Here's a rating, in your face

actually , it's two

Moody's, Fitch and S&P were used by the big banks to sell toxic sh*t around the world.
It's known as fraud, but nobody wants to make the sh*t stick to those boys.
It only involved $600 trillion. No problem.

Well, other folks finally got off their arses and opened up their own

ratings agencies!

Germany and China
First big moves?

US downgrade to AA
US is defaulting by sinking the dollar

Awesome "first" day in the media
You're gonna become very popular. and , there's no risk.
shitcan them all. US, UK, Germany
still, I blame the Greeks @sarc

-Costick67 ~(8^P

checkitout:
German Rating Agency Feri Downgrades US Government Bonds: AAA to AA!
Submitted by Smart Money Europe on 06/10/2011 04:08 -0400
The first Western downgrade of US government bonds is a fact! The German credit rating agency Feri lowered its rating on US debt by a full notch, from AAA to AA.
Here is the German press release:
Here's the english translation:
Homburg, 8 June 2011 - The Bad Homburg Feri EuroRating & Research AG downgraded the first credit rating agency's credit rating for the United States from AAA to AA. Feri analysts justify the downgrade by the continuing deterioration of the creditworthiness of the country due to high public debt, inadequate fiscal measures, and weaker growth prospects.
"The U.S. government has fought the effects of the financial market crisis primarily by an increase in government debt. We do not see that there is sufficient attention being paid to other measures, "said Dr. Tobias Schmidt, CEO of Feri Rating & Research AG. "Our rating system shows a deterioration in economic health, so the downgrading of the credit ratings of U.S. is warranted."
For the third consecutive year the deficit of the United States is in double digit percentages relative to gross domestic product (GDP). "Deficits of such magnitude are not a sustainable fiscal policy. We would reconsider the rating when the U.S. government creates a long-term sustainable budget," said Schmidt.
Feri Rating is listed on the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) as an EU credit rating agency approved and created with more than 20 years experience in sovereign ratings. Every month, the Feri analysts evaluate sovereign credit ratings from the perspective of a foreign investor based on the ability and willingness of countries to repay their debts. The credit ratings have eleven possible gradations between "AAA" (best credit) and "Default".

China ratings house says US defaulting: report
AFPAFP – 18 hours ago
A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.
"In our opinion, the United States has already been defaulting," Guan Jianzhong, president of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., the only Chinese agency that gives sovereign ratings, was quoted by the Global Times saying.
Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies -- eroding the wealth of creditors including China, Guan said.
Guan did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
The US government will run out of room to spend more on August 2 unless Congress bumps up the borrowing limit beyond $14.29 trillion -- but Republicans are refusing to support such a move until a deficit cutting deal is reached.
Ratings agency Fitch on Wednesday joined Moody's and Standard & Poor's to warn the United States could lose its first-class credit rating if it fails to raise its debt ceiling to avoid defaulting on loans.
A downgrade could sharply raise US borrowing costs, worsening the country's already dire fiscal position, and send shock waves through the financial world, which has long considered US debt a benchmark among safe-haven investments.
China is by far the top holder of US debt and has in the past raised worries that the massive US stimulus effort launched to revive the economy would lead to mushrooming debt that erodes the value of the dollar and its Treasury holdings.
Beijing cut its holdings of US Treasury securities for the fifth month in a row to $1.145 trillion in March, down $9.2 billion from February and 2.6 percent less than October's peak of $1.175 trillion, US data showed last month.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Thursday urged the United States to adopt "effective measures to improve its fiscal situation".
Dagong has made a name for itself by hitting out at its three Western rivals, saying they caused the financial crisis by failing to properly disclose risk.
The Chinese agency, which is trying to build an international profile, has given the United States and several other nations lower marks than they received from the the big three.

she's got a chance. One belonging to a snowball in hell

A really fine economist from France wants to be IMF chief.
No, not Lagarde. She was really cool in Inside Job. great timing. great mugging for the camera,
but she's more of the same. DSK in a skirt, minus the tendency to rape.

