This and That...

[Warph]

Extraordinary Access: Al CRAPton Has Visited The Obuma Black House 61 Times

(Guess being a race huckster lying fraud tax cheat pays off, if you want to be in with this President...)

Via NRO:
http://weaselzippers.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/sharpton-obama1.jpg

This, the tail end of 2014, is Al Sharpton's moment.

Despite the firebrand minister's shrinking physical stature, his presence on the national stage has never loomed larger. From Ferguson to Cleveland to Staten Island, black men dying at the hands of police have catapulted America's racial obsession to new heights — carrying Sharpton along with it.

He stands solemnly with Michael Brown's family at televised press conferences. He appears alongside Eric Garner's grieving widow on Meet the Press. He delivers nightly sermons on race from his prime-time perch at MSNBC. Though the rehabilitation is far from perfect, it's a far cry from the days of Tawana Brawley, Freddie's Fashion Mart, and "white interlopers."

How to explain the strange new respect accorded to Sharpton? Start with the White House.

Considered politically toxic by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Sharpton has been enthusiastically embraced by President Obama. He has bragged about helping to pick a new attorney general and communed with the current one. In fact, a much-quoted Politico profile last summer described Sharpton as Obama's "go-to man on race."

[Ross]

Shouldn't something of this nature require some major over reaction for the sake of safety?

3-Star General Makes Shocking Revelation
About the Muslim Brotherhood
in America

Friday, December 12th, 2014

A former top member of our armed forces has a shocking revelation about the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to a lieutenant general, their ranks have infiltrated the White House.

The accusation comes from retired Lt. Gen. William Jerry Boykin, a former member of Delta Force and formerly one of the highest ranking men in the United States Army.

In a recent interview, Lt. Gen. Boykin claimed that avowed Muslim Brotherhood members had security clearance at the Department of Defense and the Pentagon.

While the media laughed at Rep. Michele Bachmann's warnings over the Muslim Brotherhood's influence in the highest reaches of American politics, Boykin said that they ought to have listened to her, especially when it came to one of the highest-ranking State Department officials who had pull within the White House.

Bachmann, you may recall, raised questions about the ties of Huma Abedin to the group, both personal and familial.

While better known as the unfortunate wife of serial pervert Anthony Weiner, Abedin was also Clinton's deputy chief of staff during her time at the Department of State, making her ties to the Muslim Brotherhood more than a little disconcerting.

Boykin said that, while Abedin was the most visible government figure alleged to have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Brotherhood has its tentacles "in every major federal agency" (H/T Breitbart).

While mostly known for its influence in the Arab world, the Muslim Brotherhood has turned its attention towards the United States in recent years.

The organization set up a political party in the United States for the first time, which makes you wonder why the group feels such antipathy towards one of the few countries that won't officially label them a terrorist organization, ban them outright and jail their leaders.

In what might be the least-surprising thing you'll hear today, the new Brotherhood party is also backed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim organization that somehow finds itself involved in everything that's both unctuous and Islamist.

Lest you think that the Muslim Brotherhood is harmless, listen to this, from the Brotherhood document, "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America."

"The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

It seems that the sabotage is well underway.

http://conservativetribune.com/general-muslim-brotherhood/

[Warph]

'Glorious 26th' To Mark Start Of First Video Camera Drone Shooting Season

London - Country sports enthusiasts are gearing themselves up for the Glorious December 26th, the official start of the Drone Shooting season.  The skies are expected to be filled with the first wave of video camera drones flying in every direction across the UK as the wrapping paper is peeled off thousands of Christmas presents.

Drone shooting has now been added to the list of popular country sports, outstripping badger baiting, organic cock-fighting and rent raising for tenant farmers.

Land owner and retired stock broker Sir Philip Forbes has already started regular shoots on his 3000 acre estate near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

"Last weekend we managed to bag a couple of the blighters when they flew over the orangery and hovered outside Lady Forbes' boudoir, necessitating a whiff of the old salts. We've now got every boundary covered with three lines of rifle ranks worthy of the Battle of Rorke's Drift."

The popularity of the sport has seen sales of Hunter boots, Burberry jackets and National Trust headscarves rocketing in the run up to the new season.

"A brace of drones can now fetch up to £1,000 on the open market if the video camera is still intact," said Sir Philip.

However the sport does not come without some risk.  After downing a drone on the edge of his estate last month, Sir Philip realised he had only winged it as he saw Boris, his yellow Labrador retriever, flying southwards with the drone gripped firmly in its jaws.

