More This & That & Whatever.... The Best Of Intellectual Froglegs

[Ross]

Makes More Sense
Than
Al Gore
Critical Thinking
Don't ya know

WARNING! ALERT!!
The Earth IS WARMING!!!!
(since the end of the last ice age)

January 27, 2012 by nolathe

Variations in Earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles)

The Milankovitch cycles are a set of cyclic variations in characteristics of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Each cycle has a different length, so at some times their effects reinforce each other and at other times they (partially) cancel each other.



Past and future of daily average insolation at top of the atmosphere on the day of the summer solstice, at 65 N latitude.

There is strong evidence that the Milankovitch cycles affect the occurrence of glacial and interglacial periods within an ice age. The present ice ages are the most studied and best understood, particularly the last 400,000 years, since this is the period covered by ice cores that record atmospheric composition and proxies for temperature and ice volume. Within this period, the match of glacial/interglacial frequencies to the Milanković orbital forcing periods is so close that orbital forcing is generally accepted. The combined effects of the changing distance to the Sun, the precession of the Earth's axis, and the changing tilt of the Earth's axis redistribute the sunlight received by the Earth. Of particular importance are changes in the tilt of the Earth's axis, which affect the intensity of seasons. For example, the amount of solar influx in July at 65 degrees north latitude varies by as much as 25% (from 450 W/m² to 550 W/m²). It is widely believed that ice sheets advance when summers become too cool to melt all of the accumulated snowfall from the previous winter. Some workers believe that the strength of the orbital forcing is too small to trigger glaciations, but feedback mechanisms like CO2 may explain this mismatch.

While Milankovitch forcing predicts that cyclic changes in the Earth's orbital elements can be expressed in the glaciation record, additional explanations are necessary to explain which cycles are observed to be most important in the timing of glacial–interglacial periods. In particular, during the last 800,000 years, the dominant period of glacial–interglacial oscillation has been 100,000 years, which corresponds to changes in Earth's orbital eccentricity and orbitalinclination. Yet this is by far the weakest of the three frequencies predicted by Milankovitch. During the period 3.0–0.8 million years ago, the dominant pattern of glaciation corresponded to the 41,000-year period of changes in Earth'sobliquity (tilt of the axis). The reasons for dominance of one frequency versus another are poorly understood and an active area of current research, but the answer probably relates to some form of resonance in the Earth's climate system.

The "traditional" Milankovitch explanation struggles to explain the dominance of the 100,000-year cycle over the last 8 cycles. Richard A. Muller, Gordon J. F. MacDonald,[49][50][51] and others have pointed out that those calculations are for a two-dimensional orbit of Earth but the three-dimensional orbit also has a 100,000-year cycle of orbital inclination. They proposed that these variations in orbital inclination lead to variations in insolation, as the Earth moves in and out of known dust bands in the solar system. Although this is a different mechanism to the traditional view, the "predicted" periods over the last 400,000 years are nearly the same. The Muller and MacDonald theory, in turn, has been challenged by Jose Antonio Rial.[52]

Another worker, William Ruddiman, has suggested a model that explains the 100,000-year cycle by the modulating effect of eccentricity (weak 100,000-year cycle) on precession (26,000-year cycle) combined with greenhouse gas feedbacks in the 41,000- and 26,000-year cycles. Yet another theory has been advanced by Peter Huybers who argued that the 41,000-year cycle has always been dominant, but that the Earth has entered a mode of climate behavior where only the second or third cycle triggers an ice age. This would imply that the 100,000-year periodicity is really an illusion created by averaging together cycles lasting 80,000 and 120,000 years.[53] This theory is consistent with a simple empirical multi-state model proposed by Didier Paillard.[54] Paillard suggests that the late Pleistocene glacial cycles can be seen as jumps between three quasi-stable climate states. The jumps are induced by the orbital forcing, while in the early Pleistocene the 41,000-year glacial cycles resulted from jumps between only two climate states. A dynamical model explaining this behavior was proposed by Peter Ditlevsen.[55][56] This is in support of the suggestion that the late Pleistocene glacial cycles are not due to the weak 100,000-year eccentricity cycle, but a non-linear response to mainly the 41,000-year obliquity cycle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age#Recent_glacial_and_interglacial_phases

http://nolathe.net/2012/01/27/warning-alert-the-earth-is-warming-since-the-end-of-the-last-ice-age/

[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]

Get Prepared:
122 Of The Best Prepper Websites On The Internet

By Michael Snyder, on December 18th, 2014

     
Getting prepared for the chaos that is coming to America in the years ahead is not that complicated.  Help is out there – if you know where to look.  And it doesn't have to be expensive either.  In this article, I have put together a list of 122 of the best prepper websites on the Internet that will teach you how to prep for free.  The great thing about the prepper community is that there are always highly skilled people that are willing to freely share their knowledge and experience with the general public.  As the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, I am constantly being asked about what people need to do in order to get prepared for the hard times that are coming to this country.  And when I am asked, I do my best to encourage people to build up their emergency funds, to store food and supplies, to put together bug out bags and to do everything that they can to become more independent of the system.  But sometimes people need a lot more than that.  Sometimes people need to have someone give them some real hands on practical advice about things like canning food or setting up home defense systems.  So in this article my goal is to connect you with some of the top experts from all over the nation for free.  I think that this list is going to be a great resource for people that they can reference again and again, so don't forget to bookmark it.

