Trans-Asian Axis http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb en Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:33:06 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/images/misc/rss.jpg Trans-Asian Axis http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb Obama Administration using the United Nations to socialize America http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7394&goto=newpost Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:51:44 GMT ]]> First the Administration turned Arizona in on human right abuses over immigration reform to the United Nations...now the Administration is using the same tactic to go after states blocking Unions from taking over their free markets.

Stuart Varney Tells Union Rep He Sides “With Our Enemies”
Reported by Ellen - September 5, 2010 - Comments (11)

In honor of Labor Day, a special Cost of Freedom “business block” on Fox News made a special effort to attack unions. Actually, substitute host Stuart Varney didn’t just attack unions, he accused Bruce Raynor, of Workers United, of siding with “our enemies.”

Why?

Because Raynor supported the Obama administration’s report to the United Nations “equating the difficulty of organizing a union here in America to a human rights offense.” That must mean that Varney thinks President Obama and hs administration side with our enemies, too, though he did not say so.

"I've got to say, sir,” Varney began with Raynor, “I was shocked and angered by the idea that my government in America would link our behavior in America, vis-à-vis unions, and link it to some kind of human rights abuse. Say it ain't so, Bruce, you can't be serious?"

Raynor, who seemed to have nothing directly to do with the filing of the report, said, "It's true that that’s the position in the report to the United Nations. It’s also true in fact. Millions of American workers, Stuart, today have no right to organize a union." He went on to say that, "Public employees in the State of North Carolina, for instance, have no right to organize unions. South Carolina, Georgia. All throughout the south."

Varney, who was argumentative throughout, interrupted. "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's a human rights abuse?"

Yes it is," Raynor told him.

"…You will take to the United Nations, and embarrass this great country, and put us in the same league as North Korea?" Varney asked incredulously.

"No, not put us in the same league as North Korea," Raynor answered.

"You are!" Varney insisted.

That was a bit of sleight of hand on Varney’s part. Earlier in the segment, he had interviewed the conservative Barbara Comstock on this same subject. When he made the same outraged objection (claiming the report had linked America to North Korea and Saudi Arabia), she made it clear that the report had not done so. Comstock said that the U.S. had said in the report, “We’re not necessarily equating our behavior with other huge, you know, violating countries.”

Raynor continued, "But when the United States, the greatest democracy in the history of the world, we must defend our
democratic principles. The right to free association."

Varney said pugnaciously, "That's it?

That's all you've got?

You say that it's restricted in North Carolina so we’re human rights abusers?"

Raynor answered, "There are over 20 states where public employees have no right to free association. FedEx drivers have no right to form a union because the company says under some technicality that they’re contracters when UPS drivers are workers and have a right to form a union."

"You have picked tiny little examples," Varney accused, "… and you now say that this great democracy abuses human rights? That's embarrassing."

Raynor replied, "Over a million domestic workers in America have no right to organize. Agricultural workers. There are millions of Americans that have no right to free association."

"Are you telling me that they cannot get a secret ballot and vote to unionize? There's a law which says so?" Varney asked.

Yes that was exactly what Raynor was saying. He added, "In over 20 states, public employees can’t organize, which is millions of public employees."

"You're saying every industry should be completely all the same? Police officers, military?" Varney pushed.

"Except for the military," Raynor said. "… (which) is a different institution." He went on to say that the United States is the “hardest country in the free world” to organize unions.

It's hard to believe Varney didn't have this next line pre-prepared and ready for use at the end of the segment, sort of as a coup de grace.

"So you report us to the United Nations… a den of thieves… You have sided with our enemies.

You are in the same camp as our enemies.”



 ]]> In the Throes of Progressive Tyranny vector7 http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7394 Anita Moncreif (former ACORN employee) on Sean Hannity Radio Show http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7393&goto=newpost Sun, 05 Sep 2010 14:20:15 GMT I want to see the GOP start kicking on this.

Anita Moncreif (former ACORN employee) on Sean Hannity Radio Show ]]> World Politics and Politicians Backstop http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7393 Moon shrinking http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7392&goto=newpost Sun, 05 Sep 2010 10:23:31 GMT Lobate scarps on the moon were discovered during the Apollo missions with analysis of pictures from the high-resolution Panoramic Camera installed on Apollo 15, 16, and 17. However, these missions orbited over regions near the lunar equator, and were only able to photograph some 20 percent of the lunar surface, so researchers couldn't be sure the scarps were not just the result of local activity around the equator. The team found 14 previously undetected scarps in the LRO images, seven of which are at high latitudes (more than 60 degrees). This confirms that the scarps are a global phenomenon, making a shrinking moon the most likely explanation for their wide distribution, according to the team. As the moon contracted, the mantle and surface crust were forced to respond, forming thrust faults where a section of the crust cracks and juts out over another. Many of the resulting cliffs, or scarps, have a semi-circular or lobe-shaped appearance, giving rise to the term "lobate scarps". Scientists aren't sure why they look this way; perhaps it's the way the lunar soil (regolith) expresses thrust faults, according to Watters. Lobate scarps are found on other worlds in our solar system, including Mercury, where they are much larger. "Lobate scarps on Mercury can be over a mile high and run for hundreds of miles," said Watters. Massive scarps like these lead scientists to believe that Mercury was completely molten as it formed. If so, Mercury would be expected to shrink more as it cooled, and thus form larger scarps, than a world that may have been only partially molten with a relatively small core. Our moon has more than a third of the volume of Mercury, but since the moon's scarps are typically much smaller, the team believes the moon shrank less. Because the scarps are so young, the moon could have been cooling and shrinking very recently, according to the team. Seismometers emplaced by the Apollo missions have recorded moonquakes. While most can be attributed to things like meteorite strikes, the Earth's gravitational tides, and day/night temperature changes, it's remotely possible that some moonquakes might be associated with ongoing scarp formation, according to Watters. The team plans to compare photographs of scarps by the Apollo Panoramic Cameras to new images from LRO to see if any have changed over the decades, possibly indicating recent activity. While Earth's tides are most likely not strong enough to create the scarps, they could contribute to their appearance, perhaps influencing their orientation, according to Watters. During the next few years, the team hopes to use LRO's high-resolution Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs) to build up a global, highly detailed map of the moon. This could identify additional scarps and allow the team to see if some have a preferred orientation or other features that might be associated with Earth's gravitational pull. "The ultrahigh resolution images from the NACs are changing our view of the moon," said Dr. Mark Robinson of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., a coauthor and Principal Investigator of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. "We've not only detected many previously unknown lunar scarps; we're also seeing much greater detail on the scarps identified in the Apollo photographs." The research was funded by NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington. The team includes researchers from the Smithsonian, Arizona State, the SETI Institute, Mountain View, Calif., NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., Institut für Planetologie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Germany, Brown University, Providence, R.I., and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. Image: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/476466main1_gregory_scarp_226.jpg Over recent geologic time, as the lunar interior cooled and contracted, the moon's radius shrank by about 100 m. As a result its brittle crust ruptured and thrust faults (compression) formed distinctive landforms known as lobate scarps. In a particularly dramatic example, a thrust fault pushed crustal materials (arrows) up the side of the farside impact crater named Gregory (2.1°N, 128.1°E). By mapping the distribution and determining the size of all lobate scarps, the tectonic and thermal history of the moon can be reconstructed over the past billion years. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University/Smithsonian Thrust faults are formed when the lunar crust is pushed together, breaking the near-surface materials. The result is a steep slope on the surface called a scarp as shown in this diagram. Credit: Arizona State University Image: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/476474main1_global_scarp_plot-226x109.jpg This map illustrates the distribution of lobate scarp features located thus far. Black dots indicate previously known scarps while white dots depict newly detected scarps found in images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. Credit: NASA/Arizona State University/Smithsonian Related Links: › Information on related NASA media briefing › Streaming audio of the briefing]]> Newly discovered cliffs in the lunar crust indicate the moon shrank globally in the geologically recent past and might still be shrinking today, according to a team analyzing new images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. The results provide important clues to the moon's recent geologic and tectonic evolution.