Subsequent video footage of the incident, taken by the embattled drone has appeared on YouTube attracting millions of hits.  A YouTube spokesman said, "It's absolutely amazing – in fact it's just the dog's bollocks!"

[...]

Lost Tribe Found In Amazon Warehouse

Swansea - Secret night filming has revealed for the first time a tribe untouched by civilization living deep within previously unexplored areas of Amazon's Swansea warehouse.

Nicknamed 'the pickers' by anthropologists, they communicate only with grunts and beeps, and appear to live a very basic hunter-gatherer existence – hunting out cardboard boxes and gathering them into piles.

They appear to shun all forms of modern technology. Although everything from Plasma TVs to electronic toothbrushes are available to them in the warehouse, they seem content to keep them sealed within their cardboard boxes – when researchers indicated they should open one of the boxes and explore the contents inside, they reacted with fear, as if there was some great taboo, perhaps the fear of reprisals from a vengeful god.

They are known to walk great distances every night in their box hunts, the going is tough, and many do not survive. A survey in early January this year showed their numbers had fallen by around 15,000 in just over a month.

Health concerns are a huge problem for the 'pickers'. They may not have developed immunity to many western diseases such as man-flu, and they are known to suffer terribly from mental illness – having had no exposure to the banality of modern western lifestyle, it is feared that a single episode of X-Factor could be enough to kill.

Despite the obvious distress that many of these 'pickers' are in, Amazon expert Jeff Bezos claims that the best way to protect them is to prevent outside influences from interfering with their lifestyle or their meagre salaries.

[...]

Father Christmas Bemoans Zero Hours Contract

London - Popular present delivery service Father Christmas has called on the Government to do more to prevent the use of controversial zero hours contracts. 'Don't get me wrong,' he explained, 'it's better than being unemployed, but I just have to wait around all year waiting for the call to say they've got some work for me. Did you know, I've only done 500 days work in the last 500 years? If it wasn't for all the mince pies I can grab on Christmas Eve I don't think I'd survive the year.'

Labour leader Ed Miliband agreed that action should be taken against the use of the contracts. 'This is a particular problem from seasonal personifications' he said. 'The Easter Bunny's in the same boat, although it's even worse for him because he doesn't know when Easter's going to be each year. I can't think of any other examples right now to be honest, but I'm sure we'll change the law in some way when we're in Government as well as all the other vague stuff we may or may not do.'

Prime Minister David Cameron defended zero hours contracts however, saying 'I was talking to the Tooth Fairy just last week, and she was telling me she gets work every night of the year. Okay, so she needs to be flexible enough to travel all over the country, but it's a shame not everyone's willing to get on their bike, or wings, to look for work.'

Mr Cameron also outlined plans to create more work for Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny. 'There's no reason they should focus solely on Christian Festivals' he suggested. 'I'd like to see them delivering presents and chocolate products to children at Divali and Ramadan. Perhaps a chocolate Muhammad would go down well?'

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said he didn't have a problem with zero hours contracts, as long as they didn't go to foreigners. 'We shouldn't be letting someone from the North Pole deliver presents to our children anyway' he blustered. 'If we get in we'll cancel the contract immediately and replace Father Christmas with a nice, British present deliverer instead. I don't think Godfrey Bloom's doing anything at the moment...'

*satire

[Warph]

The Onion's Person Of The Year 2014
(TIE) Malala Yousafzai And John Cena

The Onion, for the first time, names two equally deserving honorees as our Person of the Year.

When The Onion's editorial board convened to determine its Person of the Year for 2014, the members of our selection committee were in agreement that identifying the individual most worthy of this distinguished honor would be no easy task. Indeed, when faced with reducing hundreds of esteemed innovators, philanthropists, and thought leaders to a single deserving recipient, the selection committee ultimately proved unable to choose just one man or woman who most embodies the values of integrity, benevolence, and courage that define this most prestigious of accolades.

Thus, following weeks of impassioned debate, The Onion is proud to present, for the first time ever, the two co-winners of our Person of the Year award: Pakistani human rights advocate Malala Yousafzai and 12-time WWE champion John Cena.

Over the course of the last year, who could be said to have accomplished more and had a greater impact on the world than these two? Yousafzai: an impassioned defender of women's rights who has risked her life to campaign for equal education opportunities for girls. Cena: a physically dominant strongman and submission specialist who has ascended to the top of the professional wrestling world through his combination of charisma, athleticism, and devastating finishing moves, such as the "Attitude Adjustment" and the "STFU."

