Bullets over Iraq

Via Undernews:

U.S. HAS USED 250,000 BULLETS FOR EACH INSURGENT KILLED

ANDREW BUNCOMBE - US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel. A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years, largely as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as changes in military doctrine. . .

“Officials” get around this obvious ridiculous figure by saying that a large number of these bullets are used for “training purposes.” I propose that many, many more civilians and others have been shot than reported.

Technorati Tags: Iraq

For the News Junkies

Great commentary, tips, suggestions about Google News at the Robot Wisdom Auxiliary blog.

Technorati Tags: google

Brace Yourself part 2

Rita has been downgraded to category 4. Plenty strong enough to cause trouble, and Houston is in gridlock:

[...] Fathers and sons got out of their cars and played catch on freeway medians. Others stood next to their cars, videotaping the scene, while others car-hopped, walking between cars chatting with people along the way. Wreckers tried to wind their way along the shoulders, pulling stalled cars out of the way. [...]

Rain begins falling in New Orleans, with 3-4 inches predicted. The levees can only take six inches and a storm surge of up to 10-12 feet.

Want to see pictures and a video clip from the aftermath of the 1900 storm that hit Galveston? Thomas A. Edison, Inc sent photographers:

[...] In spite of the fact that Galveston was under martial law and that the photographers were shot down at sight by the excited police guards, a very wide range of subject has been secured. The series, taken as a whole, will give the entire world a definite idea of the terrible disaster, unequaled since the Johnstown flood of 1889. [...]

Galveston is threatened with destruction this time around also:

(Bloomberg) -- Galveston, Texas, could be overwhelmed by a storm with the power of approaching Hurricane Rita, which is stronger than Hurricane Katrina was when it slammed into New Orleans last month, the city manager said. [...]

Technorati Tags: Rita

All Peak Oil, All the Time part 6

Michael C. Ruppert is getting all excited again about our imminent destruction via peak oil, with hubris filled hints of his “inside sources in the energy industry”:

RITA: Storm May Be the Coup de Grace for the American Economy and Many of Us As Well

[...] Fully 30% of all US refining capacity is in the target zone. Perhaps most importantly, almost every refinery capable of producing diesel fuel is in immediate danger. This promises (especially in the wake of Katrina) a devastating and irreplaceable shortage of the diesel fuel needed to power America’s harvest of grain and food crops this month and next. Without diesel fuel to power the harvesters and combines, crops may be left to rot in the ground presenting a double whammy: food shortages (with prices that may treble or quadruple) and export defaults negatively impacting the financial markets and trade deficit. [...]

I am not denying that the scenario he describes may very well happen, but as I have said many times here before it will be deliberate. What better way to control your population than to make them poor and hungry; the better to shove your criminal agenda through.

We don't even have to get all cozy with hi-tech alternative energy sources, and change our current distribution structure to prop us up. There is biodiesel which is biodegradable and non-toxic. Some fleets of trucks are already running on the stuff. The National Biodiesel Board says there are delivery trucks rolling into the Gulf Coast right now.

George Bush has even signed two biodiesel bills into law. I am not sure if much will come of it, since the Regime didn't bother to protect the fifth largest port in the world.

Technorati Tags: peak oil, Rita

Brace Yourself

According to Storm Track, Hurricane Rita is now a category 5, with an extremely healthy core capable of supporting an incredible wind field.

Reuters reports that Rita is not expected to flood New Orleans. Although, CBC quotes Dave Wurtzel, who is part of the corp for repairing the 17th Street Canal levee, “The protection is very tenuous at best.”

Stocks drop in the US and London, warnings that crude oil production could be a “national disaster”, Mission Control shuts down and the Hurricane Center may run out of names.

Not to be all doom and gloom, but I am also keeping on eye on the fact that Vancouver Island is moving westward:

“We think that it's one of these events that will trigger the big mega-thrust earthquake,” seismologist John Cassidy of the Pacific Geoscience Centre in Sidney, B.C., said yesterday.