And sadly, the truth of the matter is that most Americans are not prepared for much of anything at this point.  The following statistics come from a survey conducted by the Adelphi Center for Health Innovation. 

As you can see, a substantial portion of the population is not even prepared for a basic emergency that would last for just a few days...

•44 percent don't have first-aid kits
•48 percent lack emergency supplies
•53 percent do not have a minimum three-day supply of nonperishable food and water at home
•55 percent believe local authorities will come to their rescue if disaster strikes
•52 percent have not designated a family meeting place if they are separated during an emergency
•42 percent do not know the phone numbers of all of their immediate family members
•21 percent don't know if their workplace has an emergency preparedness plan
•37 percent do not have a list of the drugs they are taking
•52 percent do not have copies of health insurance documents

So needless to say, there is a great need to educate the general population about preparedness.

Before we get to the list, I want to explain a few things about it.

First of all, this is a list of sites that offer practical advice about prepping.  So I kept most websites that focus on the news off of it.  Perhaps in the future I will do a list of my favorite alternative news websites.  Some of my favorites include Infowars, Zero Hedge, WND, SteveQuayle.com, TruNews, and Raiders News Update.

In addition, I have only included websites that offer information for free.  There are a lot of great companies out there that sell some really cool survival supplies, but the goal of this list is to help people find useful information that they can access without cost.

Finally, I want to make it clear that these websites are listed in no particular order.  Some of the best known prepper websites are toward the front of the list, and some of the newer ones are toward the end, but I do not want anyone to get offended if they are not as "high on the list" as they think they should be.  In this list, I have not attempted to assign a value to each site.  All of these sites have excellent information, and in fact some of the ones toward the end have some of the best hands on practical advice.

With that being said, the following are 122 of the best prepper websites on the Internet...

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/get-prepared-122-of-the-best-prepper-websites-on-the-internet