The moon formed in a chaotic environment of intense bombardment by asteroids and meteors. These collisions, along with the decay of radioactive elements, made the moon hot. The moon cooled off as it aged, and scientists have long thought the moon shrank over time as it cooled, especially in its early history. The new research reveals relatively recent tectonic activity connected to the long-lived cooling and associated contraction of the lunar interior.



"We estimate these cliffs, called lobate scarps, formed less than a billion years ago, and they could be as young as a hundred million years," said Dr. Thomas Watters of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Washington. While ancient in human terms, it is less than 25 percent of the moon's current age of more than four billion years. "Based on the size of the scarps, we estimate the distance between the moon's center and its surface shrank by about 300 feet," said Watters, lead author of a paper on this research appearing in Science August 20.

The mare basalts that fill the Taurus-Littrow valley were thrust up by contractional forces to form the Lee-Lincoln fault scarp, just west of the Apollo 17 landing site (arrow). It is the only extraterrestrial fault scarp to be explored by humans (astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt). The digital terrain model derived from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) stereo images shows the fault extending upslope into North Massif were highlands material are also thrust up. The fault cuts upslope and abruptly changes orientation and cuts along slope, forming a narrow bench. LROC images show boulders shed from North Massif that have rolled downhill and collected on the bench. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University/Smithsonian



"These exciting results highlight the importance of global observations for understanding global processes," said Dr. John Keller, Deputy Project Scientist for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "As the LRO mission continues in to a new phase, with emphasis on science measurements, our ability to create inventories of lunar geologic features will be a powerful tool for understanding the history of the moon and the solar system."

The scarps are relatively small; the largest is about 300 feet high and extends for several miles or so, but typical lengths are shorter and heights are more in the tens of yards (meters) range. The team believes they are among the freshest features on the moon, in part because they cut across small craters. Since the moon is constantly bombarded by meteors, features like small craters (those less than about 1,200 feet across) are likely to be young because they are quickly destroyed by other impacts and don’t last long. So, if a small crater has been disrupted by a scarp, the scarp formed after the crater and is even younger. Even more compelling evidence is that large craters, which are likely to be old, don't appear on top any of the scarps, and the scarps look crisp and relatively undegraded.


Another fault cut across and deformed several small diameter (~40-m diameter) impact craters (arrows) on the flanks of Mandel’shtam crater (6.5°N, 161°E). The fault carried near-surface crustal materials up and over the craters, burying parts of their floors and rims. About half of the rim and floor of a 20 m-in-diameter crater shown in the box has been lost. Since small craters only have a limited lifetime before they are destroyed by newer impacts, their deformation by the fault shows the fault to be relatively young. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University/Smithsonian






Lobate scarps on the moon were discovered during the Apollo missions with analysis of pictures from the high-resolution Panoramic Camera installed on Apollo 15, 16, and 17. However, these missions orbited over regions near the lunar equator, and were only able to photograph some 20 percent of the lunar surface, so researchers couldn't be sure the scarps were not just the result of local activity around the equator. The team found 14 previously undetected scarps in the LRO images, seven of which are at high latitudes (more than 60 degrees). This confirms that the scarps are a global phenomenon, making a shrinking moon the most likely explanation for their wide distribution, according to the team.

As the moon contracted, the mantle and surface crust were forced to respond, forming thrust faults where a section of the crust cracks and juts out over another. Many of the resulting cliffs, or scarps, have a semi-circular or lobe-shaped appearance, giving rise to the term "lobate scarps". Scientists aren't sure why they look this way; perhaps it's the way the lunar soil (regolith) expresses thrust faults, according to Watters.

Lobate scarps are found on other worlds in our solar system, including Mercury, where they are much larger. "Lobate scarps on Mercury can be over a mile high and run for hundreds of miles," said Watters. Massive scarps like these lead scientists to believe that Mercury was completely molten as it formed. If so, Mercury would be expected to shrink more as it cooled, and thus form larger scarps, than a world that may have been only partially molten with a relatively small core. Our moon has more than a third of the volume of Mercury, but since the moon's scarps are typically much smaller, the team believes the moon shrank less.

