Posts Tagged ‘state’
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Best of the Web: Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury: Portrait of a Psycho
Michael Joseph Gross
Vanity Fair
Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:14 CDT
© Vanity Fair
PALIN’S PALADINS: Erratic behavior and a pattern of lying matter little: “Such falsehoods never damage Palin’s credibility with her admirers, because information and ideology are incidental to this relationship."
Backstage in the arena, a little girl in Mary Janes pushes her brother in a baby carriage, stopping a few yards shy of a heavy, 100-foot-long black curtain. The curtain splits the arena in two, shielding the children from an audience of 4,000 people clapping their hands in time to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The music accompanies a video "Salute to Military Heroes" that plays above the stage where, in a few moments, the children’s mother will appear.
When the girl, Piper Palin, turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, bend down and give a moment to the children; a woman, perhaps a nanny, whisks the boy away; and Todd hands Sarah her speech and walks her to the stage. He pokes the air with one finger. She mimes the gesture, whips around, strides on four-inch heels to stage center, and turns it on.
And how. Palin and the crowd might as well be one. She’s glad to be here with the people of Independence, Missouri, "where so many of you proudly cling to your guns and your religion" – the first laughline in a 40-minute stump speech that alludes to many of the perceived insults she and her audience have suffered together, and that transforms their resentments into badges of honor. Palin waves her scribbled-on palm to the crowd, proclaiming that she’s using "the poor man’s teleprompter." Of the Obama administration, she says, "They talk down to us. Especially here in the heartland. Oh, man. They think that, if we were just smart enough, we’d be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell ‘em, and I do tell ‘em, Oh, we’re plenty smart, oh yeah – we know what’s goin’ on. And we don’t like what’s goin’ on. And we’re not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up."
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Best of the Web: Dead Souls: The Pentagon Plan to Create Remorseless ‘Warfighters’
Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:12 CST
© Unknown
The new US army: tireless, relentless, remorseless, unstoppable,… inhumane
Penny Coleman at Alternet.com gives us a look at a new program designed to dull the moral sensibilities of American soldiers in combat on the imperial frontiers: Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War.
But as we’ll see below, this attempt to peddle magic pills to chase away the horrors of war is just one front in a long-term, wide-ranging "warfighter enhancement program" — including the neurological and genetic re-engineering of soldiers’ minds and bodies to create what the Pentagon calls "iron bodied and iron willed personnel": tireless, relentless, remorseless, unstoppable.
I.
Coleman takes specific aim at the "Psychological Kevlar Act," aimed at reducing the alarming spread of soldier suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder spawned by the illegal invasion of Iraq. The program relies heavily on dosing soldiers with Propranalol, which, "if taken immediately following a traumatic event, can subdue a victim’s stress response and so soften his or her perception of the memory," as Coleman notes. "That does not mean the memory has been erased, but proponents claim that the drug can render it emotionally toothless." She continues:
But is it moral to weaken memories of horrendous acts a person has committed? Some would say that there is no difference between offering injured soldiers penicillin to prevent an infection and giving a drug that prevents them from suffering from a posttraumatic stress injury for the rest of their lives. Others, like Leon Kass, former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, object to propranolol’s use on the grounds that it medicates away one’s conscience…Barry Romo, a national coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, is even more blunt. "That’s the devil pill," he says. "That’s the monster pill, the anti-morality pill. That’s the pill that can make men and women do anything and think they can get away with it. Even if it doesn’t work, what’s scary is that a young soldier could believe it will."
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Best of the Web: How to Kill Goyim and Influence People: Israeli Rabbis Defend Book’s Shocking Religious Defense of Killing Non-Jews
Max Blumenthal
AlterNet
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:15 CDT
A rabbinical guidebook for killing non-Jews has sparked an uproar in Israel and exposed the power a bunch of genocidal theocrats wield over the government.
When I went into the Jewish religious book emporium, Pomeranz, in central Jerusalem to inquire about the availability of a book called Torat Ha’Melech, or the King’s Torah, a commotion immediately ensued. "Are you sure you want it?" the owner, M. Pomeranz, asked me half-jokingly. "The Shabak [Israel's internal security service] is going to want a word with you if you do." As customers stopped browsing and began to stare in my direction, Pomeranz pointed to a security camera affixed to a wall. "See that?" he told me. "It goes straight to the Shabak!"
As soon as it was published late last year, Torat Ha’Melech sparked a national uproar. The controversy began when an Israeli tabloid panned the book’s contents as "230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guidebook for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew." According to the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, "Non-Jews are "uncompassionate by nature" and should be killed in order to "curb their evil inclinations." "If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments… there is nothing wrong with the murder," Shapira insisted. Citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) he declared: "There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults."