1. Survival Blog

2. American Preppers Network

3. SHTFPlan.com

4. The Survival Mom

5. Urban Survival

6. Natural News

7. Off Grid Survival

8. The Organic Prepper

9. Survival 4 Christians

10. Backdoor Survival

11. Preparedness Mama

12. The Prepper Journal

13. The Suburban Prepper

14. Modern Survival Online

15. Food Storage Moms

16. Off The Grid News

17. The Survivalist Blog

18. Prepper Website

19. AllOutdoor.com

20. Doom And Bloom

21. Prepared Christian

22. SHTFblog.com

23. Graywolf Survival

24. Provident Living Today

25. Home Ready Home

26. Survival Cache

27. Modern Survival Blog

28. Prepared Housewives

29. Rural Revolution

30. Preparedness Advice Blog

31. Food Storage And Survival

32. The Survival Podcast

33. Prep-Blog.com

34. Mom Prepares

35. Survival And Prosperity

36. Prepared For Survival

37. TEOTWAWKI Blog

38. The Apartment Prepper

39. Ask A Prepper

40. Preparing For SHTF

41. The Home For Survival

42. Mainstream Preppers

43. My Family Survival Plan

44. Prepography

45. Survival Life

46. Prepper Dashboard

47. SHTF School

48. The Survival Doctor

49. Canadian Preppers Network

50. Expert Prepper

51. Maximum Survival

52. Survivor Jane

53. More Than Just Surviving

54. LastOneAlive

55. SGTReport

56. On Point Preparedness

57. SHTF Wiki

58. Food Storage Made Easy

59. Prepper Forums

60. Survivalist Boards

61. Ready Nutrition

62. Tactical Intelligence

63. Family Survival Planning

64. The Prepared Ninja

65. Ed That Matters

66. Seasoned Citizen Prepper

67. The Neighbor Network

68. Mom With A Prep

69. Survival At Home

70. Patriot Rising

71. The Berkey Guy Blog

72. Your Preparedness Story

73. Survival Sherpa

74. Prepper Recon

75. Homestead Dreamer

76. The Doomsday Moose

77. All About Preppers

78. The Deliberate Agrarian

79. The Homestead Survival

80. Preparedness Advice Blog

81. The Daily Prep

82. Prepared Bloggers

83. Active Response Training

84. Survivalist Prepper

85. Mama Kautz

86. Happy Preppers

87. Tin Hat Ranch

88. Living Prepared

89. The Prepper Pages

90. Resilience

91. The Herbal Survivalist

92. The Preppers Life

93. Survive Hive

94. Prepper Resources

95. Omega Tactical And Survival

96. Freedom Preppers

97. Essential Survival

98. Prepared For That

99. Survivopedia

100. A Matter Of Preparedness

101. Practical Tactical

102. SHTF Dad

103. Prepper Ideas

104. Geek Prepper

105. The Poor Man's Survival Blog

106. Prepper Chimp

107. FloridaHillbilly.com

108. Survival Prepper Joe

109. The Survival Place Blog

110. Rational Preparedness

111. Code Green Prep

112. Preppers Survive

113. Stealth Survival

114. Totally Ready

115. Preparedness Pro

116. The 7 P's Blog

117. Preparing With Dave

118. Disaster Mom

119. Destiny Survival

120. Underground Medic

121. An American Homestead

122. Vigil Prudence

So what do you think?

Are there any other great prepper websites or blogs that were left off of this list?

Are there some sites on the list that you feel should not have made it?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment.

[Ross]

Great info!
Thanks Warph.

[Warph]

2014 was quite a bizarre year, wasn't it?  The past 12 months brought us MH370, Ebola, civil war in Ukraine, civil unrest in Ferguson, the rise of ISIS and the fall of the Democrats in the midterm elections.  Our world is becoming crazier and more unstable with each passing day, and I have a feeling that things are going to accelerate greatly in 2015.  But for the moment things are relatively quiet as much of the world stops to celebrate the holiday season, so now is a good time to look back and see where we have been over the past year.  The facts that I am about to share with you sound false, but they are all quite true.  If you doubt any of these facts, just click the link on the number to find the source.  It has been said that truth is stranger than fiction, and that was definitely the case during the past 12 months. 

In no particular order, the following are 50 numbers from 2014 that sound fake but that are actually real...

2.5 – Researchers have discovered that characters in cartoons for children are 2.5 times more likely to die than characters in adult dramas.  But as long as those characters look cute and make funny noises it must be okay.

$4.20 – The price of ground beef just hit a brand new record high of $4.20 a pound.  Exactly 10 years ago, it was just $2.21 a pound.  What do you think Clara Peller would say about this?

19.8 percent – This holiday season, nearly 20 percent of all American families are on food stamps.  But since the stock market is soaring, most of the rest of the country doesn't seem to care.

$20 – If you want to "lock down that new man for Christmas", you can buy a positive pregnancy test on Craigslist for just 20 dollars.

29.0 years – The average age when a man in America first gets married has reached an all-time high of 29.0 years.  Thus the need for the fake pregnancy tests.

31.1 percent – An astounding 31.1 percent of all U.S. young adults in the 18 to 34-year-old age bracket are currently living with their parents.  But the good news is that demand for tacky basement decor is at an all-time high.

33 percent – According to the Wall Street Journal, close to one-third of all Americans have a file in the FBI's master criminal database.

34.6 percent – According to the CDC, 34.6 percent of all men in America officially meet the criteria for being obese.

36 – At this point only 36 percent of the U.S. population can name all three branches of government.

43 – The new EPA regulations issued while Barack Obama has been president are 43 times as long as the entire Bible.

45 percent – One survey discovered that 45 percent of all Americans "dread" the Christmas season.

48 percent – Only 48 percent of Americans can immediately come up with $400 in emergency cash without borrowing it or selling something.

50 – An MIT research scientist is warning that if current trends continue 50 percent of all children in America will be autistic by the year 2025.

50 percent – Half of all college graduates in America are still financially dependent on their parents when they are two years out of college.

52 percent – According to a survey that was conducted earlier this year, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are currently living in right now.

54 percent – For the first time ever, more than half of all U.S. doctors support the legalization of assisted suicide.

57 percent – A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 57 percent of all Americans consider race relations in America to be "bad".  That is the worst number in 20 years.

59 percent – One very disturbing recent poll discovered that 59 percent of Americans are in favor of torturing our prisoners.

60 percent – In the United States today, 60 percent of all bachelor's degrees are earned by women.

64 percent – It would be a great understatement to say that pornography is popular with men in America.  This is true even among men that are supposed to be religious.  For example, one survey discovered that 64 percent of all Christian men ages 31 to 49 look at porn at least monthly.

65 percent – One shocking new poll found that 65 percent of Americans believe that the government is "broken".  The shocking part of the survey was that it was only 65 percent.

65 percent – According to a Census Bureau report that was released in December, 65 percent of all children in America are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.

70 percent – Right now, about 70 percent of all government spending goes toward dependence-creating programs.