The island is in The Ring of Fire. So these signs could be alerts to future activity:

The edges of the giant Pacific plate, which lies beneath the Pacific Ocean, form a particularly intense ring of tectonic activity, known as the “ring of fire.” This activity causes frequent earthquakes along the west coast of North America and in Chile, Alaska and Japan, and is also responsible for volcanic eruptions in the northwest United States, the Andes Mountains, and the Philippines.

It as if the earth is sick and tired of our ignorance:

Consider Galloway's statement in response to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath:

“The scenes from the stricken city almost defy belief. Many, many thousands of people left to die in what is the richest, most powerful country on Earth. This obscenity is as far from a natural disaster as George Bush and the U.S. elite are from the suffering masses of New Orleans. The images of Bush luxuriating at his ranch and of his secretary of state shopping for $7,000 shoes while disaster swamped the U.S. Gulf Coast will haunt this administration.

In the most terrible way imaginable they show to the whole world that it is not only the lives of people in Baghdad, Fallujah and Palestine that Bush holds cheap. It is also his own citizens - the black and poor people left behind with no food, water or shelter. This is not simply manslaughter through incompetence, though the White House's incompetence abounds. It is murder - for Bush was warned four years ago of the threat to New Orleans, as surely as he was warned of the disaster that would come of his war on Iraq...

His is the America of Halliburton, the M-16 rifle, the cluster bomb, the gated communities of the rich and of the billionaires he grew up with in Texas. There is another America. It is the land of the poor of Louisiana, it is the land of the young men and women economically conscripted into the military. It is the land of the glorious multiethnic mix that was New Orleans, it is the land of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and of great struggles for justice.”

But, there are pink bunnies on mountaintops.

Technorati Tags: Rita

Strange Times

It seems that from now on, we can count on everything being very strange:

2003 heatwave 'may have sped up global warming'

LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - The record heatwave that scorched Europe two years ago killing tens of thousands of people could have led to a devastating increase in global warming, new research shows. [...]

Now French researchers have calculated that plant growth across the continent was reduced by about 30 per cent. [...]

Global warming: Siberia feels the heat

It’s a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined that contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting, writes Ian Sample. [...]

Global warming changes the temperature of the oceans which changes our climate. Small changes have quantum effects, which we are beginning to see, with the 2003 European heat wave, and now with the US hurricane season.

Rita is heading toward the Texas coast, and the Houston Mayor urges evacuation as the storm rapidly grows into a Category 4. Galveston and New Orleans have mandatory evacuation orders. South Florida, so far, has been spared a direct hit.

Rita Developments: Experts in New Orleans warn that even a glancing blow from the storm and as little as 3 inches of rain could swamp the city's damaged levees. Engineers and contractors work furiously to repair levees and pumps that protect the below-sea-level city.

I notice that neocon-lovers are attempting to exploit the ignorance of the faithful by playing up the recent announcement of global warming on Mars, with such articles as “Hey Liberals: Better Save Mars from Global Warming”, and “Katie Couric and Matt Lauer Blame Hurricanes On Global Warming”, implying that liberals blame Bush for global warming and the whole notion of global climate change is a liberal fantasy.

The Bush regime is not responsible for global warming, despite their love of pollution, although the regime is certainly not helping. I can't but wonder that if those in power know that catastrophic changes are happening, making plans to save their own psychopathic hides, and leaving us out of the picture.

Update: From The Storm Track - Hurricane Rita is continuing her explosive growth and could easilly reach Category 5. Rita just moved out of range of the Key West radar and technical problem had grounded the hurricane hunters this morning, so NHC is flying blind.

Technorati Tags: global warming, Rita

Caught

Good commentary on the recent bungled false flag operation:

British Government's Agent Provocateurs Exposed

SOTT
20/09/2005

There is a saying of sorts that “if you are going to do something, do it well”, and given the serious consequences, nowhere is that more true than when you plan to engage in criminal activity. Today in Basra, Southern Iraq, two members of the British SAS (Special Ops) were caught, 'in flagrante' as it were, dressed in full “Arab garb”, driving a car full of explosives and shooting and killing two official Iraqi policemen. [...]