This one is saying all the right things about what's wrong with international

raping and finance, er, banking and finance

she wants every country to have a vote. Like the US will allow that to happen @sarc

That's why she hasn't got a chance.

checkitout:
What I would do as head of the IMF
My leadership challenge aims to expose the IMF's policy of imposing brutal cuts while protecting indebted states' creditors
o Aurélie Trouvé
guardian.co.uk
Today is the deadline for nominations in the race for the IMF leadership, and I have put forward a radically alternative candidate to do the job: me.
I am a French economics lecturer and have been the co-chair of the association Attac, an international organisation and network in the global justice movement, for four years. Attac is present in more than 40 countries worldwide, and has tens of thousands of adherents. Founded in France in 1998 by dozens of other associations, unions and alternative media, it has been a mainstay of the construction of the World Social Forum. We are a popular education movement that is action-oriented, and we denounce the mechanisms of neoliberalism while proposing tangible alternatives to both disarm the big world of finances and build an economy at the service of wealth-sharing and the preservation of our planet.
My leadership challeng aims to expose the current and past policies of the IMF, which are to unconditionally defend the interests of the creditors of indebted states while imposing brutal plans of social austerity (look at the state of Hungary, Ukraine and Latvia in 2008, Iceland in 2009, and Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland in 2010). Since the devastation brought by the financial crisis in 2008, neither the G20 nor the IMF or other international institutions have taken any steps to significantly reduce the volatility of international financial markets. Speculation is now raging, both on commodities and the securities of public debts.
With the above with mind, here are five crucial steps to tackle the crisis which I would put forward, should I become head of the IMF:
• I would put a stop to all austerity plans, and establish a tax on financial transactions, as well as implementing a strict regulation of transactions on derivatives products.
• I would put forward the co-ordination of economic policies at the international level, bringing countries with excessive imbalances (China, Germany, Japan on the side of those with a surplus, and the US on the side of countries with a deficit) to rebalance themselves in a co-ordinated manner, through adjustments in exchange rates coupled with active fiscal and wage policies.
• I would push for the development of an international currency based on a basket of the major currencies, as an alternative to the dollar.
• I would guarantee special drawing rights (an international reserve asset created by the IMF to supplement its member countries' official reserves) to help countries in difficulty during the period leading to the reduction of global imbalances, or during unexpected economic shocks.
• I would work towards democratising the IMF by integrating it to the UN system, with one vote for each of the 187 IMF member countries. It is about time to put an end to the exclusive ruling power of the biggest economies.

Ozzie and the Bilderbergs

George Osbourne , Chancellor of the Exchequer, UK
Goes to Switzerland to get his marching orders from
the guys with the secret money (in tax havens- there's your problem, George)

checkitout:
Bilderberg 2011: George Osborne attending as chancellor
Charlie Skelton spots some interesting names on the delegate list
So this is some proper journalism what I just done.
Early this morning a Swiss website published a genuine-sounding list of delegates to this year's conference. A couple of names leapt out, both of them Bilderberg alumni: Lord Mandelson (2009) and George Osborne (2006-2009).
On the 2011 delegate list, Osborne appears thus:
Osborne, George, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I've just spent the entire day trying and failing and failing and trying again to get an official confirmation that Osborne is attending the St Moritz conference, and if so, in exactly what capacity he's here.
At long last the Treasury Press Office gave me a straight answer, but it wasn't the answer I was expecting: "George Osborne is attending the Bilderberg conference in his official capacity as Chancellor of the Exchequer" – and he's coming along "with a number of other international finance ministers." Any Treasury staff? "Probably not more than one."
So – ok – you mean we're paying for Osborne to be here? You mean he's on Treasury business? You mean this is an official summit? You mean he's talking economic policy with the Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, the CEO of Airbus, and Russian oligarch Alexey Mordashov, the billionaire CEO of Severstal? And Henry Kissinger? In secret? Behind a police cordon?

The Middle East murder mayhem show

I may be stoopid but I just had a new thought today about the reasons
behind the new world order in the Middle East.
UPDATE, BELOW
Ok, so we know that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were fronts for
doing business, for US contractors to rob the US government, for example.

However, now that we see lotsa countries getting in on the Libya thing,
I started thinking, this is not just the old colonial game. There's more to this!