78 percent – According to a Pew Research Center study that was released earlier this year, 78 percent of U.S. women "want a spouse with a steady job".  Apparently the other 22 percent want an unemployed bum that stays home all day playing video games.

85 percent – 85 percent of all artificial Christmas trees are now made in China, and there is a rumor that Santa and his elves are considering a permanent move to the Chinese city of Shenzhen.

1979 – The United States has become the nation of the "permanent emergency".  In fact, there has been at least one "state of emergency" in effect in this country since 1979.

7,500 – The worldwide Ebola death toll has surpassed 7,500 for the first time, but most Americans seem to believe that the crisis is over.  The truth is that it may just be beginning.

20,000 – Right now McDonald's has 14,267 locations in the United States, but payday lenders have more than 20,000.

$30,000 – According to the Social Security Administration, 52 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.

80,000 – Back in 1980, there were only about 3,000 SWAT raids conducted in the United States.  But today, there are more than 80,000 SWAT raids per year in this country.

100,000 – It is estimated that there are at least 100,000 underage sex workers in the United States.  In case you were wondering, yes that means that we are a very sick nation.

$1,000,000 – We are supposed to be a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", but at this point more than half the members of Congress are millionaires.

1,400,000 – Thanks in large part to unchecked illegal immigration, there are now 1.4 million members of criminal gangs living in our cities.

2,400,000 – There are currently more than 2.4 million people behind bars in America, and since 1980 the number of people incarcerated in our prisons has quadrupled.

2,500,000 – According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, there are now 2.5 million homeless children in the United States.

4,000,000 – Right now there are more than 4 million adult websites on the Internet, and they get more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined.

9,700,000 – Almost 10 million more Americans have enrolled in Medicaid since Obamacare first launched.

15,000,000 – More than 15 million Americans have cosmetic procedures done each year, and Christmas is the busiest season of the year for plastic surgeons.

30,000,000 – In America today, more than 30 million Americans are taking antidepressants.  And keep in mind that antidepressants are only one class of pharmaceutical drug.  Overall, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are currently on at least one prescription drug according to the Mayo Clinic.

$40,000,000 – More than 40 million dollars has been spent just on vacations for Barack Obama and his family since he has been in the White House.

49,000,000 – An astounding 49 million Americans are considered to be facing food insecurity at this point.

110,000,000 – Approximately one-third of the entire population of the United States (110 million people) currently has a sexually transmitted disease according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

156,600,000 – The population of Bangladesh (156,600,000) is actually larger than the population of Russia (143,500,00).  But nobody is scared of Bangladesh.

3,000,000,000 – For the first time ever, there are now more than 3 billion people on the Internet around the globe.  I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

$600,000,000,000 – Americans will spend more than 600 billion dollars this Christmas season.  That is an amount of money greater than the entire GDP of Sweden.

$1,200,000,000,000 – Student loan debt has hit a grand total of 1.2 trillion dollars in the United States.  That number has grown by about 84 percent just since 2008.

$2,000,000,000,000 – The war in Iraq cost U.S. taxpayers more than 2 trillion dollars, but now a radical jihadist terror organization known as ISIS controls nearly a third of the entire country.

5,000,000,000,000 – There are now 5 trillion little pieces of plastic floating around in the oceans of the world, and lots more plastic is being dumped into our oceans every single day.

$18,031,021,541,347.52 – The current size of the U.S. national debt.  It increased by more than a trillion dollars during the fiscal year that ended a few months ago, and it is on pace to approximately double during Obama's eight years in the White House.

$40,000,000,000,000 – There are five "too big to fail" banks in the United States that each have more than 40 TRILLION dollars worth of exposure to derivatives.  This is a "sword of Damocles" that could destroy our financial system and our entire economy at any time.  Let's just hope that it does not happen in 2015.

[Warph]

The American People Are Utterly Clueless
About What Is Going To Happen
As We Enter 2015

The American people are feeling really good right about now.  For example, Gallup's economic confidence index has hit the highest level that we have seen since the last recession.  In addition, nearly half of all Americans believe that 2015 will be a better year than 2014 was, and only about 10 percent believe that it will be a worse year.  And a lot of people are generally feeling quite good about the people that have been leading our nation.  According to Gallup, once again this year Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in America and Barack Obama is the most admired man in America.  I don't know what that says about our nation, but it can't be good.  Unfortunately, when things seem to be going well common sense tends to go out the window.  A couple days ago, the Guardian ran an article entitled "Goodbye to one of the best years in history", and a whole lot of people out there are feeling really optimistic these days.  But should they be?

Sadly, what we are experiencing right now is so similar to what we witnessed in 2007 and early 2008.  The stock market had been on a great run, people were flipping houses like crazy and most people were convinced that the party would never end.