Britain has a long history of terrorist activities, which are then blamed on someone else. Even during World War II, British agents were caught in at least one terrorist act, which they then planned on blaming on the Germans. Back in 2002, it was reported that a Neo-Nazi leader 'was MI6 agent'.

MI6 was also responsible for organizing Operation Mass Appeal, to convince the British public that genocide was necessary. Now they are busy trying to convince the world that those Muslims can't take care of themselves, and the white world needs to stay there indefinitely.

Business as usual.

Technorati Tags: police state, terrorism

Laugh or Cry? The Real Chaos Cloud Story

Read what happens to the blog Proof Through the Night when he links to the Weekly World News article about the chaos cloud heading for earth devouring everything in its path.

But Dr. Albert Sherwinski is making Sitemeter's numbers spin like the scoreboard on Tommy's pinball machine. And it scares me.

Apparently many people aren't paying attention that yahoo syndicates Weekly World News articles for their entertainment section. Never mind that the article contains rather blatant mathematical inaccuracies. Are people really freaking the hell out over such obvious funny business?

Now what is interesting, is that the New Scientist posted an article entitled Galactic dust storm enters Solar System which states:

The Sun's shifting magnetic field is set to focus a decade-long storm of galactic dust grains towards the inner Solar System, including Earth.

The effect this will have on our planet - if any - is unknown. But some researchers have speculated that sustained periods of cosmic dust bombardment might be related to ice ages and even mass extinctions.

During the last decade, the magnetic field of the Sun acted like a shield, deflecting the electrically charged galactic dust away from the Solar System. However, the Sun's regular cycle of activity peaked in 2001.

As expected, its magnetic field then flipped over, so that south became north and vice-versa. In this configuration, rather than deflecting the galactic dust, the magnetic field should actually channel the dust inwards. [...]

I posted this article some time ago, and I have received no search engine hits regarding such things. A real story, with a real threat, and almost no play.

Instead, we have a piece written as entertainment and spoof, which merely distracts from real threats, and it generates a real buzz.

It seems to me that not only are we seeing a huge growing divide between the rich and poor due to Bush's fiscal policies, but also a huge growing divide between those who have been educating themselves about reality and those who are somehow becoming dumber.

The emails I receive in response to this blog show there are people paying attention, and that does give one some small hope.

Technorati Tags: chaos cloud, Sherwinski

Trouble in Paraguay

“You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month.” - CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. “Katherine The Great,” by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991)

The exact location on our globe the US will destroy next may be known only to the neocons. All we get are rumors, and usually not from our state controlled media. If you have any doubt that we have a state controlled media, then read up a bit on operation Mockingbird.

Znet informs us the US military is preparing to “spread democracy” in Paraguay, and using the vague phrase of “terrorist threats” as an excuse.

The CIA factbook itself informs us that:

The 35-year military dictatorship of Alfredo STROESSNER was overthrown in 1989, and, despite a marked increase in political infighting in recent years, relatively free and regular presidential elections have been held since then.

Of course the US was friends with Stroessner during his rule despite the fact that his regime was blamed for torture, kidnapping, widespread corruption, and harboring Nazis. He is the guy who helped Josef Menegele out of a tight spot.

Lets not kid ourselves here. The US is on an anti-democracy tirade, and that includes the US itself.

Standard policy really. Most of us just didn't care, and now we may have to pay for our blissful ignorance. See A Brief History of U.S. Interventions: 1945 to the Present by William Blum.

A downer post, but there is always The Daily Kitten.

Technorati Tags: paraguay, police state, terrorism

Head for High Ground?

Hoo boy, are we living in interesting times:

Global warming 'past the point of no return'

A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.

They believe global warming is melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is beginning to absorb more heat from the sun, causing the ice to melt still further and so reinforcing a vicious cycle of melting and heating. [...]

Some time ago, the BBC posted an interesting set of before and after pictures of How the World is Changing. The SFGate also has an interesting set.

Also, melting can happen at a fairly rapid clip. Back in 2002 the Larson B ice shelf, east of the Antartic peninsula, broke apart and disappeared in just a few weeks. At the time, very few were willing to attribute this to global warming with any degree of certainty.

Technorati Tags: global warming, ice age