Now, they've got their eyes on Syria.

So, what's going on is:
the US and UK are where they are
to permanently destabilise the Middle East
(including the 'revolutions' in North Africa)
so that war and mayhem will become normal
and so we'll just sit idly by while
they pick off one government after another.

Part 2
After Syria, Iran.

Part 3
They're doing the old divide and conquer, with the Arabs,
and covering for their little friend in Palestine
making sure the Arabs cannot get up a unified voice asking
for peace in the Middle East.
[they almost had a unified voice last year, but now...?]
They'll either do what the US/UK say or they'll
get a revolution or assassination by Tomahawk.

Part 4 the oil, dummy!

Enjoy the warfare. we've got front row seats. Don't forget the popcorn

P.S. the refugee flood is destroying the EU. Another bonus

Here's the flip side. If the US needs you onside, they'll help kill your rebels.

Bahrain, Saudi, Yemen (they're bombing it now)

The sideshow is the Formula 1 race in March was cancelled because
the Bahraini government welcomed in the Saudi army to kill Bahraini Shiites.
The millionnaires were worried about their hides, but not a word about anybody else's.

UPDATE:
The guy from the Daily Bell (below) had the same idea (ignore the China title), at about the same time, about the rise in mayhem. But he missed the real reason.

-Costick67 ~(8^P
checkitout: 2 things
1 Daily Bell
China Tries to Start a War?
Saturday, June 11, 2011 – by Anthony Wile
Anthony Wile
When economic times sour, elites turn to war, or at least start to escalate military tensions. Europe and America are involved in at least four wars now, and unfortunately the West's escalating military involvement probably won't stop there. The West, in fact, seems destined to build a full-scale regional war out of a series of disparate ones.

They are, all of them, phony wars in some sense, even as they endlessly abide. Afghanistan apparently wasn't justified, as the Taliban had nothing to do with al-Qaeda and even offered to turn Osama bin Laden over to the George W. Bush administration based on a submission of evidence (that the US refused to present).

The Iraq war was supposedly aimed at removing weapons of mass destruction (whatever that means) from Saddam Hussein, but it seems he didn't have any. Now the US has taken to bombing Libya and Yemen for some reason; doubtless a justification will emerge (just don't hold you breath).

But building-up war is not simply a Western preoccupation. This is what China seems to be trying to do. You won't read about it because the mainstream media seems allergic to the story, but China's economy seems frankly to be at a kind of turning point (the bad kind), and doubtless the two issues are related.....

2
Jean Todt ignites F1 row with Bernie Ecclestone in Bahrain fiasco
• Bahrain GP set to be wiped from F1 season
• Decision to quit smacks of 'hypocrisy', says Bahrain
* Paul Weaver
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 June 2011 21.10 BST
....
Meanwhile there was further evidence yesterday of the worrying amorality – immorality, even – of Formula One, which has largely turned a blind eye to the killings, woundings, tortures and arrests that have been going on in Bahrain as the people protest for more human rights and greater freedoms....

Greece's debt slavery is just theatre, but it'll feel like Dante's Inferno

I don't know about Ireland's or Portugal's,

but I've got some info that Greece's debt will not be covered,

for very long...

what follows is the story of a bunch of illegal gentlemans'
agreements which are designed to enslave the world.
all suits and ties, and starvation.

If you've read the 'law'/agreement covering the bank loan, it's absolutely

Medieval in its slave-driving tactics.

The Greek government gave away its sovereign right:
-to declare bankruptcy
-to run its own finances
-to protect its land and belongings
-to protect its own citizens and their savings, worldwide
-to get help from any other country

and, it did so willingly!

You would say, "isn't that horrible"
strange thing is, it hasn't been voted on by the parliament,
12 months after it was signed.
It's against the Greek constitution and
against the constitution of lots of other countries.
So, while Merkel is protecting her banks,
German economists have taken the German state
to court saying that to do all the above things
to Greece is against the GERMAN constitution.
You're damn right. It's worse than the Nazi occupation.
[Germany still owes Greece money on behalf of Adolf]

But, the trick is, it never will be voted on.
The Greeks have already figured out what's going on,
so the PM won't dare.
[UPDATE Jn9: the PM was quized about this by his party today and got pissed off. meaning?]

so, why all the fuss?
To keep the charade of Euro economic viability going.
Those banks that are owed money in
London, Germany, France
are all technically bankrupt, like the IMF,
and it's all gonna collapse.
once Spain says "adios" to its debts.