But then it did end – very painfully.

The signs of trouble were there, but most people chose to ignore them.

Sadly, the exact same thing is happening again.

On Monday, the price of oil hit a brand new five year low.  As I write this, U.S. oil is sitting at a price of $53.76 a barrel, which is nearly a 50 percent decline from the peak earlier this year.

There is only one other time in history when the price of oil has declined by more than 50 dollars a barrel in such a short time frame.  That was back in the middle of 2008, shortly before the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression.

Unless the price of oil starts really bouncing back, the U.S. economy is going to be hit really hard.

Since 2009, oil industry employment has risen by 50 percent.  And jobs in the oil industry pay quite well.  One figure that I saw put the average weekly wage at about 1700 dollars.

But now we aren't going to be gaining those types of jobs.  Instead, we are going to rapidly start losing them.

Already, the oil rig count has dropped for three weeks in a row and is now at an 8 month low.  And as the oil industry suffers, all of the industries that it supports are also going to start feeling the pain. 

In fact, Business Insider is reporting that Texas business executives are "freaked out" about what is happening...

Business executives in Texas are worried about the drop in oil prices.

On Monday, the Dallas Fed's latest manufacturing survey showed that activity in Texas was slowing down.

The latest composite index came in at 4.1, widely missing expectations and down big from November's reading. Expectations were for the index to come in at 9, down from 10.5 last month.

So while most Americans are feeling really good about the coming year, many of those with an inside view are becoming quite alarmed.  One Texas business executive went so far as to say that the stunning decline in oil prices was "going to make things ugly ... quickly."

Meanwhile, the 9 trillion dollar U.S. dollar carry trade is starting to unwind.

The following is an excerpt from a recent Zero Hedge article...

Oil's collapse is predicated by one major event: the explosion of the US Dollar carry trade. Worldwide, there is over $9 TRILLION in borrowed US Dollars that has been ploughed into risk assets.

Energy projects, particularly Oil Shale in the US, are one of the prime spots for this. But it is not the only one. Economies that are closely aligned with commodities (all of which are priced in US Dollars) are getting demolished too.

Just about everything will be hit as well. Most of the "recovery" of the last five years has been fueled by cheap borrowed Dollars. Now that the US Dollar has broken out of a multi-year range, you're going to see more and more "risk assets" (read: projects or investments fueled by borrowed Dollars) blow up. Oil is just the beginning, not a  standalone story.

If things really pick up steam, there's over $9 TRILLION worth of potential explosions waiting in the wings. Imagine if the entire economies of both Germany and Japan exploded and you've got a decent idea of the size of the potential impact on the financial system.

And that's assuming NO increased leverage from derivative usage.


Ouch.

And yes, as that last excerpt mentioned, derivatives could soon become a massive problem.  The big banks are holding trillions in commodity derivatives that could blow up if the price of oil does not rebound.  Overall, there are five U.S. banks that each have more than 40 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives of all types, and the total global derivatives bubble is at least 700 trillion dollars at this point.

At the same time, many are becoming concerned that the unprecedented bond bubble that we are witnessing could soon implode and trillions of dollars of "wealth" could disappear into thin air.

In fact, Bloomberg says that we should "get ready for a disastrous year" for bonds...

Get ready for a disastrous year for U.S. government bonds. That's the message forecasters on Wall Street are sending.

With Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen poised to raise interest rates in 2015 for the first time in almost a decade, prognosticators are convinced Treasury yields have nowhere to go except up. Their calls for higher yields next year are the most aggressive since 2009, when U.S. debt securities suffered record losses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

That certainly does not sound very optimistic, does it?

Anyone with even a minimal amount of intelligence should be able to see the massive financial bubbles that the central banks of the world have created, and anyone with even a minimal amount of intelligence should be able to see that we are heading for a massive financial implosion which will be extraordinarily painful.

Unfortunately, as I wrote about yesterday, the American people have become "zombiefied".  Instead of thinking for themselves, they let "the matrix" do their thinking for them.  And right now "the matrix" is telling them that everything is going to be just fine in 2015.

If you do not think that there is a propaganda machine that tells us what to think, I want you to watch the video posted below very carefully.  This video makes it so obvious that even a small child can understand it...

VIDEO:

[Warph]

Bill Clinton And The Pedophile: The Sex Scandal That Could
Destroy Hillary's Presidential Ambitions

By Michael Snyder, on January 5th, 2015

Why did a convicted billionaire pedophile named Jeffrey Epstein that pimped out underage girls to powerful men have 21 contact phone numbers for Bill Clinton?  And why did Clinton fly on "multiple occasions" to the private Caribbean island where Epstein regularly held wild sexual orgies?  Let me give you a hint: it was not to discuss politics over milk and cookies.  Every once in a while, we get a small peek into the twisted sexual world of the global elite.  In this case, a Florida lawsuit that alleges that Britain's Prince Andrew had sex with a 17-year-old "sex slave" provided by Epstein is making headlines all over the planet.  But of potentially even greater importance is what this lawsuit is revealing about Bill Clinton. 