Truly, no two more outstanding or inspirational figures could be said to exist.

Of course, though equals in the eyes of The Onion, Yousafzai and Cena took markedly different paths to this year's honor. Yousafzai survived a vicious assassination attempt by a Taliban gunman, battling the odds to surmount her near-fatal injuries and emerging more dedicated than ever to advancing the ideals of equality and freedom.

Much as Cena inspires countless millions of wrestling fans across the so-called Cenation, Yousafzai inspires young girls around the globe, even in spite of constant death threats, and earlier this year made history by becoming, at only age 17, the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

No less remarkable are the accomplishments of Cena, whose work inside the ring has rightfully earned him praise and respect the world over. Just as Yousafzai survived an assassin's bullets, the fearless WrestleMania headliner has endured hundreds, if not thousands of suplexes, backbreakers, and steel chair blows to the head, and yet has refused to submit to a three count time and time again.

And like the Pakistani activist, Cena also proved his bravery, standing tall in the face of a range of foes every bit as vicious as the Taliban, including Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, and Kane. And though Cena's list of victories is long and illustrious, perhaps no occasion was more heartening than his heroism at this year's Money In The Bank pay-per-view, in which he improbably won the main event ladder match to secure the WWE World Heavyweight Championship belt, a celebrated prize rivaled only by the Nobel committee's offering.

As stated, the voting process for this year's award was competitive and impassioned. Faced with two icons of seemingly equal merit—Malala Yousafzai and John Cena—our panel was unable to decide which one was more deserving of our highest honor. Cena or Yousafzai? Just the fourth wrestler in history to win multiple Royal Rumble matches or a relentless crusader for equality and progress? Some choices cannot be made.

And though Cena technically won by a handful of votes, the selection committee ultimately determined that to place one above the other would be a disservice to them, to their legacies, and to you, the reader. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that The Onion presents our Person of the Year award to both humanitarian Malala Yousafzai and wrestler, actor, and rapper John Cena, two sources of inspiration to a world in desperate need of heroes.

[Warph]

12 Disasters That Could Bring About The End Of The World As We Know It

By Michael Snyder, on December 10th, 2014

Our way of life is far more vulnerable than most people would ever dare to imagine.  A single major catastrophe could fundamentally alter all of our lives at any moment.  But since most people have not experienced such a catastrophe during their entire lifetimes, most people just assume that there will never be one.  This is called "normalcy bias" and it can lull us into a very false sense of complacency. The other day, Michael Hanlon of the Telegraph wrote an article entitled "How will the world end? From 'demonic' AI to nuclear war — seven scenarios that could end human race". 

Below, I discuss each of those seven scenarios along with five additional ones that I have added.  We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and as a society we have become exceedingly dependent on the technology that we have surrounded ourselves with.  If something were to happen which would force us to live like our grandparents and great-grandparents did, most of us would be in a tremendous amount of trouble.  And as our technology has advanced, so has the potential that this technology will be used for war and destruction.  There is great evil in the heart of man, and the potential to hurt others with that evil has never been greater.  And of course there are always other "black swan events" to be concerned about as well.

The following are 12 disasters that could bring about the end of the world as we know it...
1. ASTEROID STRIKE

A single asteroid could potentially produce an "ELE" – an extinction level event.  And scientists are finding more asteroids that are potentially a danger to Earth all the time.  For example, just the other day Russian researchers discovered a massive asteroid that will fly close to our planet every three years...

Scientists have calculated that 2014 UR116 asteroid will fly in dangerous proximity to Earth every three years. If it collides with the planet the energy of the explosion could be a thousand times greater than the impact of the Chelyabinsk meteorite.

Vladimir Lipunov, a leading scientist on the team which discovered the asteroid this October, says the scientists now know its orbit and its period which is 3 years, but they cannot say precisely when the asteroid will approach the Earth.

"We should track it constantly. Because if we have a single mistake, there will be a catastrophe. The consequences can be very serious," he said in the documentary "Asteroids attack" posted on Roscosmos website.
If a very large asteroid does hit us in just the right place, we could be talking about tens of millions of deaths and the collapse of entire nations.  The following is an excerpt from one of my previous articles about what could happen if a very large asteroid were to come crashing down just off the east coast of the United States...
According to the University of California at Santa Cruz website, if a massive asteroid were to crash into the Atlantic Ocean it could produce a giant tsunami with a wall of water as high as 400 feet that would slam into the east coast of the United States...