And they want to blame Greece for everything,
so that the banksters don't get the blame.
Nice try. I still blame the Greeks @sarc

The next stalling tactic will be
a hidden/trick haircut or nosejob.

Oh, and the real game on the ground is:
1 the law, though not voted on, still applies, in practice!
2 getting Greece to sell everything cheap,
just like Max Keiser said.
Everything in Greece that is making a profit for the government
(cuz the oligarchy gets it all)
will be sold. Even if there's a crash, that stuff will be gone for good.
3 the government will fire half its workers.
4 oh, and European megacompanies will be using parts of Greece
for next to nothing, with no commitment.
No problem. Here's your brand new
pre-revolutionary Cuba de Batista.
and they might "re-arrange" some parts of Greece.
5 the ever poorer Greeks will keep paying some
of the ever-increasing taxes, while the rich pay nothing.

By the way, the Greek government has no limits
with respect to 'own goals'.
They sold government debt to Greek banks and
it's now semi-worthless,
so Greek banks are also broke,
but they have a guarantor, the Greek government!

the final judgement:

Either the whole banking thing will collapse,
because everybody's got nothing but piss in their gastanks,
or we'll keep going from crisis to crisis,
with rich countries enslaving poor ones,
despite the fact that everybody is technically broke.
Has that for a NWO?

checkitout: this is amazing stuff from Reggie Middleton
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/over-year-after-being-dismissed-sensationalist-questioning-ecbs-continued-solvency-after-sov?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29
the whole page is massive, but really instructive. Here's the Greek story:
....There has been a lot of noise in both the alternative and the mainstream financial press regarding potential risk to the ECB regarding its exposure at roughly 48 to 72 cents on the dollar to sovereign debt purchases through leverage, and at par at that. This concern is quite well founded, if not just over a year or so too late. In January, I penned The ECB Loads Up On Increasingly Devalued Portuguese Bonds, Ensuring That They Will Get Hit Hard When Portugal Defaults. The title is self explanatory, but expound I shall. Before we get to the big boy media's "year too late" take, let's do a deep dive into how thoroughly we at BoomBustBlog foretold and warned of the insolvency of both European private banks and central banks, including the big Kahuna itself, the ECB! The kicker is that this risk was quite apparent well over a year ago. On April 27th, 2010 I penned the piece "How Greece Killed Its Own Banks!". It went a little something like this:

Yes, you read that correctly! Greece killed its own banks. You see, many knew as far back as January (if not last year) that Greece would have a singificant problem floating its debt. As a safeguard, they had their banks purchase a large amount of their debt offerings which gave the perception of much stronger demand than what I believe was actually in the market. So, what happens when these relatively small banks gobble up all of this debt that is summarily downgraded 15 ways from Idaho.

Well, the answer is…. Insolvency! The gorging on quickly to be devalued debt was the absolutely last thing the Greek banks needed as they were suffering from a classic run on the bank due to deposits being pulled out at a record pace. So assuming the aforementioned drain on liquidity from a bank run (mitigated in part or in full by support from the ECB), imagine what happens when a very significant portion of your bond portfolio performs as follows (please note that these numbers were drawn before the bond market route of the 27th)…

do not compute. will not accept robo signings. must destroy

[humpty dumpty bankster mortgages- 4closurefraud.org]

I know that the robot image is one that at once brings laughter
and yet fear of a future out of control.
Robo signings of mortgage loans is one thing that caused fear.
Investment banks cut up loans into thousands of pieces

to sell them as (fraudulent) AAA derivatives

and now they can't put the pieces back together to foreclose on the fools
who got stuck with mortgages they couldn't pay,
because the bankers f%&8cked up the rest of the economy.

So, the banksters got teams of people to (robo-) sign fictitious names
on fraudulent mortgage documents.
The whole MERS system meant free homes for lots of people.