If it can be proven that Bill Clinton had sex with underage girls provided by Jeffrey Epstein, that could potentially destroy any chance that Hillary Clinton has of winning the presidency in 2016.

The 17-year-old girl that Prince Andrew is alleged to have had sex with is named Virginia Roberts.  She is claiming that she once received $15,000 for having sex with him...

A teenage "sex slave" says she was paid $15,000 for bedding Britain's Prince Andrew by the American billionaire who served as the royal's procurer.

Virginia Roberts was 17 when Wall Street honcho and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein allegedly pimped her out to the prince.

"A lot of powerful men were part of Jeffrey's scene, but I specifically remember Andrew," Roberts told Britain's Daily Mail.

And it is a fact that Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted sex offender.  He was convicted by a court of law for paying a 14-year-old girl 300 dollars to massage him and have sex with him...

Epstein's sexual exploits have been documented since 2005, when a woman in Palm Beach contacted police saying that her 14-year-old daughter had been paid $300 to massage him and then have sex.

The claim prompted a nearly year-long investigation that led to the eventual charge of soliciting prostitution which came as part of a plea deal. He spent 13 months of a 18-month sentence in jail and remains a registered sex offender.

Since that time, approximately 40 other women have accused Epstein of sexual misconduct.

So needless to say, this is one very sick individual.

And right now the mainstream media in the U.S. is largely ignoring the fact that Bill Clinton flew down to Epstein's private Caribbean island on "multiple occasions" between 2002 and 2005.  The following is from a British news source...

Over the years, the casually-dressed, globe-trotting financier, who was said to log more than 600 flying hours a year, has been linked with Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker and Manhattan-London society figure Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late media titan Robert Maxwell.

Epstein reportedly flew Tucker and Spacey to Africa on his private jet as part of a charitable endeavour. Clinton, meanwhile, flew on multiple occasions in the same plane to Epstein's private Caribbean island, Little St James, between 2002 and 2005 as he developed his philanthropic post-presidential career. It would later be alleged in court that Epstein organised orgies on that same private island in the US Virgin Islands.



A lot of Democrats are going to end up reading this article, and a lot of them are going to start making apologies for Clinton at this point.

So let's get one thing straight.  It is not okay for anyone to have sex with underage girls.  Whoever breaks the law by doing so deserves to go to prison.  That includes Bill Clinton if it can be proven that he did this.

And without a doubt, Clinton and Epstein were very close.  In fact, court records show that Epstein had 21 different phone numbers for Clinton...

While Clinton was never deposed, lawyers obtained Epstein's computerized phone directory, which included "e-mail addresses for Clinton along with 21 phone numbers for him, including those for his assistant (Doug Band)," according to a court filing.

In addition, Epstein had contact information for a whole host of other powerful politicians and celebrities...

From his 97-page 'black book' of phone numbers and email addresses, it is clear Epstein had an impressive array of contacts.

When its contents were disclosed three years ago, the book was shown to include contact details for former US President Bill Clinton, ex-secretary of state Henry Kissinger, and Barbara Walters, then one of America's most influential broadcasters.

Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson's details are there, along with entrepreneur Donald Trump, members of the Kennedy family and former prime minister Tony Blair.

If this scandal is not covered up, it could eventually bring down a lot of people.

What makes things even worse for Bill Clinton (and others) is that Epstein apparently used hidden cameras to record the sexual trysts that were going on in his guest bedrooms.  The following is from an article that appeared in the Mirror...

Prince Andrew's tycoon pal may have taken compromising photos of him with the underage girl he is alleged to have abused.

Details buried in original court papers filed against pervert Jeffrey Epstein, 61, reveal that he recorded the sordid orgies he threw for VIPs at his luxury homes using cameras hidden in the walls of guest bedrooms.

So if Bill Clinton did commit a crime, somewhere there may actually be video of it.

But wait, there's even more to this story.  The following comes from the Daily Mail...

The lawsuit claims that Clinton was friends with an unnamed woman who 'kept images of naked underage children on her computer, helped to recruit underage children for Epstein... and photographed underage females in sexually explicit poses'.

While he cut off ties with Epstein, this woman's abuses apparently did not end their relationship as she was reportedly one of the 400 guests at Chelsea Clinton's 2010 wedding.

Though the lawsuit may be bringing up sexual skeleton's from Clinton's past, he has added to the drama of late by posing for a photo with two known prostitutes at a fundraiser in Los Angeles last month.

Obviously Bill Clinton has a lot of hard questions that he needs to answer.

