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U.S. economic troubles have spread to world credit and stock markets, slowing growth amid rising inflation and dashing hopes of the financial “decoupling” some thought would protect emerging economies from U.S. contagion, Federal Reserve Board Governor Randall Kroszner said Monday. For better or worse, trade and investment continues to tie the U.S. economy to others abroad, spreading economic shocks as it ensures the “efficient operation of global markets,” Kroszner told a forum in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The spreading U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis dried up credit, slowed growth and weighed on stock markets in both advanced and emerging economies - proving their connection to the U.S., Kroszner said in his prepared text. More

Gore Vidal: …Congress has never been more cowardly, nor more corrupt. All Bush has do is to make sure certain amounts of money go in the direction of certain important congressmen and that’s end of any serious investigation. After all, one of the bravest members of Congress is Denis Kucinich who brought the article of impeachment in to the well of the House of Representatives.

Leap2020
the LEAP/E2020 team has decided to launch an alert on the July-December 2008 period. Indeed, our team is now convinced that this period will consist for the whole world in a major plunge into the heart of the phase of impact of the global systemic crisis. The upcoming six months are in fact the core of the unfolding crisis. The troubles met in the past six months were mere harbingers.

In the next semester indeed, all the components of the crisis (financial, monetary, economic, strategic, social, political… ones) will converge at the height of their intensity (1). Avoiding to repeat a description of the various sequences already anticipated in the previous editions of the GEAB, our researchers have decided to describe the trends that will be at work in the world’s main regions in the next six months. Therefore they analyse eight fundamental processes that will mark the next semester and affect decisively the years 2009-2010, i.e.:

1. A Dollar in distress (EUR 1 = USD 1.75 at the end of 2008): Panic-fear of a US currency and economy collapse eats into the American collective psyche

2. Global financial system: An impossible requirement – placing Washington under international trusteeship – provokes the system’s break

3. European Union: The periphery sinks into the recession, the Eurozone only slows down

4. Asia: The « double whammy » inflation/export-collapse

5. Latin America: Difficulties increase but growth remains steady in most parts of the region, Mexico and Argentina in crisis

6. Arab world: Pro-Western regimes go adrift / 60 percent risk of socio-political explosion on Egypt-Morocco axis

7. Iran: 70 percent probability of an attack by October 2008 confirmed

8. Banks/Speculative bubbles: When bubbles collide

In parallel, LEAP/E2020 presents five strategic advices for the intention of central banks, governments and regulatory authorities, aimed at reducing and channelling the very bad consequences of the phase of impact of the crisis. More

Well-researched and very interesting from cracked.com

So what did you do to earn your manhood? At the very worst, some of you had to read a prayer or two from a select holy book, maybe a distant uncle sent you a few bucks. Your parents start bugging you about getting a job and force you to move out by the time you’re 20, or maybe 35.

But in some parts of the world, manhood is still something you earn. More

Alister Doyle
The study said a lack of controls was “a potentially contributing factor to the spread of bioterrorism” — the deliberate release of naturally-occurring or human-modified bacteria, viruses, toxins or other biological agents.

It said just $135 million, a fraction of the amount needed, had been spent on helping developing countries to build up skills to monitor a rising use of biotechnologies in the past 15 years.

Lack of training and knowledge is “so pervasive and broad that there is no effective international system of biosafety at the moment,” according to the 238-page report by the Japan-based U.N. University Institute of Advanced Studies. More

Photo crowt59

The United States used an average of 386 million US liquid gallons (1.46 gigalitres) of gasoline (petrol) each day in 2005. Gas prices amount to 44% of the total U.S. consumption of petroleum products. This corresponds to 18.5 Exajoules per year, or 600 Gigawatts. Western countries have among the highest usage rates per person. Some regions, such as Europe and Japan, impose heavy fuel taxes on gasoline.

According to national figures from the U.S. Department of Energy, in March 2007, 52% of the cost of gasoline went to pay for crude oil, 24% for refining, 15% to taxes, and 9% for distribution and marketing. See Chart

Photo xddorox

otbeach.com
Have you ever wondered where the government stores its most precious documents and artifacts, or where they process top secret information and carry out military attacks on the enemy? This is a list of 15 of the most secret and secure facilities on the planet, many of which you probably have never even heard of because their locations are classified.

Many of these secret bases are hidden beneath the ground, inside of a mountain or located in the middle of nowhere, so it is difficult to establish exact information on them. However, it is intriguing to get a glimpse into these hidden and murky worlds, even if it is only from the outside.
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“There are prophecies and oracles from around the world that all seem to point to December 21, 2012 as doomsday. The ancient Mayan Calendar, the medieval predictions of Merlin, the Book of Revelation and the Chinese oracle of the I Ching all point to this specific date as the end of civilization [or significant change of civilization]. A new technology called “The Web-Bot Project” makes massive scans of the internet as a means of forecasting the future… and has turned up the same dreaded date: 2012. Skeptics point to a long history of ‘Failed Doomsdays’, but many oracles of doom throughout history have a disturbingly accurate track record. As the year 2012 ticks ever closer we’ll speculate if there are any reasons to believe these doomsayers.”

Watch and decide for yourself if it is true.

(Part 2)

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Daniel Pink: “A Whole New Mind”

Just as we were getting used to the information age, Daniel Pink tells us that it is ending. With it goes our focus on charts, statistics, and linear thinking. Traditional “left-brain” activities like logic, analysis, and repetitive production are being turned over to robots, computers, and offshore labor. The valued skills of 21st century will be those of the right brain: empathy, design, synthesis, and contextual thinking. Author and lecturer Daniel Pink tells you: How abundance, Asia, and automation are changing the world; Why “routine” is the scariest word in the English language; How old line companies like GM and Proctor & Gamble are responding; What six abilities matter most in the emerging age.

Photo by Bill in Ash Vegas
By Michael T Klare

Oil at US$110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live - trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies.
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