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Best of the Web: Innocent Executioners: An Illustration of the Principles of Western Civilization in the Modern World
Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:52 CDT
We hear a lot about barbarism and backwardness and bloodthirstiness among the nations of the Middle East, where violent religious extremists are praised and supported — and often hold state power. A lot of this is hype and misinformation, of course, but sometimes it’s all too true. From the Guardian:
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday. …
The soldier, who has only been identified as "Captain R", was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.
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Best of the Web: Global Youth Unemployment Reaches Record Levels
Jordan Shilton
World Socialist Website
Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:52 CDT
© Unknown
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has issued a report documenting the severe impact of the global economic crisis on employment prospects for the world’s youth. The report, "Global Employment Trends for Youth", presents detailed statistics on the growing number of 15-to-24-year-olds who find themselves out of work.
The most striking findings are those showing the rapid rise of youth unemployment from the eruption of the financial crisis in 2008 onwards. At the end of 2009, according to the report’s introduction, global youth unemployment stood at 81 million. This was an increase of 7.8 million, or nearly 10 percent, from the end of 2007.
In percentage terms, global youth unemployment rose from 11.9 percent to 13 percent during this period, an increase described as "sharper than ever before".
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Signs of the Times News for Thu, 02 Sep 2010
Tags: army, battle hymn of the republic, black curtain, Cdt, Employment, Engine, erratic behavior, laughline, mary janes, michael joseph gross, military heroes, news, oil, percent, psycho michael, security, Signs Of The Times, state, unemployment, Vanity Fair Posted in headlines | No Comments »
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Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Institute for Policy Studies
Nathaniel Cahners Hindman – Huffington Post
Ivan Seidenberg – Verizon
A grim fact of the recession is that it pays to lay people off.
The CEOs who laid off the most employees during the recession are also the CEOs who took home the biggest pay checks, according to a study released last week.
CEOs of the 50 U.S. firms that slashed the most jobs between November 2008 and April 2010 took in 42 percent more than the average CEO at an S&P 500 firm, according to the 17th annual Executive Excess studyby the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive Washington think tank.
The study (PDF) also found that 36 of the 50 layoff leaders "announced their mass layoffs at a time of positive earnings reports," suggesting a trend of "squeezing workers to boost profits and maintain high CEO pay."
The 10 "highest-paid CEO layoff leaders" ranked in the report include the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Mark Hurd, who earned $24.2 million in 2009 as the company laid off 6,400 workers and Walmart CEO Michael Duke, who earned $19.2 million as the company laid off 13,350 workers. No Wall Street banks were included in this list, but three banks — Citigroup, Bank Of America and JP Morgan — showed up on the study’s list of the 50 firms that laid off the most employees.
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Posted by Activist at 12:03 PM Labels: CEO layoff leaders, companies with most layoffs, highest paid CEOs, Institute for Policy Studies 0 comments 
10 Highest-Paid CEOs Who Laid Off The Most Workers
Pravda
The worst weather on record coupled with the practice of speculation in the commodities markets are set to send food prices skyrocketing, bringing misery and starvation to large swathes of the world’s population. Are we set to see food riots this winter?
In the USA, Walmart has already announced a price hike of 5.8% on average for a 31-item basic basket for this Autumn. The long-term rise, however, is far more frightening, with the UNO predicting an increase of 60 per cent by 2030.
What is happening?
When there is a massive price spike, such as the case in recent years, followed by more price rises (as is the case today) the markets panic and speculative buying sends the prices through the roof. The market economy system is indeed not all about supply and demand but is also, and fundamentally, fuelled by speculative trading, with spot buyers buying future positions of commodities. When they are scarce, and the more so when the market senses that a scarcity exists, the price goes up.
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Related Article:
USDA Reports Food Shortages: Wall Street "Caught Off Guard" By Severity
Posted by Activist at 9:18 AM Labels: extreme weather, food prices rise, food prices skyrocketing, food shortages, scarcity 2 comments
Doomsday Scenario: Food Prices Shoot Through the Roof
Bob Adelmann
The New American
The Obama administration is “taking the first steps to confiscate retirement dollars,” according to Dr. Jerome Corsi who predicts that the end result will be retirees with 401(k) plans holding near-worthless government debt “that will be paid off in a devalued currency worth … pennies on the dollar.”
The move to confiscate those retirement dollars for government purposes was best illustrated by Christina Kirchner, President of Argentina, in 2008 when she announced plans to seize her citizens’ private pension funds. Writers at the Heritage Foundation said that while Kirchner claimed such seizure was necessary to protect her citizens’ investment accounts from the global meltdown, “most observers believe[d] her real motive [was] to use the $30 billion in seized assets to ease the massive debt obligations her leftist spendthrift government [had] run up.” The Wall Street Journal agreed, saying that “taking over the … pension fund assets [would] ease the cash crunch faced by [her] government.”