If an asteroid crashes into the Earth, it is likely to splash down somewhere in the oceans that cover 70 percent of the planet's surface. Huge tsunami waves, spreading out from the impact site like the ripples from a rock tossed into a pond, would inundate heavily populated coastal areas. A computer simulation of an asteroid impact tsunami developed by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows waves as high as 400 feet sweeping onto the Atlantic Coast of the United States.

In case you were wondering, yes, that would be absolutely catastrophic.



2. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Could the machines one day rise up and take over?

Personally, I am skeptical, but some of the brightest minds in the world are deeply concerned about this.  Just consider the following excerpt from Michael Hanlon's article in the Telegraph...
Humanity may have already created its own nemesis, Professor Stephen Hawking warned last week. The Cambridge University physicist claimed that new developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) mean that within a few decades, computers thousands of times more powerful than in existence today may decide to usurp their creators and effectively end humanity's 100,000-year dominance of Earth.

This Terminator scenario is taken seriously by many scientists and technologists. Before Prof. Hawking made his remarks, Elon Musk, the genius behind the Tesla electric car and PayPal, had stated that "with artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon," comparing it unfavourably with nuclear war as the most potent threat to humanity's existence.



3. A GENETICALLY CREATED PLAGUE

Ebola has kind of fallen out of the news in the United States, but the virus is still spreading like wildfire over in Sierra Leone.

But of potentially even greater concern is what could happen if someone started releasing a weaponized form of Ebola, Smallpox or the Marburg virus in our major cities.

A bioweapon can be a brutally efficient killer.  It spreads silently and invisibly, and a full-blown pandemic could ultimately kill hundreds of millions of people.

And every single day, our ability to manipulate these bugs grows.  Many believe that it is only a matter of time before these types of weapons are used as instruments of terror.

When that era arrives, all of our lives will change forever.



4. NUCLEAR WAR

This is one that most Americans greatly underestimate.

Even though tensions with Russia are extremely high, most of us just assume that "the Cold War is over" and that a nuclear war is virtually impossible.

Unfortunately, that is not even close to the truth...
Back in 1967, the U.S. military possessed more than 31,000 strategic nuclear warheads.  Now, we only have 1,642 deployed, and that number is scheduled to be further reduced to about 1,500.

Sadly, reducing the size of our nuclear arsenal by close to 95 percent is not enough for anti-nuke crusader Barack Obama.  He has spoken of unilaterally reducing the size of our strategic nuclear arsenal down to just 300 warheads.

During this same time period, the Russians have been developing some very impressive stealth delivery systems which have the capability of hitting targets inside the United States within just minutes of an order being issued.  This is particularly true of their submarine-launched missiles.  The newest Russian subs have the ability to approach our coastlines without us even knowing that they are there.  If the Russians came to the conclusion that war with the United States was unavoidable, an overwhelming first strike using submarine-based missiles could potentially take out nearly our entire arsenal before we even knew what hit us.  And if the Russians have an anti-ballistic missile system that can intercept the limited number of rockets that we can launch in return, they may be able to escape relatively unscathed.

In order for "mutually assured destruction" to work, we have to see the Russian missiles coming and have enough time to order a launch of our own.  Thank to emerging technologies, the balance of power has fundamentally shifted.  The old way of thinking simply does not apply anymore and the Russians understand this.



5. PARTICLE ACCELERATOR DISASTER

Michael Hanlon considers this one to have a "very low" probability, and I concur.  Although our ability to destroy ourselves is growing by leaps and bounds, I believe that any disaster involving the Large Hadron Collider would be a localized event.

But as we continue to try to "play God" and build machines like this, we potentially open up gateways and expose ourselves to dangers beyond anything that most of us ever imagined.



6. 'GOD' REACHES FOR THE OFF-SWITCH

I thought that it was very interesting that Michael Hanlon included this one in his article...

Many scientists have pointed out that there is something fishy about our universe. The physical constants – the numbers governing the fundamental forces and masses of nature – seem fine-tuned to allow life of some form to exist. The great physicist Sir Fred Hoyle once wondered if the universe might be a "put-up job".