Because the scarps are so young, the moon could have been cooling and shrinking very recently, according to the team. Seismometers emplaced by the Apollo missions have recorded moonquakes. While most can be attributed to things like meteorite strikes, the Earth's gravitational tides, and day/night temperature changes, it's remotely possible that some moonquakes might be associated with ongoing scarp formation, according to Watters. The team plans to compare photographs of scarps by the Apollo Panoramic Cameras to new images from LRO to see if any have changed over the decades, possibly indicating recent activity.

While Earth's tides are most likely not strong enough to create the scarps, they could contribute to their appearance, perhaps influencing their orientation, according to Watters. During the next few years, the team hopes to use LRO's high-resolution Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs) to build up a global, highly detailed map of the moon. This could identify additional scarps and allow the team to see if some have a preferred orientation or other features that might be associated with Earth's gravitational pull.

"The ultrahigh resolution images from the NACs are changing our view of the moon," said Dr. Mark Robinson of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., a coauthor and Principal Investigator of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. "We've not only detected many previously unknown lunar scarps; we're also seeing much greater detail on the scarps identified in the Apollo photographs."

The research was funded by NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington. The team includes researchers from the Smithsonian, Arizona State, the SETI Institute, Mountain View, Calif., NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., Institut für Planetologie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Germany, Brown University, Providence, R.I., and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
Over recent geologic time, as the lunar interior cooled and contracted, the moon's radius shrank by about 100 m. As a result its brittle crust ruptured and thrust faults (compression) formed distinctive landforms known as lobate scarps. In a particularly dramatic example, a thrust fault pushed crustal materials (arrows) up the side of the farside impact crater named Gregory (2.1°N, 128.1°E). By mapping the distribution and determining the size of all lobate scarps, the tectonic and thermal history of the moon can be reconstructed over the past billion years. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University/Smithsonian



Thrust faults are formed when the lunar crust is pushed together, breaking the near-surface materials. The result is a steep slope on the surface called a scarp as shown in this diagram. Credit: Arizona State University





This map illustrates the distribution of lobate scarp features located thus far. Black dots indicate previously known scarps while white dots depict newly detected scarps found in images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. Credit: NASA/Arizona State University/Smithsonian




Related Links:

› Information on related NASA media briefing
› Streaming audio of the briefing ]]> Science and Technology Peterle Matteo http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7392 Pakistani Taliban threating attacks on US http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7391&goto=newpost Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:55:23 GMT An alert just came out stating the above subject. The organization is some group that the US has thought to put on the terror watch list... Sounds like they should now. I have no further data at this time. An alert just came out stating the above subject. The organization is some group that the US has thought to put on the terror watch list...

Sounds like they should now.

I have no further data at this time. ]]> Terrorism Around the World Rick Donaldson http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7391 ALERT!!!!!!!!! Another Oil Rig Explosion! http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7390&goto=newpost Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:34:10 GMT FNC reporting now. 13 people aboard. Off the coast of Louisiana. US Coast Guard responding. Nothing further. FNC reporting now. 13 people aboard. Off the coast of Louisiana.

US Coast Guard responding.

Nothing further. ]]> News Rick Donaldson http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7390 Man whittling on a piece of wood with a 3-inch knife was shot to death by officer http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7389&goto=newpost Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:44:30 GMT Man whittling on a piece of wood with a 3-inch knife was shot to death by officer





By SARA JEAN GREEN / STEVE MILETICH / The Seattle Times
KING5

updated 35 minutes ago
  • The man fatally shot by a Seattle police officer was John T. Williams, according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office.
Williams, 50, was a member of the Chief Seattle Club in Pioneer Square, a social services agency and day center for Native-American people.

Police said during a briefing Tuesday afternoon that Williams was armed with a folding knife with a three-inch blade when he was shot Monday afternoon. Police say Williams was shot when he refused an officer's orders to drop the knife.

Williams was reportedly a carver, according to an employee of the Chief Seattle Club.

Police spokeswoman Renee Witt said the officer was driving his patrol car south on Boren Avenue near Howell Street 4:15 p.m. when he saw a man holding a knife, seated on a short wall at the northwest corner of the intersection. The man appeared to be whittling a piece of wood, Witt said.

The officer, who thought the man was acting strangely, stopped his patrol car and got out, Witt said. The man stood up and advanced toward the officer, ignoring several "loud commands" to stop and drop the knife, Witt said Monday. At that point, the officer fired "several shots," said Witt, who did not know how many times the officer fired.

One witness who contacted The Seattle Times has questioned the department's version of events and said the man may not have even realized the officer was trying to get his attention before shots rang out.

Amber Maurina, 28, said she was driving home Monday afternoon from a doctor's appointment and was stopped at a red light at Boren and Howell. She said she was facing north on Boren and saw the officer stop his patrol car, which was facing south on Boren, and get out.

Maurina said a tall and scruffy-looking man was standing with his back to her. She said she never saw the man's hands but thought he might be urinating or fumbling around in a fanny pack. Maurina said she watched the officer approach the man and saw him mouthing something to the man, who did not appear to respond.

For more on this story, visit The Seattle Times. ]]> News vector7 http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7389 Maryland:Terror attack Discovery Channel http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7388&goto=newpost Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:02:06 GMT According to FNC: Shots fired. Man has hostages. Bomb or some object strapped to his body. According to FNC:

Shots fired. Man has hostages. Bomb or some object strapped to his body. ]]> Terrorism Around the World Rick Donaldson http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7388 <![CDATA[Top Russian spy’s body washes up 'after swimming accident’]]> http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7387&goto=newpost Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:14:20 GMT Image: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01705/ivanov2_1705780c.jpg Gen. Yuri Ivanov, 52, deputy head of GRU, the Russian military's overseas intelligence arm of Russian military, was found dead in mysterious circumstances Major-General Yuri Ivanov, 52, was the deputy head of *Russia’s (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/)* foreign military intelligence arm known as GRU which is thought to operate the biggest network of foreign spies out of all of Russia’s clandestine intelligence services. His badly decomposed body was found washed up on the Turkish coast by local fishermen earlier this month after he disappeared in the Syrian coastal resort of Latakia further south. The Russian army’s in-house newspaper, Red Star, did not report his death until last Saturday when he was quietly buried in Moscow. *Related Articles* * * British spy found murdered in bath in his London flat (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7963333/British-spy-found-murdered-in-London-flat.html) * * * Russian spy ring: a guide to spying (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/7860932/Russian-spy-ring-a-guide-to-spying.html) * * *Anna Chapman: 'hot' Russian spy 'approached to star in porn film' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7900003/Anna-Chapman-hot-Russian-spy-approached-to-star-in-porn-film.html)* * *Taking tea with the spy who came in from the Co-op (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/andrewpierce/5894703/Taking-tea-with-the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-Co-op.html)* * *Four Seasons Istanbul at the Bosphorus, Turkey (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/spaspy/5576632/Four-Seasons-Istanbul-at-the-Bosphorus-Turkey.html)* * *Australia minister 'spied on by own department' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/5054298/Australia-minister-spied-on-by-own-department.html)* The circumstances of his death are reminiscent of a John Le Carre novel and have therefore fuelled theories that he may have been murdered in Syria and his body then thrown into the Mediterranean where it drifted for days. According to the Kremlin, he was on holiday in Syria and died in a tragic swimming accident. However, other reports have suggested he was on official business and the location where he is reported to have disappeared was only about fifty miles from a strategically vital Russian naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus which is being expanded and upgraded to service and refuel ships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The facility is Russia’s only foothold in the Mediterranean Sea, and Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, is know to be concerned that Moscow will use the upgraded facility as a base for spy ships and electronic espionage directed at the Middle East. The port is also close to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a terminal for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which is seen as a lifeline for Georgia, against whom Russia fought a short war in 2008.]]> Top Russian spy’s body washes up 'after swimming accident’

The body of one of Russia’s top spies has washed up on the Turkish coast after he disappeared close to a sensitive Russian naval facility in neighbouring Syria.

By Andrew Osborn, Moscow
Published: 4:08PM BST 31 Aug 2010


Gen. Yuri Ivanov, 52, deputy head of GRU, the Russian military's overseas intelligence arm of Russian military, was found dead in mysterious circumstances

Major-General Yuri Ivanov, 52, was the deputy head of Russia’s foreign military intelligence arm known as GRU which is thought to operate the biggest network of foreign spies out of all of Russia’s clandestine intelligence services.

His badly decomposed body was found washed up on the Turkish coast by local fishermen earlier this month after he disappeared in the Syrian coastal resort of Latakia further south. The Russian army’s in-house newspaper, Red Star, did not report his death until last Saturday when he was quietly buried in Moscow.

Related Articles
The circumstances of his death are reminiscent of a John Le Carre novel and have therefore fuelled theories that he may have been murdered in Syria and his body then thrown into the Mediterranean where it drifted for days.

According to the Kremlin, he was on holiday in Syria and died in a tragic swimming accident. However, other reports have suggested he was on official business and the location where he is reported to have disappeared was only about fifty miles from a strategically vital Russian naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus which is being expanded and upgraded to service and refuel ships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The facility is Russia’s only foothold in the Mediterranean Sea, and Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, is know to be concerned that Moscow will use the upgraded facility as a base for spy ships and electronic espionage directed at the Middle East.