Corsi said he has a letter from the Treasury Department, Bureau of Public Debt, informing U.S. citizens that the federal government is rolling out a new program called “Treasury Direct” that will allow citizens “to purchase, manage, and redeem…savings bonds” electronically, as well as offering an option to purchase such bonds automatically through payroll savings or a personal checking account. This happened to coincide nicely, according to Corsi, with a bill offered by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) to create “Automatic IRAs” that would require all employers and employees to invest in IRAs using that automatic deduction option, “whether they want to do so or not.”
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Capital Controls: The Final Phase in the Great Looting of America
Posted by Activist at 9:03 AM Labels: 401k, Automatic IRAs, capital controls, forced investment into Treasury bonds, retirement funds 0 comments
Obama Needs Your 401(k) to Balance His Budget
Too Big To Fail Global Banks Will Collapse Between Now and First Quarter 2011 When Quantitative Easing Has Run Its Course and Fails
Mathias Chang
Global Research
Readers of my articles will recall that I have warned as far back as December 2006, that the global banks will collapse when the Financial Tsunami hits the global economy in 2007. And as they say, the rest is history.
Quantitative Easing (QE I) spearheaded by the Chairman of Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke delayed the inevitable demise of the fiat shadow money banking system slightly over 18 months.
That is why in November of 2009, I was so confident to warn my readers that by the end of the first quarter of 2010 at the earliest or by the second quarter of 2010 at the latest, the global economy will go into a tailspin. The recent alarm that the US economy has slowed down and in the words of Bernanke “the recent pace of growth is less vigorous than we expected” has all but vindicated my analysis. He warned that the outlook is uncertain and the economy “remains vulnerable to unexpected developments”.
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Posted by Activist at 8:20 AM Labels: dollar collapse, economic collapse, economic crisis, fiat currency, fiat money, monetary system, stock crash 2 comments
Global Collapse of the Fiat Money System
Eric Blair
Activist Post
America, and especially California, are in dire economic straits. Their day of fiscal reckoning is coming and it’s not going to be pretty. Consequently, it is has been suggested that something dramatic will have to happen for Congress to pass any form of relief because the American public was bitterly against the TARP and the Stimulus bill. I’m not advocating another massive bailout for the states, but it seems that if something meaningful is not done soon to restore economic viability to the United States, it will shatter into a million pieces.
Perhaps a shattering of current systems is what is needed to rebuild local economies with truly free markets. We certainly can’t count on the anti-capitalism mega-monopolies, who have merged with Federal and state governments, to fix this mess and provide for our local well-being. The economy must grow one town, one city, and one state at a time in a free and organic way. Incidentally, our Republic was designed to allow this local freedom to govern and grow the economy as they see fit.
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Posted by Activist at 7:57 AM Labels: California, drug war, legalize weed, Marijuana, marijuana decriminalization, marijuana policies, medical marijuana, Prop 19 3 comments
Can Legalizing Marijuana Save California, Our Republic?
Associated Press
OMAHA, Neb. — More than a third of supply managers in nine Midwest and Plains states surveyed for a regional business index expect a recession in 2011.
As part of the Mid-America report released Wednesday, supply managers were asked their expectations for 2011, and 35 percent said a recession was likely or very likely.
The August overall economic index dipped to 55.8 from 60.8 in July.
The report uses a collection of indexes ranging from zero to 100. Any score above 50 suggests economic growth in the next three to six months, while a score below 50 suggests a contracting economy. The report is overseen by Creighton University economist Ernie Goss.
States in the survey are Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
Posted by Activist at 7:45 AM Labels: Great Recession, midwest states, recession, survey suggests recession fears 0 comments
Midwest survey suggests major recession fears
Matthew Lee
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday added the Pakistani Taliban to its international terrorism blacklist, targeting the group blamed for the failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square and its leaders with financial and travel sanctions.
The group, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban or TTP, threatens U.S. national security, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a notice published in the Federal Register. She designated the group a "foreign terrorist organization" under U.S. law.
In addition, Clinton named the group and its top leaders, Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali Ur Rehman, "specially designated global terrorists," a classification that imposes additional State and Treasury department sanctions.
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Posted by Activist at 7:40 AM Labels: expanding wars, foreign terrorist organization, Pakistan, pakistani taliban, terrorist blacklist 0 comments
Excuse to Expand the War?: US adds Pakistani Taliban to terrorism blacklist
Hibah Yousef
CNN Money
The government’s list of troubled banks hit its highest level since 1993 during the second quarter, although the pace of growth continued to slow, according to a government report released Tuesday.
The number of banks at risk of failing rose by 53 to 829, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in its quarterly survey of the nation’s banking system. That increase marks the smallest rise since the first quarter of 2009.
However, it’s still nearly double the 416 banks that were on the FDIC’s watch list a year ago and is up from 775 in the first quarter of this year.
Banks that end up on the problem list are considered the most likely to fail. But few of the lenders on the list actually reach the point of failure. On average, just 13% of banks on the FDIC’s problem list have been seized and shuttered by regulators.