More recently, the Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom has speculated that our universe may be one of countless "simulations" running in some alien computer, much like a computer game. If so, we have to hope that the beings behind our fake universe are benign – and do not reach for the off-button should we start misbehaving.So could God step in and alter the course of history?

Well, it has certainly happened before, and many are convinced that it will happen again.

Many Christians believe (myself included) that we are moving into the period of time that the Bible refers to as "the last days".  According to the Scriptures, there has never been a time as horrible as the last days will be, and there never will be a time like it afterwards.

Of course the Bible also says that "the last days" will not be the end of the world.

But it will be the end of the world as we know it.



7. CLIMATE CATASTROPHE

There are a lot of people out there that believe that global warming caused by human activity is the greatest threat that humanity is currently facing.

I am not one of those people.  The climate has always been changing, and it will always be changing.  And the amount of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" produced by human activity is a negligible percentage of the total.

In addition, scientists tell us that there were times in the history of this planet when carbon dioxide levels were far, far greater than they were today.  So even if we were to move back in that direction substantially, it would certainly not mean the end of our planet.

However, that doesn't mean that we are not going to see tremendous changes in our weather in the years ahead.  The primary driver of climate change, the sun, is behaving very strangely right now.  If it continues to behave erratically, that could cause dramatic climate shifts.

In addition, the increase in seismic activity that we have been witnessing all over the planet could also greatly affect our climate.  Volcanic ash can have a tremendous cooling impact on global weather patterns, and volcanoes that erupt on the ocean floor could potentially cause ocean temperatures to rise substantially.  Scientists tell us that if ocean temperatures were to rise far enough, we could see billions of fish dying. If such an event were to occur, a global famine would not be too far behind.



8. SUPERBUGS THAT ARE RESISTANT TO ANTIBIOTICS

Medical professionals are becoming increasingly alarmed by the antibiotic-resistant superbugs that are starting to pop up all over the place.  So far it is not a catastrophic threat, but experts warn that it could soon become one. 
The following is an excerpt from one of my previous articles...
The "wonder drugs" that we have been using since the middle of the last century are rapidly losing their effectiveness, and medical authorities are warning that the emergence of very powerful antibiotic-resistant superbugs represents "one of the gravest threats in the history of medicine".  Of course the "wonder drugs" that I am talking about are known today as antibiotics.  These drugs attack bacteria, and when they first began to be developed back in the 1950s and 1960s they were hailed as "miracles" that would save countless numbers of lives.  Well, it turns out that nature is having the last laugh.  All over the planet bacteria are developing resistance to these drugs, and scientists are warning that they can't really do anything to stop these superbugs.  With each passing year these superbugs are gaining ground, and there appears to be not much hope on the horizon of being able to fight them.  In fact, no new classes of antibiotics have been invented since 1987, and none are being developed right now.  Meanwhile, scientists are telling us that many current antibiotic treatments will be completely obsolete by the year 2030.  Are you starting to understand why so many high profile members of the scientific community are using the words "catastrophic threat" to describe this crisis?



9. CYBERWAR

Did you see what just happened to Sony?  It is probably the most embarrassing and financially damaging incident in company history.  Of course the North Koreans are denying that they were behind the attack, but there is a good chance that they were.

Sadly, this could just be a preview of what is coming.

For example, what would happen if a cyberattack took down all of our major banks?  What would we do?

Most people don't realize this, but our banks are already under assault every minute of every single day...
Wall Street banks are getting hit by cyber attacks every single minute of every single day.  It is a massive onslaught that is not highly publicized because the bankers do not want to alarm the public.  But as you will see below, one big Wall Street bank is spending 250 million dollars a year just by themselves to combat this growing problem.  The truth is that our financial system is not nearly as stable as most Americans think that it is.  We have become more dependent on technology than ever before, and that comes with a potentially huge downside.



10. ANOTHER FUKUSHIMA
The Fukushima nuclear disaster showed all of us how a single natural disaster can absolutely cripple a nuclear reactor.

And of course things are still not under control at Fukushima.  It is already the greatest nuclear disaster in human history, and it is still releasing even more nuclear material into the environment every single day.

Once this material gets into the food chain, it can silently kill for generations.  The following comes from an opinion piece by Helen Caldicott that was published in the Guardian...
Internal radiation, on the other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter the body by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides such as iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in the sea and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food chains (for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow's meat and milk, then humans). After they enter the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously irradiate small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that is, cancer. Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the environment for generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of cancer and genetic diseases over time.