The port is also close to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a terminal for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which is seen as a lifeline for Georgia, against whom Russia fought a short war in 2008. ]]> Russia vector7 http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7387 Hunger after the Collapse http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7386&goto=newpost Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:38:18 GMT For survival needs of any kind you can think of, food is a priority. You don’t last long without food and everyone understands that, but lets go a bit beyond the obvious and lets see how hunger affects people, even when you’re not the unfortunate person that can’t put food on the table. *The basics for Survival* Air is important. You’ll die without it in 3 minutes, but it’s as plentiful as it gets. Exposure kills you quick too, but in today’s overpopulated world, its an odd situation where you find yourself away from urban structures or some sort of shelter. Even during complicated times, a friend or relative may put a roof over your head. You can move back to your parent’s “guest room”, you can count on an uncle, a cousin. Here, families got together to split households expenses, young adults with their families have moved back to their parents. It’s not strange to hear about three, sometimes even four generations living in the same house. Water is important too and while not as plentiful as air, its still abundant and cheap enough. But food… *Why should you stock up Food* Food isn’t as plentiful, nor is it cheap. A friend staying home, he can drink all the water he wants, use a bed or couch, breathe all the air he wants, but food… another mouth to feed has an impact in your budget. Combine high unemployment with inflation, and after a while you have people that just can’t make it to the end of the month. There’s already a fair amount of unemployment in USA. You don’t want to know what its like when a) it doubles b) inflation triples the prices. That’s what happened here. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before a couple times already, but one of the toughest things I’ve witnesses here after the crisis was people eating out of the trash. Its an image most of us have seen before, someone looking like a bum dumpster diving and munching on an old sandwich, but this is different. Up until then, I had never seen entire families sitting around an opened garbage bag as if it were a dinner table. Husband, wife and a couple little kids, all skinny, wearing well worn but clean clothes, minding their manners and talking softly among them while they eat from the black trash bag. When you see this being done by people that don’t look that different from your own family, man does that change the perspective. Its similar to watching starving children. Its one thing to watch a starving kid half way around the world, speaking a different language, wearing different clothes. You of course feel empathy but you still feel it far away from you, it’s distant. Even if just watching it on TV, if instead that skinny child looks just like the kid that lives across the street, wears a L.A. Lakers tshirt and cries out “I’m hungry!” in perfect English while being interviewed by a reporter, that feels just too damn close. That was what happened here and still happens, we sort of got used to it, and you can see people walk by hungry kids begging for food in the better off downtown district, ignoring them completely as if they were ghosts. You get used to seeing people beg, happens in every big city, but you just know when a skinny little kid is genuinely begging for food because he’s hungry. Can you blame those that hurry past them? Not really. I understand how hard it is to even look at them. “Soul-clenching” describes the feeling well. Even if hungry, you don’t give these kids money. You never know if there’s a grownup nearby working them. What I do if I can is buy them a sandwich and something to drink. In the Capital district there’s enough small stores to feed the office yuppies and cubicle slaves every 10 yards or so, so it just takes a minute. You don’t fix the world, but you do something good for a child that desperately needs it. Feeling systematically hungry is described as an awful sensation. The longest I’ve gone without eating was 3 days. Thankfully not because I was lacking anything, I just wanted to know how it felt. I stopped the little experiment because I was feeling dizzy and didn’t trust myself driving anymore. As hungry a it felt, I knowing I had a fridge full of food made all the difference in the world. People that go hungry for real can hardly think of anything else, its in your mind all the time. Diego Maradona is better known for his ability playing soccer but what I remember most about him is something he mentioned once about growing up in a poor family in the Bs. As. suburbs. He said that his mother and father would often lie at dinner time, saying they already ate somewhere else or that they weren’t feeling well. The truth was that they didn’t have enough food for all of them. Hunger has not only affected people that have lost it all like the people living in the streets, but also people that used to be poor/lower middle class before the crisis. We were once having dinner over at a friend’s house, there was some other people invited that I didn’t know. One woman kept complimenting the food, how good it was. When involved in conversation, she seemed to talk mostly about food as well. I’ve read that people involved in disasters or war often talk about the food they’d like to eat, watch pictures of it in magazines and imagine themselves eating it. My grandmother lived though the Spanish civil war. She told me she would stare into the bakery store’s displays from the sidewalk and wish she could eat what she saw. They were farmers but farming alone doesn’t provide the plethora of food some people seem to believe, specially not during hard times such as recessions or like in my grandmother’s case, civil war. After we ate, the woman timidly asked the house owners if they minded if she took the leftovers. They of course said yes, there’s not much doubt between feeding the leftovers to the dog or giving them to a friend that just asked for them. When its because of a disaster, natural or man-made, you can at least tell yourself that its not your fault, your dignity is spared. When it’s because of poverty, you have to add to the hunger the humiliation of not being able to provide for your family and yourself, and this may well be the worst part. You can’t provide for them, yet others can. It’s a cruel example of “survival of the fittest” but this is what happens when the economic bar for poor/middle class/rich is set up higher and some people just don’t make it. While starving to death is extreme and only happens in fewer numbers, going hungry affects millions. Its estimated that 9 million children are hungry in Argentina. For most of them, the school provides the only meal they will eat that day. For dinner they have tea or mate, go to bed feeling hungry urging for the next day’s meal. Even among the middle class, lots of things have changed. In a nation well known for its beef, few people can routinely buy beef. Fish has always been terribly expensive and its not getting any better since the president owns the fishing business. Chicken used to be fairly cheap but not any more, and pork is slowly getting more and more expensive. Argentines in general eat 19% less meat than last year, mostly due to the 75% increase in price during the same period. Because of the crisis and the political measures taken by the leftists running the country, a small handful starve to death each day, millions go hungry and even more have had to change their food habits, buying more affordable products, often of less quality. You can see this all day at the supermarkets. What impresses me the most is old people buying bags of bones which used to be sold for dogs, they buy these to make stews, scrap any meat or fat they may have left. These are some of the things I’ve noticed. Some are more dramatic than others but there’s no doubt that food is terribly important. My objective here was to put a face to the food issue, why its important and how it may change your life if you don’t take it seriously. Take care people. FerFAL]]> Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Hunger after the Collapse

For survival needs of any kind you can think of, food is a priority. You don’t last long without food and everyone understands that, but lets go a bit beyond the obvious and lets see how hunger affects people, even when you’re not the unfortunate person that can’t put food on the table.

The basics for Survival

Air is important. You’ll die without it in 3 minutes, but it’s as plentiful as it gets. Exposure kills you quick too, but in today’s overpopulated world, its an odd situation where you find yourself away from urban structures or some sort of shelter.

Even during complicated times, a friend or relative may put a roof over your head. You can move back to your parent’s “guest room”, you can count on an uncle, a cousin. Here, families got together to split households expenses, young adults with their families have moved back to their parents.

It’s not strange to hear about three, sometimes even four generations living in the same house. Water is important too and while not as plentiful as air, its still abundant and cheap enough.

But food…

Why should you stock up Food

Food isn’t as plentiful, nor is it cheap. A friend staying home, he can drink all the water he wants, use a bed or couch, breathe all the air he wants, but food… another mouth to feed has an impact in your budget. Combine high unemployment with inflation, and after a while you have people that just can’t make it to the end of the month. There’s already a fair amount of unemployment in USA. You don’t want to know what its like when a) it doubles b) inflation triples the prices. That’s what happened here.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before a couple times already, but one of the toughest things I’ve witnesses here after the crisis was people eating out of the trash. Its an image most of us have seen before, someone looking like a bum dumpster diving and munching on an old sandwich, but this is different.

Up until then, I had never seen entire families sitting around an opened garbage bag as if it were a dinner table. Husband, wife and a couple little kids, all skinny, wearing well worn but clean clothes, minding their manners and talking softly among them while they eat from the black trash bag. When you see this being done by people that don’t look that different from your own family, man does that change the perspective.

Its similar to watching starving children. Its one thing to watch a starving kid half way around the world, speaking a different language, wearing different clothes. You of course feel empathy but you still feel it far away from you, it’s distant.

Even if just watching it on TV, if instead that skinny child looks just like the kid that lives across the street, wears a L.A. Lakers tshirt and cries out “I’m hungry!” in perfect English while being interviewed by a reporter, that feels just too damn close.

That was what happened here and still happens, we sort of got used to it, and you can see people walk by hungry kids begging for food in the better off downtown district, ignoring them completely as if they were ghosts. You get used to seeing people beg, happens in every big city, but you just know when a skinny little kid is genuinely begging for food because he’s hungry. Can you blame those that hurry past them? Not really. I understand how hard it is to even look at them. “Soul-clenching” describes the feeling well. Even if hungry, you don’t give these kids money.