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Posted by Activist at 7:12 AM Labels: bank closures, FDIC, FDIC watch list, problem banks, troubled banks 0 comments
Problem bank list climbs to 829
Matthew Stein
Mother Earth News
The following is an excerpt from When Technology Fails by Matthew Stein (Chelsea Green, 2008). This comprehensive primer on sustainable living skills — from food and water to first-aid and crisis management skills — will prepare you to live in the face of potential disasters coming in the form of social upheaval, economic meltdown or environmental catastrophe. This excerpt is from Chapter 4, “Emergency Measures for Survival.”
The best survivors spend almost no time, especially in emergencies, getting upset about what has been lost, or feeling distressed about things going badly … Life’s best survivors can be both positive and negative, both optimistic and pessimistic at the same time. — Al Siebert, Ph.D., The Survivor Personality
The struggle for survival is a fascinating and inspiring subject, forming the basis for many of the most memorable books and movies. Psychologist Al Siebert’s personal fascination with survivors began when he received his military training from a group of veteran paratroopers. His teachers were legendary members of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment. They had lost nine out of 10 members in combat in the Korean War. Siebert found that these “survivors” were not the crusty, yelling drill sergeants that he had anticipated. They were tough, yet showed patience. They had a good sense of humor and were likely to laugh at mistakes. They were positive, yet also looked at the downside of things. They didn’t act mean or tough, even though they could be as mean and tough as anyone. Siebert noticed that each of these men had a type of personal radar that was always on “scan.” He realized it was not dumb luck that had brought these men through their ordeals, but a synergistic combination of qualities that tilted the odds in their favor. Al believes that we can all benefit in our daily lives by nurturing and developing these positive character traits within our own personalities.
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Posted by Activist at 7:02 AM Labels: homesteading, modern homesteading, self sufficiency, self sufficient lifestyle, survival, survival skills, Survivalists 0 comments
Survival Personality: Develop Your Intuition – Modern Homesteading
Andrew Griffin
Oklahoma Watchdog
OKLAHOMA CITY — As we noted here at Oklahoma Watchdog a week or so ago, the pharmacy chain Walgreens has been aggressively pushing this season’s combined seasonal/H1N1 flu vaccine. This, after 2009′s swine-flu scare that resulted in tons of vaccine that was left to rot in warehouses, resulting in lost revenue for vaccine manufacturers and others who profit off of health-related scaremongering.
And while reading USA Today this morning I couldn’t help but notice the full-page Walgreens ad on 7A where a “mom” says she is arming herself for the ones she loves, saying, “I got a flu shot for my daughter.” That last part was underlined in the ad.
And now we see there is a strong effort afoot to make vaccine mandatory for health workers. As a Los Angeles Times story reported today that hospital chains are increasingly forcing employees to get vaccines or lose their job. The State of New York is working on a plan to make state health workers get the jab.
Notes the LAT: “Most studies suggest that healthcare workers should be vaccinated to help stop the spread of flu. But surveys show a sizable portion of people who work in hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices don’t want to get an annual flu shot. According to a Rand Corp survey issued last year, 39% of healthcare professionals said they would not get a flu vaccine, even with the threat of pandemic flu.
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Posted by Activist at 6:50 AM Labels: flu shots, flu vaccines, H1N1, mandatory vaccines, seasonal flu, swine flu, Walgreens 0 comments
Vaccine jabs being pushed by medical-industrial complex
Micheal Sunanda
Activist Post
Our growing national epidemic of psychiatric drugs smothers natural human emotions, sensitivity, and openness in relationships. After shrinks have labeled someone as high anxiety, troubled, manic, depressed, bipolar, etc., they have the cure ready to adjust the behavior to their liking.
Big Pharma has hundreds of psychiatric terms defining victims’ psyche and behavior to treat (or poison?) them to adjust, be nice, obey, consume, work, be normal and numb, thus belonging to our "great society." The billions in profits for Pharma-Chem motivates them to diagnose emotional problems with shrink terms that the makers themselves have designed drugs to control. Victims of domestic violence are treated with strong nerve drugs to relax, go to work, to sleep, or to school. Millions of U.S. school kids are drugged to pay attention and to follow class rules to learn subjects for corporate employment in the current U.S. war economy.
Some opponents of shrink drugs are exposing these medical diagnoses, treatments, and the labeling conditions of sick people, students, drug addicts, depressed women, mad teens, insomniacs, lost souls, the unsexual, and even menopause as mental disorders to treat with drugs. The drug pushers want life-long dependency on prescriptions the patients or the government pays for. This drugging further damages one’s natural wounded sensitivity after years of neglect and/or abuse from childhood on. The truth is that many of emotional, hyper, or depressed people were victims of womb, birth and/or bonding trauma, circumcision, sexual abuse, or physical and mental punishments, which has damaged their psyche — sometimes for life. Drugs to mask the effects only prolong and/or exacerbate the pain.