So what happens one day when a catastrophic natural disaster in the United States or elsewhere in the world causes several "Fukushimas" at the same time?

That is something to think about.



11. A MASSIVE ERUPTION AT THE YELLOWSTONE SUPERVOLANO

Around the globe, there are some volcanoes that are so absolutely massive in size that they are referred to as "supervolcanoes".  One of these supervolcanoes is in the United States.  The following facts about the Yellowstone supervolcano come from one of my previous articles...
#1 A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone could be up to 1,000 times more powerful than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.

#2 A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone would spew volcanic ash 25 miles up into the air.

#3 The next eruption of Yellowstone seems to be getting closer with each passing year.  Since 2004, some areas of Yellowstone National Park have risen by as much as 10 inches.

#4 There are approximately 3,000 earthquakes in the Yellowstone area every single year.

#5 In the event of a full-scale eruption of Yellowstone, virtually the entire northwest United States will be completely destroyed.

#6 A massive eruption of Yellowstone would mean that just about everything within a 100 mile radius of Yellowstone would be immediately killed.

#7 A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone could also potentially dump a layer of volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away.

#8 A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone would cover virtually the entire midwest United States with volcanic ash.  Food production in America would be almost totally wiped out.

#9 The "volcanic winter" that a massive Yellowstone eruption would cause would radically cool the planet.  Some scientists believe that global temperatures would decline by up to 20 degrees.

#10 America would never be the same again after a massive Yellowstone eruption.  Some scientists believe that a full eruption by Yellowstone would render two-thirds of the United States completely uninhabitable.

#11 Scientists tell us that it is not a matter of "if" Yellowstone will erupt but rather "when" the next inevitable eruption will take place.



12. A GIANT ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE FROM THE SUN

This last one that I have added to the list is one of the least understood.

A giant electromagnetic pulse from the sun has the potential to fry much of the technology that we have become so dependent upon.

How would you survive in a world where nobody has electricity, the Internet has been fried, the financial system is offline indefinitely, nobody can make any phone calls and virtually all commerce across the entire country has been brought to a complete standstill?

A massive EMP blast has the potential to send all of us back to the 18th century in a single instant.  And just two years ago there was a "near miss" that almost got us.

So don't think that it can't happen.  In fact, experts tell us that it is only a matter of time before it does.

And when it does happen, it could turn our society totally upside down...
According to Peter Vincent Pry, who advises Congress on homeland security issues, a large enough geomagnetic solar storm could produce effects similar to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a nuclear weapon that "could collapse power grids everywhere on the planet and destroy EHV (extra high voltage) transformers and other electronic systems that would require years to repair or replace." While the danger posed by a G5 solar storm gets mentioned occasionally at Congressional hearings, there really hasn't been any major action.

Earlier this year, a Homeland Security adviser said America is not ready for an EMP attack, never mind a G5 solar storm, and it's claimed that the U.S. power grid fails more often than any other in the world. If a large enough solar storm does impact the United States, the damaged electronic systems can cause a cascade of failures throughout the broader infrastructure, including banking systems, energy systems, transportation systems, food production and delivery systems, water systems, emergency services, and even the internet, so people may not even realize at first what has happened. Effectively, the U.S. would be thrown back to the pre-industrial age following a solar superstorm, and yet we are not prepared for the worst.

[Warph]

10 Signs That Russia Is Preparing To Fight
(And Win)
A Nuclear War With The United States

By Michael Snyder, on November 24th, 2014

If the United States and Russia fought a nuclear war, who would win?  

You might be surprised by the answer.  Under the Obama administration, the rapidly aging U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal has been shrinking.  Meanwhile, the Russians have been developing an entirely new generation of bombers, submarines and missiles that have the capability of delivering an absolutely crippling first strike.  At this point, most Americans consider a full-scale nuclear war to be inconceivable.  But in Russia attitudes are completely different.  To the Russians, the United States is enemy number one these days and the Russians are feverishly preparing for a potential military showdown.  Of course the Russians don't actually want to have to resort to nuclear war.  Such an event would be an unspeakable horror for the entire globe.  But if one does happen, the Russians want to make sure that they are the ones that come out on top.

A lot of Americans are still operating under the faulty assumption that the doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" still applies.  The thinking was that both sides had so many nuclear missiles that a launch by one side would guarantee the destruction of both parties.

But since that time, so much has changed.