You never know if there’s a grownup nearby working them. What I do if I can is buy them a sandwich and something to drink. In the Capital district there’s enough small stores to feed the office yuppies and cubicle slaves every 10 yards or so, so it just takes a minute. You don’t fix the world, but you do something good for a child that desperately needs it.

Feeling systematically hungry is described as an awful sensation. The longest I’ve gone without eating was 3 days. Thankfully not because I was lacking anything, I just wanted to know how it felt. I stopped the little experiment because I was feeling dizzy and didn’t trust myself driving anymore. As hungry a it felt, I knowing I had a fridge full of food made all the difference in the world. People that go hungry for real can hardly think of anything else, its in your mind all the time.

Diego Maradona is better known for his ability playing soccer but what I remember most about him is something he mentioned once about growing up in a poor family in the Bs. As. suburbs. He said that his mother and father would often lie at dinner time, saying they already ate somewhere else or that they weren’t feeling well. The truth was that they didn’t have enough food for all of them.

Hunger has not only affected people that have lost it all like the people living in the streets, but also people that used to be poor/lower middle class before the crisis.

We were once having dinner over at a friend’s house, there was some other people invited that I didn’t know. One woman kept complimenting the food, how good it was. When involved in conversation, she seemed to talk mostly about food as well. I’ve read that people involved in disasters or war often talk about the food they’d like to eat, watch pictures of it in magazines and imagine themselves eating it.

My grandmother lived though the Spanish civil war. She told me she would stare into the bakery store’s displays from the sidewalk and wish she could eat what she saw. They were farmers but farming alone doesn’t provide the plethora of food some people seem to believe, specially not during hard times such as recessions or like in my grandmother’s case, civil war.

After we ate, the woman timidly asked the house owners if they minded if she took the leftovers. They of course said yes, there’s not much doubt between feeding the leftovers to the dog or giving them to a friend that just asked for them.

When its because of a disaster, natural or man-made, you can at least tell yourself that its not your fault, your dignity is spared. When it’s because of poverty, you have to add to the hunger the humiliation of not being able to provide for your family and yourself, and this may well be the worst part.

You can’t provide for them, yet others can. It’s a cruel example of “survival of the fittest” but this is what happens when the economic bar for poor/middle class/rich is set up higher and some people just don’t make it.

 While starving to death is extreme and only happens in fewer numbers, going hungry affects millions. Its estimated that 9 million children are hungry in Argentina. For most of them, the school provides the only meal they will eat that day. For dinner they have tea or mate, go to bed feeling hungry urging for the next day’s meal.

Even among the middle class, lots of things have changed. In a nation well known for its beef, few people can routinely buy beef. Fish has always been terribly expensive and its not getting any better since the president owns the fishing business.

Chicken used to be fairly cheap but not any more, and pork is slowly getting more and more expensive. Argentines in general eat 19% less meat than last year, mostly due to the 75% increase in price during the same period.

Because of the crisis and the political measures taken by the leftists running the country, a small handful starve to death each day, millions go hungry and even more have had to change their food habits, buying more affordable products, often of less quality.

You can see this all day at the supermarkets. What impresses me the most is old people buying bags of bones which used to be sold for dogs, they buy these to make stews, scrap any meat or fat they may have left.

These are some of the things I’ve noticed. Some are more dramatic than others but there’s no doubt that food is terribly important. My objective here was to put a face to the food issue, why its important and how it may change your life if you don’t take it seriously.
Take care people.

FerFAL ]]> General Preparedness and Survival Topics vector7 http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7386 terror dry run http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7385&goto=newpost Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:02:47 GMT Two suspects were pulled off a plane last night. Dutch police pulled these guys off the plane, they are from Detroit, and originally from Yemen. Pulled cellphone taped to bottle of Pepto-Bismol, high quantities of cash. More to follow Two suspects were pulled off a plane last night. Dutch police pulled these guys off the plane, they are from Detroit, and originally from Yemen.

Pulled cellphone taped to bottle of Pepto-Bismol, high quantities of cash.

More to follow ]]> Terrorism Around the World Rick Donaldson http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7385 2010 Tea Party Rally Aerial Photograph? http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7384&goto=newpost Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:55:03 GMT I'm finding it extremely difficult to find the awesome aerial photograph posted in the Sunday Star Ledger (New Jersey). Glenn Beck has some pics of news headlines posted on his site:

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/art...cle/198/44912/

Something else of importance. I googled images related to this event and very very little actual images come up. One that looked to be an aerial footage shot was actually a link to one of those "clean up your pc" viruses.

Maybe i'm paranoid but 1 of two things is happening:

either that aerial shot is not what is suggests it is, OR people are going out of their way to unrank actual images of this footage on google. If anyone has a good big copy of that aerial image, i'd appreciate a link or post here?