BUTT, it looked as if the rest of the US
bureaucracy was turning a blind eye.
No more, folks.
One jurisdiction's registry started the cavalcade
by not accepting obviously fake mortgage documents
[the robots are taking over!]

watch out for those librarians and file clerks.
seething anarchists!

[ED209 vs Robosigners]

-Costick67 ~(8^P
checkitout:
REJECTED | Massachusetts Register of Deeds John O’Brien is First in the Nation to Say NO to Recording Robo-signed Documents
Submitted by 4closureFraud on 06/07/2011 13:48 -0400
http://theheartofamerica.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/rejected.gif
Robo-signed documents rejected by John O’Brien following 60 Minutes show featuring Lynn Szymoniak
Massachusetts Register of Deeds John O’Brien is rejecting foreclosure documents signed by known robo-signers.
O’Brien is one of a handful of officials nationwide who began pulling court documents following a 60 Minutes story on foreclosure fraud that featured a Palm Beach County homeowner.
On Tuesday, Obrien said he rejected two robo-signed documents submitted to his registry for recording and plans to continue doing so.
Some quotes from the press release...
“the buck stops here”
“My Registry will not be a knowing participant in this fraud against homeowners. From today forward, lenders be on notice, the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds will not record robo-signed documents.”
“I find this practice very troubling on many levels. It has completely jaded my understanding that a notarized document was something that could be relied upon.”
“If these documents are signed by anyone other than the noted signatories, these notaries and those that employed them should be held accountable for the fraudulent documents that they have produced and the havoc they have caused to chains of title everywhere.”
“Knowing what I now know, it would be a dereliction of my duties as the keeper of the records to record these documents and any other documents that contain questionable signatures. To do so, would make me a willing participant in a continuing scheme which has corrupted the chain of title of thousands of Essex County property owners. I have decided to put a stop to this reckless behavior and hold these lenders and their agents accountable for the authenticity of what they are attempting to record in my Registry. I do not believe this to be unreasonable.”
“Now that Register Thigpen has joined with me, I am hopeful that my other colleagues around the country will also take the same action. I strongly believe that this will send a message, loud and clear, that we as Registers and Recorders of Deeds, whose responsibility it is to protect the integrity of the land recordation system, will not be a party to any fraudulent scheme that may damage individual’s property rights”
Jeff Thigpen joins O’Brien’s effort saying...
“The basic question here is whether we as Recorders are going to sit on our hands, in the face of what appears to be clear fraud or are we going to stand up for 400 years of integrity in land records? John is on the right side of this question and these are reasonable actions that he is taking.”

what's up doc? you want my chequebook?

two very different health stories from the US.
I don't know why so many Americans in power think that health = business.

Vermont has a bit of Canada rub off on them. We're just over the border.
Great skiing there. Now you can break your leg without breaking the bank.

1 Man dies of health insurance
2 Vermont starts single-payer public health care

the Onion
Man Succumbs To 7-Year Battle With Health Insurance

September 22, 2008 | ISSUE 44•39

DENVER—After years of battling crippling premiums and agonizing deductibles, local resident Michael Haige finally succumbed this week to the health insurance policy that had ravaged his adult life.
Haige, who had suffered from limited medical coverage for nearly a decade, passed away early Monday morning. According to sources, the 46-year-old was laid to rest at Fairplains cemetery, surrounded by friends, family members, and more than $300,000 of mounting debt.

"I miss Michael every single day, but at least he can finally rest now," said Sheila Haige, who watched as insurance rates ate away at her husband over time. "What Michael went through, the humiliating forms, the invasive background checks, the complete loss of dignity and hope—I wouldn't wish that kind of torture on anyone."

Once a healthy and happy father of two, Haige saw his life forever change seven years ago when health insurance professionals diagnosed him with a preexisting condition. As months passed and his line of credit continued to deteriorate, the former high school football coach would experience excruciating headaches and bouts of nausea every time another hospital bill arrived.