For one, the U.S. nuclear arsenal is far, far smaller than it was back then.  Back in 1967, the U.S. military possessed more than 31,000 strategic nuclear warheads.  Now, we only have 1,642 deployed, and that number is scheduled to be further reduced to about 1,500.

Sadly, reducing the size of our nuclear arsenal by close to 95 percent is not enough for anti-nuke crusader Barack Obama.  He has spoken of unilaterally reducing the size of our strategic nuclear arsenal down to just 300 warheads.

During this same time period, the Russians have been developing some very impressive stealth delivery systems which have the capability of hitting targets inside the United States within just minutes of an order being issued.  This is particularly true of their submarine-launched missiles.  The newest Russian subs have the ability to approach our coastlines without us even knowing that they are there.  If the Russians came to the conclusion that war with the United States was unavoidable, an overwhelming first strike using submarine-based missiles could potentially take out nearly our entire arsenal before we even knew what hit us.  And if the Russians have an anti-ballistic missile system that can intercept the limited number of rockets that we can launch in return, they may be able to escape relatively unscathed.

In order for "mutually assured destruction" to work, we have to see the Russian missiles coming and have enough time to order a launch of our own.  Thank to emerging technologies, the balance of power has fundamentally shifted.  The old way of thinking simply does not apply anymore and the Russians understand this.


The following are 10 signs that Russia is preparing to fight (and win) a nuclear war with the United States...
#1 Russia is spending an enormous amount of money to develop the PAK DA Strategic Bomber.  Not a lot is known about this stealth bomber at this time.  The following summary of what we do know comes from an Australian news source...
Russia's answer to the B-2 "Spirit", this next-generation strategic bomber is intended to be almost invisible to radar and capable of carrying a huge array of conventional and nuclear missiles. Little else is known other than its expected service date: 2025.


#2 Russian nuclear bombers have been regularly buzzing areas in northern Europe and along the coast of Alaska.  The Russians appear to be brazenly testing NATO defenses.  Here is just one recent example...
Russian strategic nuclear bombers carried out air defense zone incursions near Alaska and across Northern Europe this week in the latest nuclear saber rattling by Moscow.

Six Russian aircraft, including two Bear H nuclear bombers, two MiG-31 fighter jets and two IL-78 refueling tankers were intercepted by F-22 fighters on Wednesday west and north of Alaska in air defense identification zones, said Navy Capt. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Two other Bears were intercepted by Canadian jets on Thursday.


#3 Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu says that Russian nuclear bombers will now conduct regular patrols "in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico."


#4 Russia is constructing an anti-ballistic missile system which will supposedly be superior to anything that the U.S. currently has...

Currently under development, the S-500 missile is intended to be capable of intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles when combined with radar input from the likes of the new A-100 AWACS aircraft. It is supposed to be able to track and shoot at up to 10 supersonic targets at any one time at heights of up to 40km.


#5 Russia recently successfully test launched a new submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missile...
A Russian Northern Fleet nuclear submarine on Wednesday fired a test intercontinental missile from the Barents Sea to the country's far eastern Kura Range on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

"Within the frameworks of testing the reliability of marine strategic nuclear forces, the Tula [nuclear submarine] launched a Sineva intercontinental ballistic missile from the Barents Sea to the Kura Range [in Kamchatka]," the statement says.

The RSM-54 intercontinental ballistic missile Sineva (NATO code name SS-N-23 Skiff) is part of the D-9RM launch system.

The D-9RM launch system equipped with RSM-54 missiles was put into service in 1986. The production of the RSM-54 was halted in 1996 but after three years, the Russian government resumed the production of a modernized version of the missile.


#6 Russia already possesses super silent nuclear attack submarines that are virtually undetectable when submerged.  In a previous article, I discussed how the U.S. Navy refers to these virtually undetectable subs as "black holes"...
Did you know that Russia is building submarines that are so quiet that the U.S. military cannot detect them? These "black hole" submarines can freely approach the coastlines of the United States without fear of being detected whenever they want. In fact, a "nuclear-powered attack submarine armed with long-range cruise missiles" sailed around in the Gulf of Mexico for several weeks without being detected back in 2012. And now Russia is launching a new class of subs that have "advanced stealth technology". The U.S. Navy openly acknowledges that they cannot track these subs when they are submerged. That means that the Russians are able to sail right up to our coastlines and launch nukes whenever they want.


