Commentary

Washington’s Blog
May 17, 2010

Everyone knows that the dispersants being dumped into the Gulf oil are toxic. As I wrote Friday:

Highly toxic dispersants have been used to try to break up the oil. See this and this. Not only are dispersants being released underwater, but the air force is also dropping dispersants on the slick from above.

The official information for the dispersant reveals problems:

OSHA requires companies to make Material Safety Data Sheets, or MSDSs, available for any hazardous substances used in a workplace, and the ones for these dispersants both contain versions of a disturbing statement.

***

Both data sheets include the warning “human health hazards: acute.” The MSDS for Corexit 9527A [the dispersant apparently being used in the Gulf] states that “excessive exposure may cause central nervous system effects, nausea, vomiting, anesthetic or narcotic effects,” and “repeated or excessive exposure to butoxyethanol [an active ingredient] may cause injury to red blood cells (hemolysis), kidney or the liver.” It adds: “Prolonged and/or repeated exposure through inhalation or extensive skin contact with EGBE [butoxyethanol] may result in damage to the blood and kidneys.”

Indeed, the specific dispersant being used is more toxic and less effective than other alternative dispersants, perhaps because of BP’s connections to the manufacturer.

In addition, new questions have arisen as to whether the dispersants might actually being increasing damage from the oil itself.

As the Christian Science Monitor notes today:

More relevant could be the dispersant that BP is applying to the oil at the source. BP officials have hailed the process as a success, noting diminishing oil at the surface. But the dispersant breaks the oil into smaller drops, which might instead be spreading throughout the water column, instead of rising to the surface.

It is not clear what this would mean environmentally, though past research indicates that oil can be trapped in the seabed for decades after oil on the surface is cleaned away.

Shouldn’t the use of dispersants be stopped until scientists figure out whether they will make things better or worse?

Via Prison Planet.com » Sci Tech

CBS News
Monday, May 17th, 2010

“While more than half of TV weathercasters believe global warming is happening, less than a third say it is caused mostly by man-made carbon emissions.”

The future seems bright. Bright green, with a whole lot of technological breakthroughs coming up everyday and designs for the development of these been sketched every now and then. Flying will be a greener affair in the future too. At least that’s what designer Victor Uribe hopes. He designed an aircraft that should probably take to the skies in the next 40 years that takes of vertically from the ground! And what makes this awesome aircraft so green? It’s powered up with hydrogen! Using hydrogen fuel, synthesized from water, the aircraft he chooses to call, the Airbus A350H, will have its fuel i.e. water, drawn from a river nearby.

By the looks of it, this one sure reminds one of a supersonic jet. Maybe it’ll go that fast too!

[Dvice]

Via Prison Planet.com » World News

AFP
Monday, May 17th, 2010

South Korea’s navy fired warning shots to drive away North Korean patrol boats from the disputed inter-Korean sea border, amid tension over the sinking of a Seoul warship, officials said Sunday.

The warning shots were fired late Saturday when two North Korean patrol boats violated the Northern Limit Line (NLL) border and strayed into South Korean waters, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff office said.

A spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff told AFP the North’s patrol boats retreated without responding to the fire. No casualties occurred.

It is the first time that shots have been fired at the tense sea border since the mystery sinking of a South Korean warship on March 26.

Full article here

With the open source nature of Mozilla Firefox, it was bound to happen sooner or later, a developer has started work on a fork of the popular web browser, which will include support for the H.264 codec. Dubbed Wild Fox, the project is in the very early stages and is aimed at the many countries where software patents are not recognized.
… (read more)

Via Prison Planet.com » World News

Tim Shipman
UK Daily Mail
Monday, May 17th, 2010

David Cameron declared himself a ‘Liberal Conservative’ and boasted of running a ‘progressive alliance’ yesterday as it emerged that he has recruited prominent Labour figures to advise his coalition.

The Prime Minister took a leaf from Tony Blair’s ‘big tent’ approach by signing up Labour MP Frank Field and left-wing intellectual Will Hutton.

Mr Field, a former welfare minister, has been sounded out about advising the Government on how to tackle poverty.

Mr Hutton, head of the left- of-centre Work Foundation will run a ‘fair pay review’ to ensure public-sector bosses are paid no more than 20 times the amount received by their lowliest employee.

The Tories have also asked former BP boss Lord Browne, a business ambassador for Gordon Brown, to be a Whitehall efficiency watchdog. But in creating a rainbow coalition, Mr Cameron risks alienating his party’s grass roots.

Full article here

“It’s Yillen-Hoolah-Hay….”

Just how do you pronounce ‘Gyllenhaal?’ It’s one of those timeless potato/potato, tomato/tomato sort of quandaries, but fortunately for us, Jake’s pleased as punch to clear up the confusion for us.

Watch the Prince of Persia star have a little fun with a British interviewer, who asks him the age-old question….

Are you sure you need a new car? I’m sure you want the newest safety features and modern styling that a new car offers.

Perhaps you need a larger vehicle to fit your growing family. You probably feel that your old car no longer fits your life. But how about cost?

From an economic perspective, you’re better off keeping your old car. It could save you thousands of dollars. Taking better care of your current car may make much more sense in the long run.

You’re probably thinking – those repair bills are really adding up. But the cost of repairs will never exceed the cost of a new car.

Changing your oil, replacing brakes, belts, and hoses are nothing compared to monthly payments on a new car. Even costly repairs like rebuilding an engine makes good financial sense.

If you’ve paid off your car, it is still in great shape and needs only a few modest repairs, there’s no need to throw it away. Enjoy your freedom from car payments. Enjoy lower annual taxes, insurance rates and license fees on your old car.

Buying a new vehicle would mean several years more of monthly principle and interest payments on a loan.

You can feel secure knowing that modern vehicles last longer. Not too many years ago, a vehicle’s useful life did not exceed 100,000 miles.

Today, many vehicles can breeze right past that 100,000 mile mark with no more than a tune-up, or maybe a new timing chain or fuel pump.

Older cars generally cost more to maintain and are more likely to break down. Repairs can be frustrating and expensive. But on the other hand they’re cheaper to own and operate. They lose most of its value in the first five years of their life. Your used vehicle won’t depreciate as much, saving you thousands.

Unless you’re rolling in cash, I’d say keep your old clunker.
Comfort yourself knowing that one day you’ll be able to easily afford that costly new ride.

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