"My dad always seemed invincible, like there was nothing in the world that could hurt him," son Ryan Haige said. "But then, one night, I found him bent over a stack of UB-92 and HCFA forms, and he was crying. I'd never seen my father look so scared in all my life."....
http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-succumbs-to-7year-battle-with-health-insurance,2536/?utm_source=related

2 the Guardian
Single payer healthcare: Vermont's gentle revolution

The green mountain state was the first to ban slavery, in 1777. Now, it's the first to pioneer a truly public healthcare system
o Amy Goodman
o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 May 2011 13.00 BST

Vermont is a land of proud firsts. This small New England state was the first to join the 13 colonies. Its constitution was the first to ban slavery. It was the first to establish the right to free education for all – public education.

This week, Vermont will boast another first: the first state in the nation to offer single payer healthcare, which eliminates the costly insurance companies that many believe are the root cause of our spiralling healthcare costs. In a single payer system, both private and public healthcare providers are allowed to operate, as they always have. But instead of the patient or the patient's private health insurance company paying the bill, the state does. It's basically Medicare for all – just lower the age of eligibility to the day you're born. The state, buying these healthcare services for the entire population, can negotiate favourable rates, and can eliminate the massive overhead that the for-profit insurers impose.

Vermont hired Harvard economist William Hsiao to come up with three alternatives to the current system. The single payer system, Hsiao wrote, "will produce savings of 24.3% of total health expenditure between 2015 and 2024". An analysis by Don McCanne, MD, of Physicians for a National Health Programme pointed out that:

"[T]hese plans would cover everyone without any increase in spending since the single payer efficiencies would be enough to pay for those currently uninsured or underinsured. So this is the really good news – single payer works."

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin explained to me his intention to sign the bill into law:

"Here's our challenge. Our premiums go up 10, 15, 20% a year. This is true in the rest of the country as well. They are killing small business. They're killing middle-class Americans, who have been kicked in the teeth over the last several years. What our plan will do is create a single pool, get the insurance company profits, the pharmaceutical company profits, the other folks that are mining the system to make a lot of money on the backs of our illnesses, and ensure that we're using those dollars to make Vermonters healthy."..... ...

what looks like a suicidal deathwish

may turn out to be an invasion.


fracking
banking
natural disasters, flooding, drought

That Canada is looking mighty good

Plans are already afoot for a North American Union between Mexico, Canada and the Yanks.
That's like the UK is a union, owned by the English. This one will be owned by the US, but Canada's resources, especially water and clean, and now warm lands will be taken to feed the US it's burgers and fries. That's it. Canada will disappear.

Since a straight up vote in Canada will be rejected, they'll have to trick Canadians. Here's how it will happen. coming soon



Kids in Canada are already revolting. This Senate page (kid who runs around doing stuff)
showed a sign saying Stop Harper (the Prime Minister) in the Senate chamber.
I think it was because she got laid off.
She speaks out, in the Toronto Star, below

checkitout:
Why I did it: Senate page explains her throne speech protest
Published On Wed Jun 08 2011

Senate page Brigette DePape, holding a sign reading "Stop Harper," is led from the Senate chamber during the reading of the throne speech last week. (June 3, 2011)

by: Brigette DePape

I am moved by the excitement and energy with which people from all walks of life across this country greeted my action in the Senate.

One person alone cannot accomplish much, but they must at least do what they can. So I held out my “Stop Harper” sign during the throne speech because I felt I had a responsibility to use my position to oppose a government whose values go against the majority of Canadians.

The thousands of positive comments shared online, the printing of “Stop Harper” buttons and stickers and lawn signs, and the many calls for further action convinced me that this is not merely a country of people dissatisfied with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s vision for Canada.

It is a country of people burning with desire for change.

If I was able to do what I did, I know that there are thousands of others capable of equal, or far more courageous, acts.

I think those who reacted with excitement realize that politics should not be left to the politicians, and that democracy is not just about marking a ballot every few years. It is about ensuring, with daily engagement and resistance, that the vision we have for our society is reflected in the decision-making of our government.

Our views are not represented by our political system. How else could we have a government that 60 per cent of the people voted against? A broken system is what has left us with a Conservative government ready to spend billions on fighter jets we don’t need, to pollute the environment we want protected, to degrade a health-care system we want improved, and to cut social programs and public sector jobs we value. As a page, I witnessed one irresponsible bill after another pass through the Senate, and wanted to scream “Stop.”