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Posted by Activist at 6:45 AM Labels: Big Pharma, Micheal Sunanda, natural living, Oness Press, pharmaceutical drugging of children, psychiatric drugs, psychiatry abuse 0 comments
"Brave New World" Psychiatry Pushing Nerve Drugs
Douglas Valentine
Global Research
The politics of terror are the greatest covert operation ever.
In explaining why, I’ll begin by defining some terms, because, when discussing the covert op called “the politics of terror,” words and their management are all important.
How are politics and terror actually defined: how are these meanings manipulated; for what purposes, and by whom?
Terrorism is defined as "violence against civilians intended to obtain a political purpose." This is an ambiguous phrase, which begs the questions: what are politics and violence?
Politics is defined as “the process by which groups of people make collective decisions.” And violence is the use of force to compel a person or group to do or think something against their will. That includes the violence of words – of threatening to hurt – and of social structures, as well as the violence of deeds.
So, by definition, terrorism is political violence – hurting people, or threatening to hurt them, in order to make them govern themselves against their will.
In America , terrorism is always condemned by the government, and, accordingly, America is never a perpetrator of terrorism, but always the victims of it. The US war on terror is the ultimate expression of this principle: it is a military response to terrorism; violence in self-defense, not (ostensibly) violence for a political purpose.
That’s the official story – the assumption. But I’m going to show that America does engage in terrorism – violence against civilians for political purposes. This “state” terrorism, however, is covert, in so far as it is equated with national security, and thanks to that built-in ambiguity, it has both stated and unstated purpose.
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Posted by Activist at 6:43 AM Labels: conspiracies, covert operations, Douglas Valentine, politics of terror, state terrorism, terrorism, war on terror 0 comments
The Greatest Covert Operation Ever: The Politics of Terror as the Business of Terror
Paul Craig Roberts
Prison Planet
Have economists made themselves irrelevant? If you have any doubts, have a look at the current issue of the magazine, International Economy, a slick endorsed by former Federal Reserve chairmen Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan, by Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, by former Secretary of State George Shultz, and by the New York Times andWashington Post, both of which declare the magazine to be “ahead of the curve.”
The main feature of the current issue is “The Great Stimulus Debate” [PDF] Is the Obama fiscal stimulus helping the economy or hindering it?
Princeton economics professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman [Email him] and Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi [Email him] represent the Keynesian view that government deficit spending is needed to lift the economy out of recession. Zandi declares that thanks to the fiscal stimulus, “The economy has made enormous progress since early 2009″[PDF], an opinion shared by the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and the Congressional Budget Office.
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Posted by Activist at 6:26 AM Labels: death
Activist Post
Tags: activist, doomsday scenario, food riots, highest paid ceo, highest paid ceos, Huffington Post, ivan seidenberg, mark hurd, mass layoffs, michael duke, Pakistani, press, Score, state, Survival, Taliban, terrorism, Time, Wall Street Banks, war Posted in headlines | No Comments »
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Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Tags: Aegis, aegis destroyers, Bill Van Auken, china tensions, crude, disaster, Drills, Financial, global collapse, Globalresearch Ca, Group, holy crusade, James Corbett, liquidity trap, oil, Paul Craig Roberts, Quantitative, state, terror, William Blum Posted in headlines | No Comments »
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Monday, August 30th, 2010
Gates Foundation Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is
Well, well, well. It’s about time. Kind of like when Fox News gave $1 million in campaign contributions to Republicans. It wasn’t exactly a secret before, but now it’s official. The Gates Foundation just bought a whopping 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock.
Two Non-GMO farming innovations that show great promise
New York Lawmakers Push for Salmonella Vaccinations
Two state legislators want to require farmers in New York to vaccinate their chickens against salmonella.
DOJ Demonizes Constitutionalists As Extremist Criminals
Secret services ‘must be made more transparent’ to halt the spread of damaging conspiracy theories
The Death Of Cash?
All Over The World Governments Are Banning Large Cash Transactions
Pentagon may apply preemptive warfare policy to the Internet
Grappling with matters of law and policy governing the United States military’s cyber-warfare capabilities, Pentagon planners are eying ways of making preemptive strikes across the Internet part of America’s toolbox.
Mexico to Ban Payment in Cash
Mexico says it is planning to tighten the noose around big-ticket cash purchases to curtail the flow of smuggled dollars and fight money laundering.
The military-industrial complex, debt, and unemployment: the only things growing in the economy
Taliban – Behind the Masks
The Taliban granted journalist Paul Refsdal unprecedented access. This exclusive documentary shows us a side of the Taliban that we have never seen before.
SCO: Russia opens China pipeline for Siberian oil
Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, on Sunday opened a new pipeline to export east Siberian oil to China that will help Russia reorientate its oil trade towards the east.
Electricity Could Be Pulled from Air, Research Claims
The study has already raised some debate, not just over its feasibility, but as to whether or not the mechanics at work truly represent "pulling electricity out of the air."