Thanks! ]]> America and American History zenbudda http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7384 Biden travels to Iraq to mark end of U.S. combat mission http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7383&goto=newpost Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:53:34 GMT cnnAuthor = "By the CNN Wire Staff"; August 30, 2010 12:16 p.m. EDT Image: http://www.cnn.com/video/politics/2010/08/30/lok.malveaux.biden.iraq.cnn.640x360.jpg Image: http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/img/3.0/1px.gif (http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2010/08/30/lok.malveaux.biden.iraq.cnn) Biden visits Baghdad *STORY HIGHLIGHTS* * * **NEW:** GOP House Leader John Boehner will discuss the Iraq mission on Tuesday * Biden arrived in Iraq Monday to help mark the end of the U.S. combat mission there * The vice president will meet with several Iraqi political leaders while in the country * Obama will deliver an Oval Office address on the Iraq conflict on Tuesday night *Baghdad, Iraq (CNN)* -- Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq on Monday to participate in a ceremony marking the end of the U.S. combat mission there, according to the White House. He was greeted in Baghdad by U.S. Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, outgoing U.S. commander Gen. Ray Odierno and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. While in the country, Biden will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi and other political leaders "to discuss the latest developments in Iraq and to urge Iraqi leaders to conclude negotiations on the formation of a new government," the White House said in a written statement. The United States' official combat mission in Iraq is scheduled to conclude on Tuesday. Roughly 50,000 troops, however, will remain in the country until the end of 2011. Their mission will be to will train, assist and advise the Iraqis. President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver an Oval Office address on the seven-year Iraqi conflict on Tuesday night. "As a candidate for this office, I pledged I would end this war. As president, that is what I am doing," Obama said Saturday in his weekly address. "The bottom line is this: the war is ending. Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course. And by the end of next year, all of our troops will be home," the president added. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, is also expected is address the war in Iraq on Tuesday. Boehner will remind an American Legion audience in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that Obama and other Democratic leaders opposed former President George W. Bush's troop surge there, according to a Boehner aide. While administration officials have touted what they claim is a gradual decline in the overall level of violence in Iraq, the country has recently been the target of a series of attacks. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned last Friday of the likelihood of continuing attacks across the country and put all local governments and security forces on high alert. In a statement read on state television, al-Maliki -- commander-in-chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces -- said there were indications that "al Qaeda and remnants of the Baath party with foreign backing are planning to carry out a series of bombings in Baghdad and the other provinces." The statement, which came shortly before midnight in Iraq, said the attacks would strike across the country, targeting government institutions in particular. The prime minister's warning came two days after a wave of 20 bomb attacks struck 13 Iraqi cities, mostly targeting police. The bombs killed 48 and wounded at least 286. Last Wednesday's attacks increased fears among Iraqis about the ability of their security forces to protect them after the U.S. withdrawal. The attacks were a show of force for the insurgency, which has been dealt major blows over the past two years. The bombing campaign proved insurgents' ability to hit key targets in what appears to have been a highly coordinated effort stretching from Basra in the far south to Mosul in the north.]]> Biden travels to Iraq to mark end of U.S. combat mission

By the CNN Wire Staff
August 30, 2010 12:16 p.m. EDT




Biden visits Baghdad



STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW: GOP House Leader John Boehner will discuss the Iraq mission on Tuesday
  • Biden arrived in Iraq Monday to help mark the end of the U.S. combat mission there
  • The vice president will meet with several Iraqi political leaders while in the country
  • Obama will deliver an Oval Office address on the Iraq conflict on Tuesday night





Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq on Monday to participate in a ceremony marking the end of the U.S. combat mission there, according to the White House.


He was greeted in Baghdad by U.S. Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, outgoing U.S. commander Gen. Ray Odierno and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.


While in the country, Biden will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi and other political leaders "to discuss the latest developments in Iraq and to urge Iraqi leaders to conclude negotiations on the formation of a new government," the White House said in a written statement.


The United States' official combat mission in Iraq is scheduled to conclude on Tuesday. Roughly 50,000 troops, however, will remain in the country until the end of 2011. Their mission will be to will train, assist and advise the Iraqis.


President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver an Oval Office address on the seven-year Iraqi conflict on Tuesday night.


"As a candidate for this office, I pledged I would end this war. As president, that is what I am doing," Obama said Saturday in his weekly address.


"The bottom line is this: the war is ending. Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course. And by the end of next year, all of our troops will be home," the president added.


House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, is also expected is address the war in Iraq on Tuesday. Boehner will remind an American Legion audience in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that Obama and other Democratic leaders opposed former President George W. Bush's troop surge there, according to a Boehner aide.
While administration officials have touted what they claim is a gradual decline in the overall level of violence in Iraq, the country has recently been the target of a series of attacks.


Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned last Friday of the likelihood of continuing attacks across the country and put all local governments and security forces on high alert.


In a statement read on state television, al-Maliki -- commander-in-chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces -- said there were indications that "al Qaeda and remnants of the Baath party with foreign backing are planning to carry out a series of bombings in Baghdad and the other provinces."


The statement, which came shortly before midnight in Iraq, said the attacks would strike across the country, targeting government institutions in particular.


The prime minister's warning came two days after a wave of 20 bomb attacks struck 13 Iraqi cities, mostly targeting police. The bombs killed 48 and wounded at least 286.


Last Wednesday's attacks increased fears among Iraqis about the ability of their security forces to protect them after the U.S. withdrawal.


The attacks were a show of force for the insurgency, which has been dealt major blows over the past two years. The bombing campaign proved insurgents' ability to hit key targets in what appears to have been a highly coordinated effort stretching from Basra in the far south to Mosul in the north. ]]> The World at War Rick Donaldson http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7383 <![CDATA[China: Rumors of the Central Bank Chief's Defection]]> http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7382&goto=newpost Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:31:15 GMT Rumors have circulated in China that People’s Bank of China (PBC) Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan may have left the country. The rumors appear to have started following reports on Aug. 28 which cited Ming Pao, a Hong Kong-based news agency, saying that because of an approximately $430 billion loss on U.S. Treasury bonds, the Chinese government may punish some individuals within PBC, including Zhou. Although Ming Pao on Aug. 30 published a report on its website indicating that the prior report was fabricated by a mainland news site that had attributed the false information to Ming Pao, rumors of Zhou’s defection have spread around China intensively, and Zhou’s name has been blocked from Internet search engines in China. STRATFOR has received no confirmation of the rumor, and reports by state-run Chinese media appeared to send strong indications that Zhou is in no trouble at the moment. However, the release of this rumor and its dispersion throughout the public is significant, particularly as the Communist Party of China (CPC) is preparing for a leadership transition in 2012. Chinese state-run media and official government websites have run several high-profile reports about Zhou, which should be seen as a move to refute the rumors. The PBC website published two articles on its homepage reporting on Zhou’s meeting with visiting Japanese Financial Services Minister Shozaburo Jimi during the third China-Japan high-level economic dialogue as well as a meeting with an Italian delegation. Xinhua news agency reported that Zhou told the PBC Party Committee Enlargement Meeting on Aug. 30 it should “continue to implement justice, and strengthen legislative work in financial system.” Prior to this news, Zhou appeared at the 2nd annual conference of the heads of the Chinese, Japanese and Korean central banks held on Aug. 3, and his most recent public appearance was Aug. 10 for China’s Financial System Anti-corruption Construction Exhibition. Zhou is known to have lofty political ambitions and is believed to be a close ally to former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, as well as a core figure for Jiang’s “Shanghai Gang.” There has been no shortage of rumors about Zhou’s possible dismissal in the past five years, as he is believed to be associated with several high-level financial scandals. For example, Zhou was rumored to be under “shuanggui,” a form of house arrest administered by the CPC, during the massive crackdown of Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Liangyu in 2006, which was perceived in the country as a crackdown of the Shanghai Gang and part of Hu’s effort to consolidate power ahead of the 2007 power transition. There was also a rumor that he might have been detained following the investigation and arrest of Wang Yi, the vice governor of the China Development Bank, along with several other officials in the financial circle. Currently, several financial scandals are still under investigation, and it is likely that Zhou, as PBC governor and one of the most powerful economic players in the country, could be associated with some cases. Therefore, whether or not the rumor is true at this time, the leaking of this news is very likely to be associated with a power struggle within the Communist Party’s economic hierarchy. ]]> China: Rumors of the Central Bank Chief's Defection