But if Bill Clinton cannot be charged with a crime, will the American people even care what else he did?

After all, there is a long history of the American people being willing to overlook his sexual promiscuity.

For example, in a book published last year entitled "The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of Presidents", it was documented that one of Clinton's latest girlfriends known as "the Energizer" sometimes brought cookies to the Secret Service agents that guard Bill...

Energizer, who is described as charming and friendly, sometimes brought cookies to the agents, according to the book excerpts.

One told Kessler: "It was a warm day, and she was wearing a low-cut tank top, and as she leaned over, her breasts were very exposed. They appeared to be very perky and very new and full ... There was no doubt in my mind they were enhanced."

Kessler also reports that Hillary's Secret Service detail informs Bill's Secret Service detail when the former first lady is coming home, so Bill has time to get Energizer off the property and clean up any evidence.

That revelation certainly did very little to upset the Hillary for president bandwagon.

So will these new revelations about Bill's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein have an impact?

We shall see...

[Ross]

Doctors Confess
to Intentionally Diagnosing
Healthy People With Cancer
to Make Money

I personally feel that something of this nature requires more than one internet source.
So when I first read it I did a couple of searches.

I am listing the sources so you can choose which one you want to see.


http://consciouslifenews.com/doctors-confessing-intentionally-diagnosing-healthy-people-cancer-make-money/1180459/#

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/809243

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/09/17/michigan-doctor-admits-giving-patients-unnecessary-cancer-treatments/

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/doctor-held-9-million-bond-misdiagnosing-cancer-medicare-scam-article-1.1428639

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/doctor-held-9-million-bond-misdiagnosing-cancer-medicare-scam-article-1.1428639

http://www.fbi.gov/detroit/press-releases/2013/oakland-county-doctor-and-owner-of-michigan-hematology-and-oncology-centers-charged-in-35-million-medicare-fraud-scheme

http://abcnews.go.com/US/michigan-oncologist-accused-giving-unnecessary-chemotherapy-patients-remission/story?id=19930348

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/809243

http://www.businessinsider.com/dr-farid-fata-charged-with-fraud-2013-8

[Ross]

Post Nation

Are you missing 15,000 bags of heroin?
Because the police in Delaware
found them

.

By Mark Berman January 21 at 1:44 PM

A man in Delaware was...hang on, Delaware? Are we sure this story is about Delaware? This feels like a Florida story to me. Hold on one second.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/01/21/are-you-missing-15000-bags-of-heroin-because-the-police-in-delaware-found-them/
[We're just going to pretend you are actually holding on here and not skipping this line to get to the part about the heroin, because sometimes shtick is important, okay?]

Okay! This is indeed news out of Delaware. The state police there say they pulled over a New Jersey man on Tuesday for speeding. After the state trooper smelled marijuana in the car, the police checked out the car and found freezer bags. Inside those freezer bags? Nearly 15,000 bags of heroin (14,994 bags, to be precise) worth about $150,000.

What does $150,000 in heroin look like? Well, it looks like this:

[Warph]

December 31, 1912

Posted by Daniel Greenfield

(The posting of this article has become an annual tradition of historical proportion at this blog.)

The next year  sweeps around the earth like the hand of a clock, from Australia to Europe and across the great stretch of the Atlantic it rides the darkness to America. And then around and around again, each passing day marking another sweep of the hours.

In Times Square crowds of tourists gather in clumps behind police barricades, clutching their corporate swag beneath video billboards shifting and humming in the cool air. And the same scene repeats in other squares and other places even if it doesn't feel like there is a great deal to celebrate.

While the year makes its first pass around the world, let us leave it behind, open a door in time and step back to another year, a century past.

December 31, 1912.

The crowds are just as large, though the men wear hats. The word gay is employed with no touch of irony. Liquor is harder to come by because the end of the year, one hundred and two years ago, has fallen on a Sunday.

There are more dances and fewer corporate brands. Horns are blown, and the occasional revolver fired into the air, a sight unimaginable in the controlled celebrations of today's urban metropolis.

The Hotel Workers Union strike fizzled out on Broadway though a volley of bricks was hurled at the Hotel Astor during the celebrations. New York's finest spent the evening outside the Rockefeller mansion waiting to subpoena the tycoon in the money trust investigation. And the Postmaster General inaugurated the new parcel service by shipping a silver loving cup from Washington to New York.

On Ellis Island, Castro, a bitter enemy of the United States, and the former president of Venezuela, had been arrested for trying to sneak into the country while the customs officers had their guard down. Gazing at the Statue of Liberty, Castro denied that he was a revolutionary and bitterly urged the American masses to rise up and tear down the statue in the name of freedom.