Colorado Police Using Biometric Iris Scan Technology
Congress may sneak through Internet ‘kill switch’ in defense bill
A federal cybersecurity bill that critics say creates a presidential "kill switch" for the Internet could be added on to a defense spending bill and passed without much debate, technology news sources report.
No BP investigation, the Senate blocked it.
Canada Opens Arctic To NATO, Plans Massive Weapons Buildup
Ben Bernanke calls for help to revive the stuttering US economy
What did the chairman of the Federal Reserve say in Jackson Hole? According to much of the reaction, Ben Bernanke said the "Fed stands by to boost US growth" (FT), or that the "Fed is ready to prop up economy" (NYT) or even that the "Fed stands ready to support recovery" (WSJ).
Statin drugs may soon be given to fast food customers with meals
A new study out of Imperial College London suggests that fast food chains start giving out free statin drugs to customers in order to help balance out the negative effects of the junk food on their bodies.
Confirmed: Corexit Still Being Sprayed in the Gulf
Veteran chemist Bob Naman says that Corexit is still being sprayed in the Gulf, and that he found 13.3 parts per million in Cotton Bayou, Alabama.
India Halts Vaccine Programs After Deaths of Four Children
Vaccine programmes grind to a halt in India once more, when four children died after they received the measles vaccination in Lucknow. The four children were reported to have fainted soon after they were vaccinated and witnesses reported seeing the children’s eyes roll back as they began to have seizures.
Family win 18 year fight over MMR vaccine damage to son
California students get tracking devices
The system was introduced Tuesday. When at the school, students will wear a jersey that has a small radio frequency tag. The tag will send signals to sensors that help track children’s whereabouts, attendance and even whether they’ve eaten or not.
Obama’s new tax on…Rainwater!?
Would President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency really force Americans to pay a tax on "rainwater runoff" from homes and small businesses?
10 Statist Myths Debunked
Schools ‘groom kids for surveillance state’?
Schools are increasingly invading student privacy both in school and outside of school. Are schools grooming youth to passively accept a surveillance state where they have no expectation of privacy anywhere? A PogoWasRight.org commentary.
This Economy Is Ripping The Dignity Of Millions Of Unemployed Americans To Shreds
New Documentary Blows The Doors Off Wall Street
Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, INSIDE JOB traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.
Bernanke promises ‘unconventional’ stimulus steps…
Treasury yields rose after Mr Bernanke spoke, as the market had expected an indication of more bond buying or quantitative easing by the central bank.
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CIA making secret payments to members of Karzai administration
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Friday, August 20th, 2010
In the holograms of reality, Tiwanaku is another ancient civilization whose timeline came and went, leaving behind megalithic monuments that go without explanation as to their mathematical design and construction. Considered by some the oldest city in the world, much of Tiwanaku’s creation defies the laws of physics and mathematics even by today’s standards. Many monuments bear close resemblance to those created by other ancient cultures all over the planet, truly an overlap if one were to place hologram over hologram, to define the journey of humanity in time.
As with many other sacred sites throughout the planet Tiwanaku remains an enigma allowing researchers to speculate on its origins and purpose then parallel that with other ancient civilizations left behind by unknown beings surviving in time with great stone markers which bear clues to humanity’s creation story. Gods, temples, idols, metaphors, all clues in a puzzle humanity is unraveling at this time of conscious awakening.
Background – Back Story
Tiwanaku is an important Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia. It is recognized by Andean scholars as one of the most important precursors to the Inca Empire, flourishing as the ritual and administrative capital of a major state power for approximately five hundred years. The ruins of the ancient city state are near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca in the La Paz Department, Ingavi Province, Tiwanaku Municipality, about 72 km (44 miles) west of La Paz.
The site was first recorded in written history by Spanish conquistador and self-acclaimed ‘first chronicler of the Indies’ Pedro Cieza de León. Leon stumbled upon the remains of Tiwanaku in 1549 while searching for the Inca capital Collasuyu. Some have hypothesized that Tiwanaku’s modern name is related to the Aymara term taypiqala, meaning "stone in the center", alluding to the belief that it lay at the center of the world. However, the name by which Tiwanaku was known to its inhabitants has been lost, as the people of Tiwanaku had no written language.
Some believe Tiwanaku is the oldest city in the world. Others believe it was built by an extraterrestrial race who also created the Nazca Lines.
Cultural Development and Agriculture
The area around Tiwanaku may have been inhabited as early as 1500 BC as a small agriculturally-based village. Most research, though, is based around the Tiwanaku IV and V periods between AD 300 and AD 1000, during which Tiwanaku grew significantly in power. During the time period between 300 BC and AD 300 Tiwanaku is thought to have been a moral and cosmological center to which many people made pilgrimages. The ideas of cosmological prestige are the precursors to Tiwanaku’s powerful empire.