Such a system leads us to feel isolated, powerless and hopeless — thousands of Canadians made that clear in their responses to my action. We need a reminder that there are alternatives. We need a reminder that we have both the capacity to create change, and an obligation to. If my action has been that reminder, it was a success.

Media and politicians have argued that I tarnished the throne speech, a solemn Canadian tradition. I now believe more in another tradition — the tradition of ordinary people in this country fighting to create a more just and sustainable world, using peaceful direct action and civil disobedience.

On occasion, that tradition has found an inspiring home within Parliament: In 1970, for instance, a group of young women chained themselves to the parliamentary gallery seats to protest the Canadian law that criminalized abortion. Their action won national attention, and helped propel a movement that eventually achieved abortion’s legalization.

Was such an action “appropriate”? Not in the conventional sense. But those women were driven by insights known to every social movement in history: that the ending of injustices or the winning of human rights are never gifts from rulers or from parliaments, but the fruit of struggle and of people power in the streets.

Actions like these provide the answer to the Harper government. When Harper tries to push through policies and legislation that hurt our communities and country, we all need to find our inner activist, and flow into the streets. And what is a stop sign after all, but a nod to the symbol of the street where a people amassed can put the brakes on the Harper government?

I’ve been inspired by Canadians taking action, and inspired too by my peers rising up in North Africa and the Middle East. I am honoured to have since received a message from young activists there, saying that we need not just an Arab spring but a “world spring,” using people power to combat whatever ills exists in each country.

I have been inspired most of all by Asmaa Mahfouz, the 26-year-old woman who issued a video calling for Egyptians to join her in Tahrir Square. People did, and they together made the Egyptian revolution. Her words will always stay with me: “As long as you say there is no hope, then there will be no hope, but if you go and take a stand, then there will be hope.”

Brigette DePape is a recent graduate of the University of Ottawa. She has started a fund to support peaceful direct action and civil disobedience against the Harper agenda: www.stopharperfund.ca

Fathers of some Nations beget fascists

Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Stalin
among the Fathers of their nations

freedom of speech vs communist autocracy

What message did they leave for the eons?

Which country is now the king of authoritarianism?
Russia or the US?

which country allows police to break into your home for any reason?
which country has wire tapping without a warrant?
which country uses tazers on cripples?
which country tries to use muscle to limit free speech? well, maybe both of them

which country will not allow anyone to dance at the Jefferson memorial in Washington?

this the same Jefferson who was instrumental in creating
all the rights of free speech and expression that the US
trumpets as their gifts to democracy.

-Costick67 ~(8^P

green shoots of green energy

[notice Godzilla in the background. Es divertido. No?]
[2 days of safety? that's a stretch]

I was dreaming that this would be the end result of the Fukushima Fuk-up.

Germany is going to kill of its nuclear power rigs.

Japan is going to swerve away from nuclear into green tech.

In essence, you have a massive ongoing nuclear catastrophe in N.Japan
that will not end for decades. It's burning out of control and that's one
crowded island. How much nuke juice can they withstand?

Chernobyl was a big disaster but since it happened in the woods of Ukraine,
nobody could relate it to their own lives. Now, with the Net
and all the business connections with Japan,
and all the horror stories we've been hearing, we know that

nuke bosses are bastards
who don't care and who will go bankrupt

leaving the people with a toxic plant and no viable solution.