Times Square has far fewer billboards and no videos, but it does have the giant Horn and Hardart Automat which opened just that year, where food comes from banks of vending machines giving celebrating crowds a view of the amazing world of tomorrow for the world of 1912 is after all like our own. We can open a door into the past, but we cannot escape the present.

The Presidential election of 1912, like that of 2012, ended in disaster. Both Taft and Roosevelt lost and Woodrow Wilson won. In the White House, President Taft met with cabinet members and diplomats for a final reception.

Woodrow Wilson, who would lead America into a bloody and senseless war, subvert its Constitution, and begin the process of making global government and statism into the national religion of his party, was optimistic about the new year. "Thirteen is my lucky number," he said. "It is curious how the number 13 has figured in my life and never with bad fortune."

Americans today face the lightbulb ban. Americans then were confronted with the matchstick ban as the Esch bill in Congress outlawed phosphorus "strike 'em on your pants" matches by imposing a $1,000 tax on them. This was deemed to be Constitutional. In Indianapolis, the train carrying union leaders guilty of the dynamite plot was making its secret way to Federal prison even while the lawyers of the dynamiters vowed to appeal.

The passing year, a century past, had its distinct echoes in our own time. There had been, what the men of the time, thought of as wars, yet they could not even conceive of the wars shortly to come. There were the usual dry news items about the collapse of the government in Spain, a war and an economic crisis in distant parts of the world that did not concern them.

A recession was here, after several panics, and though there was plenty of cheer, there was also plenty of worry. The Federal Reserve Act would be signed at the end of 1913, partly in response to the economic crisis.

Socialism was on the march with the Socialist Party having doubled its votes in the national election.  All three major candidates, Wilson, Roosevelt and Taft, had warned that the country was drifting toward Socialism and that they were the only ones who could stop it.

"Unless Socialism is checked," Professor Albert Bushnell Hart warned, "within sixteen years there will be a Socialist President of the United States." Hart was off by four years. Hoover won in 1928. FDR won in 1932.

At New York City's May Day rally, the American flag was torn down and replaced with the red flag, to cries of, "Take down that dirty rag" and "We don't recognize that flag." The site of the rally was Union Square, one of the locations where the rag ends of Occupy Wall Street now hangs out.

There was tension on the Mexican border and alarm over Socialist successes in German elections. An obscure fellow with the silly name of Lenin had carved out a group with the even sillier name of the Bolsheviks. China became a Republic. New Mexico became a state, the African National Congress was founded and the Titanic sank. In our time it was merely the Costa Concordia.

There was bloody fighting in Benghazi where 20,000 Italian troops faced off against 20,000 Arabs and 8,000 Turks. The Italians had modern warships and armored vehicles, while the Muslim forces were supplied by voluntary donations and fighters crossing from Egypt and across North Africa to join in attacking the infidels.

The Italian-Turkish war has since been forgotten, except by the Italians, the Libyans and the Turks, but it featured the first strategic use of airships, ushering in a century of European aerial warfare.

There was a good deal going on while the horns were blown and men in heavy coats and wet hats made their way through the festivities.

World War I was two years away, but the Balkan War had already fired the first shots. The rest was just a matter of bringing the non-phosphorus matches closer to the kindling. The Anti-Saloon League was gathering strength for a nationwide effort that would hijack the political system and divide it into dry and wet, and, among other things, ram through the personal income tax.

Change was coming, and as in 1912, the country was no longer hopeful, it was wary.

The century, for all its expected glamor, had been a difficult one. The future, political and economic, was unknown. Few knew exactly what was to come, but equally few were especially optimistic even when the champagne was flowing.

If we were to stop a reveler staggering out of a hotel, stand in his path and tell him that war was five years away and a great depression would come in on its tail, that liquor would be banned, crime would proliferate and a Socialist president would rule the United States for three terms, while wielding near absolute power, he might have decided to make his way to the recently constructed Manhattan Bridge for a swan dive into the river.

And yet we know that though all this is true, there is a deeper truth. For all those setbacks, the United States survived, and many of us look nostalgically toward a time that was every bit as uncertain and nerve-wracking as our own.

December 31, 1912 was a door that opened onto many things.

Our December 31 is likewise a door, and if a man in shiny clothes from the year 2115 were to stop us on the street and spill out everything he knew about the next century, it is likely that there would be as much greatness as tragedy in that tale.

As the year sweeps across the earth, let us remember that history is more than the worst of its events, that all times bear the burden of their uncertainties, but also carry within them the seeds of greatness. Looking back on this time, it may be that it is not the defeats that we will recall, but how they readied us for the fight ahead. 2012 may be as forgotten as 1912, but 2018 and 2022 may endure in history.

America has not fallen, no more than it did when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 1912. Though it may not seem likely now, there are many great things ahead, and though the challenges at times seem insurmountable and the defeats many, another year and another century await us.