Tiwanaku¹s location between the lake and dry highlands provided key resources of fish, wild birds, plants, and herding grounds for camelidae, particularly llamas. The Titicaca Basin is the most productive environment in the area with predictable and abundant rainfall, which the Tiwanaku culture learned to harness and use in their farming. As one goes further east, the Altiplano is an area of very dry arid land.
The high altitude Titicaca Basin required the development of a distinctive farming technique known as "flooded-raised field" agriculture (suka kollus). They comprised a significant percentage of the agriculture in the region, along with irrigated fields, pasture, terraced fields and qochas (artificial ponds) farming.
Artificially raised planting mounds are separated by shallow canals filled with water. The canals supply moisture for growing crops, but they also absorb heat from solar radiation during the day. This heat is gradually emitted during the bitterly cold nights that often produce frost, endemic to the region, providing thermal insulation.
Traces of landscape management were also found in the Llanos de Moxos region (Amazonian food plains of the Moxos).
Over time, the canals also were used to farm edible fish, and the resulting canal sludge was dredged for fertilizer. The fields grew to cover nearly the entire surface of the lake and although they were not uniform in size or shape, all had the same primary function.
Though labor-intensive, suka kollus produce impressive yields. While traditional agriculture in the region typically yields 2.4 metric tons of potatoes per hectare, and modern agriculture (with artificial fertilizers and pesticides) yields about 14.5 metric tons per hectare, suka kollu agriculture yields an average of 21 tons per hectare.
Significantly, the experimental fields recreated in the 1980s by University of Chicago’s Alan Kolata and Oswaldo Rivera suffered only a 10% decrease in production following a 1988 freeze that killed 70-90% of the rest of the region’s production. This kind of protection against killing frosts in an agrarian civilization is an invaluable asset. For these reasons, the importance of suka kollus cannot be overstated.
As the population grew occupational niches were created where each member of the society knew how to do their job and relied on the elites of the empire to provide all of the commoners with all the resources that would fulfill their needs.
Little is known of the 30,000 to 60,000 urban dwellers or of the city’s crafts or administrative functions. We also know little about the storage system that was required for the bounty of surplus foods from the agricultural fields, the vast llama herds on the Poona, and the abundant fish caught in the lake. The core of this imperial capital was surrounded by a moat that restricted access to the temples and areas frequented by royalty.
Some occupations include agriculturists, herders, pastoralists, etc. Along with this separation of occupations, there was also a hierarchal stratification within the empire.
The elite of Tiwanaku lived inside four walls that were surrounded by a moat. This moat, some believe, was to create the image of a sacred island. Inside the walls there were many images of human origin that only the elites were privileged to, despite the fact that images represent the beginning of all humans not only the elite. Commoners may have only ever entered this structure for ceremonial purposes since it was home to the holiest of shrines.
Rise and Fall of Tiwanaku
The city and its inhabitants left no written history, and modern local people know little about the city and its activities. An archaeologically based theory asserts that around AD 400, Tiwanaku went from being a locally dominant force to a predatory state. Tiwanaku expanded its reaches into the Yungas and brought its culture and way of life to many other cultures in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. However, Tiwanaku was not exclusively a violent culture. In order to expand its reach, Tiwanaku used politics to create colonies, negotiate trade agreements (which made the other cultures rather dependent), and establish state cults.
Many others were drawn into the Tiwanaku empire due to religious beliefs as Tiwanaku never ceased being a religious center. Force was rarely necessary for the empire to expand, but on the northern end of the Basin resistance was present. There is evidence that bases of some statues were taken from other cultures and carried all the way back to the capital city of Tiwanaku where the stones were placed in a subordinate position to the Gods of the Tiwanaku in order to display the power Tiwanaku held over many.
Among the times that Tiwanaku expressed violence were dedications made on top of building known as the Akipana. Here people were disemboweled and torn apart shortly after death and laid out for all to see. It is speculated that this ritual was a form of dedication to the gods. Research showed that one man who was dedicated was not a native to the Titicaca Basin, leaving room to think that dedications were most likely not of people originally within the society.
The community grew to urban proportions between AD 600 and AD 800, becoming an important regional power in the southern Andes. According to early estimates, at its maximum extent, the city covered approximately 6.5 square kilometers, and had between 15,000 – 30,000 inhabitants.
However, satellite imaging was used recently to map the extent of fossilized suka kollus across the three primary valleys of Tiwanaku, arriving at population-carrying capacity estimates of anywhere between 285,000 and 1,482,000 people.
The empire continued to grow, absorbing cultures rather than eradicating them. William H. Isbell states that "Tiahuanaco underwent a dramatic transformation between AD 600 and 700 that established new monumental standards for civic architecture and greatly increased the resident population."
Archaeologists note a dramatic adoption of Tiwanaku ceramics in the cultures who became part of the Tiwanaku empire. Tiwanaku gained its power through the trade it implemented between all of the cities within its empire.