It could happen to any of us.
So, now people are waking up and saying
"enough bullshit, already"

If you're having doubts about the severity of the disaster, read below.

checkitout:

Are Nuclear Chain Reactions Still Occurring at Fukushima?
Submitted by George Washington on 06/04/2011 20:33 -0400
You know that Fukushima reactors 1, 2 and 3 all melted down within hours of the Japanese earthquake.
You also know that at least some of the subsequent explosions could have been caused by small-scale nuclear reactions called "prompt moderated criticalities".
But you might not know that nuclear reactions may still be ongoing.
Specifically, it is well-known by nuclear scientists that the ratio of iodine 131 to cesium 137 tells a lot about when nuclear reactions have stopped. For example, on May 2nd, University of Tokyo physics professor Tetsuo Matsui published a scientific paper with the following summary:
We calculate the relative abundance of the radioactive isotopes Iodine-131 and Cesium-137 produced by nuclear fission in reactors and compare it with data taken at the troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The ratio of radioactivities of these two isotopes can be used to obtain information about when the nuclear reactions terminated.
Technology Review summarizes Professor Matsui's findings as follows:
Nuclear reactors produce radioactive by-products that decay at different rates. One common by-product is iodine-131 which has a half life of about 8 days while another is cesium-137 with a half life of about 30 years.
When a reactor switches off, the iodine decays more quickly so the ratio between these two isotopes changes rapidly over a period of days. That's why measuring this ratio is a good way to work out when the nuclear reactions terminated.
There are some complicating factors, however. The most important of these is that the ratio of iodine-131 and cesium-137 to start with depends on how long the reactor has been operating and so is not constant.
Today, Tetsuo Matsui at the University of Tokyo, says the limited data from Fukushima indicates that nuclear chain reactions must have reignited at Fuksuhima up to 12 days after the accident.
Matsui says the evidence comes from measurements of the ratio of cesium-137 and iodine-131 at several points around the facility and in the seawater nearby. He has calculated what the starting ratio must have been by assuming the reactors had been operating for between 7 and 12 months.
The data from the drain near reactor 2 and from the cooling pond at reactor 4, where spent fuel rods are stored, indicate that the reactions must have been burning much later.
"The data of the water samples from the unit-4 cooling pool and from the sub-drain near the unit-2 reactor show anomaly which may indicate, if they are correct, that some of these fission products were produced by chain nuclear reactions reignited after the earthquake," he says.
These chain reactions must have occurred a significant time after the accident. "It would be di?cult to understand the observed anomaly near the unit-2 reactor without assuming that a signi?cant amount of ?ssion products were produced at least 10 - 15 days after X-day," says Matsui.
So things in reactor 2 must have been extremely dangerous right up to the end of March.
As Time Magazine blogger Eben Harrell pointed out on March 30th:
The IAEA has said that the Fukushima nuclear power plant may have achieved re-criticality. “There is no final assessment,” IAEA nuclear safety director Denis Flory said at a press conference on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News. “This may happen locally and possibly increase the releases.”
On April 18th, nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen said that iodine 131 readings indicated ongoing nuclear reactions.
Indeed, Gundersen says today:
Unit 3 may not have melted through and that means that some of the fuel certainly is lying on the bottom, but it may not have melted through and some of the fuel may still look like fuel, although it is certainly brittle. And it's possible that when the fuel is in that configuration that you can get a re-criticality. It's also possible in any of the fuel pools, one, two, three, and four pools, that you could get a criticality, as well. So there’s been frequent enough high iodine indications to lead me to believe that either one of the four fuel pools or the Unit 3 reactor is in fact, every once in a while starting itself up and then it gets to a point where it gets so hot that it shuts itself down and it kind of cycles.
Similarly, a Daily Kos writer points out today:
Radiation levels in water inside the silt fence near reactor 2 are high and rising, despite large amounts of dilution. Continued very high levels of Iodine 131 with a half life of 8 days are very hard to explain for a reactor that has been "shut down". Normally Iodine levels would drop several orders of magnitude below cesium activity levels over the sixty day period shown in the graph, but instead they continue to track each other. The level of 10,000 Bq/liter I-131 is very problematic. It is much higher than would be expected for a reactor in cold shut down for 2 1/2 months.
letter
by Tunga
on Sat, 06/04/2011 - 22:08
Once a nuclear pile runs away there is no reason it will stop. Cherynoble is still melting it's sarcophagus.
Unit 3 is cool because it's entire contents are lying on the ground around the plant.
It's very simple. In order to get hydrogen gas you must have melting. If you have melting there is no way to cool the pile because all the water you dump on it turns to steam before it gets anywhere close to the fuel.
This is a crime against humanity. The liars should either come clean with the truth or face extermination.