#7 Russian media outlets are reporting that 60 percent of all Russian nuclear missiles will have radar-evading capability by 2016...
Russia's Defense Ministry plans to complete the rearmament of Strategic Missile Forces within six years. "By 2016, the share of new missile systems will reach nearly 60%, and by 2021 their share will increase to 98%. At the same time the troop and weapon command systems, combat equipment will be qualitatively improved, first of all — their capabilities for the suppression of antimissile defense will be built up," Defense Ministry's RVSN spokesman Colonel Igor Yegorov told ITAR-TASS on Friday.


#8 For the first time ever, Russia has more strategic nuclear warheads deployed than the United States does...
For the first time, Russia, which is in the midst of a major strategic nuclear modernization, has more deployed nuclear warheads than the United States, according to the latest numbers released by the State Department.

Russia now has 1,643 warheads deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers. The United States has 1,642, said the fact sheet released Wednesday.

The warhead count for the Russians, based the Sept. 1 report required under the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), shows an increase of 131 warheads since the last declaration on March 1. The U.S. reported a warhead increase of 57 during the same period. It is not clear why the warhead numbers increased.


#9 Russia has a massive advantage over the United States and NATO when it comes to tactical nuclear weapons...
As for tactical nuclear weapons, the superiority of modern-day Russia over NATO is even stronger.

The Americans are well aware of this. They were convinced before that Russia would never rise again. Now it's too late.

To date, NATO countries have only 260 tactical nuclear weapons in the ETO. The United States has 200 bombs with a total capacity of 18 megatons. They are located on six air bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. France has 60 more atomic bombs. That is pretty much it. Russia, according to conservative estimates, has 5,000 pieces of different classes of TNW – from Iskander warheads to torpedo, aerial and artillery warheads! The US has 300 tactical B-61 bombs on its own territory, but this does not change the situation against the backdrop of such imbalance.


#10 Russian President Vladimir Putin has initiated a huge "weapons modernization program" that is projected to cost the equivalent of 540 billion dollars...
Putin said Russia's weapons modernization program for 2016-2025 should focus on building a new array of offensive weapons to provide a "guaranteed nuclear deterrent;" re-arming strategic and long-range aviation; creating an aerospace defense system and developing high-precision conventional weapons.

He would not elaborate on prospective weapons, but he and other officials have repeatedly boasted about new Russian nuclear missiles' capability to penetrate any prospective missile shield.

The Kremlin has bolstered defense spending in the past few years under an ambitious weapons modernization program that runs through 2020 and costs the equivalent of $540 billion.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have been investing heavily in this kind of technology as well.  In fact, just the other day the Chinese successfully tested a new submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile...

China's JL-2 second-generation intercontinental-range submarine-launched ballistic missile, which has the ability to reach the continental USA, is already believed to be deployable by the People's Liberation Army, reports Huanqiu, the Chinese-language website of the nationalistic Global Times tabloid.

The Julang-2 — literally "Giant Wave 2″ — has reached a preliminary level of proficiency, according to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in its report to US Congress on Nov. 20.

Most Americans do not believe that any of this is a concern whatsoever.

Most Americans just assume that a full-scale nuclear war is virtually impossible.

But the truth is that a successful first strike against the United States is more possible today than it ever has been before.

Hopefully the American people will wake up to this reality before it is too late.

[Warph]

[Warph]

Ferguson, MO: Blacks and Whites Going At It

(Holy Smokes... Unbelievable, the horror of it all)

[redcliffsw]

Can't argue against that one.  If you want to raise your kids to be communists, then send 'em to a government school near you.
 

[Warph]

Climate Change Loons:
Yak Crap A "Big Contributor" To Global Warming

(Is Slate intentionally making themselves look like nutjobs?...)

Indoor pollution from burning yak dung.

Via Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/12/yak_dung_is_making_climate_change_worse_and_new_cookstoves_don_t_help.html

It gets pretty cold this time of year in Tibet. For centuries, the solution to this problem was a win-win: just burn that huge pile of yak dung that's been accumulating all summer.

For millions of nomadic Tibetans, it's a system that works. But that system comes at a hefty cost. Tibetan homes have some of the worst indoor air pollution in the world, and the soot the dung fires release is a big contributor to climate change.

Yak dung, when used as fuel, is arguably dirtier than coal but is definitely much cheaper. Particulate pollution from burning animal dung greatly increases the risk of lung cancer and other respiratory ailments, the occurrence of which can be slowed by switching to cleaner ways of heating homes.