The elites gained their status by control of the surplus of food obtained from all regions and redistributed among all the people. Control of llama herds became very significant to Tiwanaku, as they were essential for carrying goods back and forth between the center and the periphery. The animals may also have symbolized the distance between the commoners and the elites.
The elites’ power continued to grow along with the surplus of resources until about AD 950. At this time a dramatic shift in climate occurred. A significant drop in precipitation occurred in the Titicaca Basin, with some archaeologists venturing to suggest a great drought. As the rain became less and less many of the cities furthest away from Lake Titicaca began to produce fewer crops to give to the elites.
As the surplus of food dropped, the elites power began to fall. Due to the resiliency of the raised fields, the capital city became the last place of production, but in the end even the intelligent design of the fields was no match for the weather. Tiwanaku disappeared around AD 1000 because food production, the empire’s source of power and authority, dried up. The land was not inhabited again for many years. In isolated places, some remnants of the Tiwanaku people, like the Uros, may have survived until today.
Beyond the northern frontier of the Tiwanaku state a new power started to emerge in the beginning of the 13th century, the Inca Empire.
In 1445 Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui (the ninth Inca) began conquest of the Titicaca regions. He incorporated and developed what was left from the Tiwanaku patterns of culture, and the Inca officials were superimposed upon the existing local officials. Quechua was made the official language and sun worship the official religion. So, the last traces of the Tiwanaku civilization were integrated or deleted.
Architecture
Tiwanaku monumental architecture is characterized by large stones of exceptional workmanship. In contrast to the masonry style of the later Inca, Tiwanaku stone architecture usually employs rectangular ashlar blocks laid in regular courses, and monumental structures were frequently fitted with elaborate drainage systems. The drainage systems of the Akapana and Pumapunku include conduits composed of red sandstone blocks held together by ternary (copper/arsenic/nickel) bronze architectural cramps. The I-shaped architectural cramps of the Akapana were created by cold hammering of ingots. In contrast, the cramps of the Akapana were created by pouring molten metal into I-shaped sockets.
The blocks have flat faces that do not need to be fitted upon placement because the grooves make it possible for the blocks to be shifted by ropes into place.
The main architectural appeal of the site comes from the carved images on the blocks along with carved doorways and giant stone monoliths. The stone used to build Tiwanaku was quarried and then transported 40 km or more to the city.
The most important edifice for dating purposes is the Kalasasaya ("Place of the Vertical Stones"). It is built like a stockade with 12 foot high columns jutting upward at intervals, each of these being carved into human figures.
The steps of the Kalasasaya (Temple), are each a
rectangular block of stone about 30 feet wide.
The megalithic entrance to the Kalasaya mound is here seen from the Sunken Courtyard viewing west. The Kalasaya stairway is a well-worn megalith, a single block of carved sandstone. Like the Kalasaya mound, the Sunken Courtyard is walled by standing stones and masonry infill. In this case the stones are smaller and sculptured heads are inset in the walls. Several stelae are placed in the center of the 30 m square courtyard.
The largest terraced step pyramid of the city, the Akapana, was once believed to be a modified hill, and has proven to be a massive human construction with a base 656 feet square and a height of 55.8 feet. It is aligned perfectly with the cardinal directions. Its base is formed of beautifully cut and joined facing stone blocks. Within the cut- stone retaining walls are six T- shaped terraces with vertical stone pillars, an architectural technique that is also used in most of the other Tiwanaku monuments. It originally had a covering of smooth Andesite stone, but 90% of that has disappeared due to weathering. The ruinous state of the pyramid is due to its being used as a stone quarry for later buildings at La Paz. Its interior is honeycombed with shafts in a complicated grid pattern, which incorporates a system of weirs used to direct water from a tank on top, going through a series of levels,and finally ending up in a stone canal surrounding the pyramid. On the summit of the Akapana there was a sunken court with an area 164 feet square serviced by a subterranean drainage system that remains unexplained.
Associated with the Akapana are four temples: the Semi-subterranean, the Kalasasaya, the Putuni, and the Kheri Kala. The first of these, the Semi-subterranean Temple, was studded with sculptured stone heads set into cut-stone facing walls and in the middle of the court was located a now-famous monolithic stela. Named for archaeologist Wendell C. Bennett who conducted the first archaeological research at Tiwanaku in the 1930′s, the Bennett Stela represents a human figure wearing elaborate clothes and a crown. The ancient Tiwanaku heartland is estimated to have been about 365,000, of whom 115,000 lived in the capital and satellite cities, with the remaining 250,000 engaged in farming, herding, and fishing.
Tiwanaku, Bolivia – Crystalinks
Tags: ancient civilization, Ancient civilizations, Capital, City, empire, five hundred years, inca empire, lake titicaca, llama, mathematical design, megalithic monuments, oldest city in the world, production, region, spanish conquistador, state, suka, tiwanaku bolivia, trade, way Posted in research | No Comments »
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