August 30, 2010
 Rumors have circulated in China that People’s Bank of China (PBC) Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan may have left the country. The rumors appear to have started following reports on Aug. 28 which cited Ming Pao, a Hong Kong-based news agency, saying that because of an approximately $430 billion loss on U.S. Treasury bonds, the Chinese government may punish some individuals within PBC, including Zhou. Although Ming Pao on Aug. 30 published a report on its website indicating that the prior report was fabricated by a mainland news site that had attributed the false information to Ming Pao, rumors of Zhou’s defection have spread around China intensively, and Zhou’s name has been blocked from Internet search engines in China.

 STRATFOR has received no confirmation of the rumor, and reports by state-run Chinese media appeared to send strong indications that Zhou is in no trouble at the moment. However, the release of this rumor and its dispersion throughout the public is significant, particularly as the Communist Party of China (CPC) is preparing for a leadership transition in 2012.

 Chinese state-run media and official government websites have run several high-profile reports about Zhou, which should be seen as a move to refute the rumors. The PBC website published two articles on its homepage reporting on Zhou’s meeting with visiting Japanese Financial Services Minister Shozaburo Jimi during the third China-Japan high-level economic dialogue as well as a meeting with an Italian delegation. Xinhua news agency reported that Zhou told the PBC Party Committee Enlargement Meeting on Aug. 30 it should “continue to implement justice, and strengthen legislative work in financial system.” Prior to this news, Zhou appeared at the 2nd annual conference of the heads of the Chinese, Japanese and Korean central banks held on Aug. 3, and his most recent public appearance was Aug. 10 for China’s Financial System Anti-corruption Construction Exhibition.

 Zhou is known to have lofty political ambitions and is believed to be a close ally to former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, as well as a core figure for Jiang’s “Shanghai Gang.” There has been no shortage of rumors about Zhou’s possible dismissal in the past five years, as he is believed to be associated with several high-level financial scandals. For example, Zhou was rumored to be under “shuanggui,” a form of house arrest administered by the CPC, during the massive crackdown of Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Liangyu in 2006, which was perceived in the country as a crackdown of the Shanghai Gang and part of Hu’s effort to consolidate power ahead of the 2007 power transition. There was also a rumor that he might have been detained following the investigation and arrest of Wang Yi, the vice governor of the China Development Bank, along with several other officials in the financial circle. Currently, several financial scandals are still under investigation, and it is likely that Zhou, as PBC governor and one of the most powerful economic players in the country, could be associated with some cases. Therefore, whether or not the rumor is true at this time, the leaking of this news is very likely to be associated with a power struggle within the Communist Party’s economic hierarchy.

 ]]> China Rick Donaldson http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7382 Please help me defend America against 9-11 conspiracy guys http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7381&goto=newpost Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:51:06 GMT Don't know what else to put in the title, just wanted to post this link to Anomalies. We are going at it over 9-11, mainly centered around the "fact" that no airplanes hit the towers....

http://communities.anomalies.net/for...246#Post250246

Join in if you like! ]]> New Guy http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7381 Bloom Power http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7380&goto=newpost Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:08:49 GMT Saw this on 60 Minutes while at my dad’s.

Don’t hammer me for watching 60 Mins. It was between baseball games, nothing else was on, and my dad controls the remote.

:)

-----------------------------------------------

Don’t get me wrong - you want to impress me, take the wheel.
When I see this hit the residential market for $3K, I’ll probably be one of the first in line.

But this sure is interesting, and I’ll be following this.

They are now using them at Ebay, Google, and one or two others.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/

Not gonna watch all of them, but there are 620 videos on Youtube for “bloom energy.”

Quote:

http://thenewsoftoday.com/bloom-ener...es-again/1821/

Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box is once again getting attention from the national media. The Box was featured once again on 60 Minutes. The company from Sunnyvale, California, has produced basically a power station in a box, that uses hydrocarbons like propane or gasoline to generate electricity. The company which was started in 2002 by K.R. Sridhar is highly efficient and already being used by several large corporations like Google, who happen to be Bloom Energy’s first customer.

Currently a 100 kW Bloom server costs approximately $750,000, and is used for larger corporations or companies. A typical box will have a 10 year life span on average, according to Bloom Energy. Home sized Bloom Boxes will be produced in the near future, and will have a 1 kW output, costing just $3,000. The future of energy is on the brink of a revolution, and Bloom Energy is one of the leaders. As prices go down and efficiency rises, traditional energy sources will die out and newer more environmentally friendly alternatives will prevail.
If you can't find the video, what I learned from 60 Mins was:

1. They take beach sand - yes beach sand - and bake it into about 4" squares. Didn't get a close up, but they looked maybe 0.125" thick.

2. On one side they painted it green, the other side black (or was it blue). Paint was a "secret formula."

3. They then put a square in between metal plates, and repeated the process for many layers.

4. The more layers, the more electricity it produces.

5. From what they said, and device about 4" x 4" x 6" was big enough to power a house.

6. There were a few fuels mentioned that are needed to make this work, but the only one I remember was propane. ]]> Science and Technology Backstop http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7380