Steve Bull's Blog, page 1269
November 1, 2017
On November 4th The Antifa Insurgency Against Donald Trump And His Supporters Will Begin
Are we about to see chaos in the streets in major cities all over America? Antifa and other radical leftist groups are promising that a series of protests will begin on November 4th that will never end until “the Trump/Pence regime” is “removed from power”. And as you will see below, Antifa has openly and publicly embraced violence and the Department of Homeland Security says that they have engaged in domestic terrorism. Hopefully these “protests” will fizzle out after a few weeks, because political organizations that believe in “the necessary use of violence” have no place in our society.
Amazingly, there are still some out there that are claiming that the radical left is not planning anything for November 4th. The following comes directly from refusefascism.org, which is one of the key websites for Antifa and other radical leftist groups…
ON NOVEMBER 4, 2017:
We will gather in the streets and public squares of cities and towns across this country, at first many thousands declaring that this whole regime is illegitimate and that we will not stop until our single demand is met: This Nightmare Must End: the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
Our protest must grow day after day and night after night—thousands becoming hundreds of thousands, and then millions—determined to act to put a stop to the grave danger that the Trump/Pence Regime poses to the world by demanding that this whole regime be removed from power.
Our actions will reflect the values of respect for all of humanity and the world we want—in stark contrast to the hate and bigotry of the Trump/Pence fascist regime.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
China Rising: Global Opportunity or Global Threat?
The recent tightly scripted 19th Chinese Communist Party National Congress has generally been viewed as evidence and celebration of the rise to great power of Chinese President Xi Jinping. President Xi is in ascendance. But what does that really mean for China and the rest of us.
It’s far more useful for us to focus on facts on the ground, on China’s actions than on attempts to parse the meaning of the makeup of the 7 member Standing Committee (SC) at the pinnacle of Party and Chinese government power whose decisions are driven by completely private discussions behind closed doors.
The facts. China has rapidly emerged in the 21st century as global leader in renewable resource development. China’s leadership and success in helping build a global efficient renewable resource system is absolutely crucial if we are to escape climate change driven global ecological catastrophe. Our collective futures are suddenly, to a considerable extent, in President Xi’s hands given the Trump administration’s opposition to effective action on climate change and support for accelerated coal, oil,and natural gas development.
China is manufacturing and installing solar electric and wind energy systems at an astounding rate. China is responsible for 40% of global renewable energy growth according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Last year, global solar electric (PV) capacity grew by 50%, over 74 gigawatts, with China responsible for almost half of this. By 2022 the IEA forecasts global PV capacity will expand to 920 gigawatts. China, with India soon to follow, is leading the way.
Global investment in renewables now exceeds that in fossil fuel plants. China is also global market leader in electric vehicles, hydropower and biomass systems. China is, as well, global leader in reforestation.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Rising Separatist Movements in Europe-Eastern Europe
There are many in Spain who just outright disagree with any right of Catalonia to be independent. History, culture, language, nothing really matters. Some have said it is the Spanish Constitution and all of Spain should vote to let Catalonia leave or stay. All of that said if Madrid had just allowed a fair referendum then whatever the vote was should have stood.
This is all about saving the EU and not Spain. It was the oppression that probably made others vote to leave. All of Spain cannot vote against one region. London did not vote on Scotland and neither did Toronto against Quebec. California has people pushing to separate and that is not a right to be decided by me in Florida.
Separatist movements are now rising throughout Europe. We see Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in the UK all have separatist movements. There is even talk in Bavaria among friends I have there and Prussia wants more autonomy. Then there is Normandy and Brittany in France. There is a long list starting with Moravia, Lombardy, Insubria, South Tyrol, Carinthis, Friule-Venezia, Hungarian minorities, Savoy, Liguria, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Rijeka Istria, Veneto, Padania, Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, Sandzak, Serbian Republic, Vojvodina, Szekely Land, Gagauzia, Transnistria, Donbass, Crimea. Latgale, Ingria, Skameland, Samogita, Bornolm, and don’t forget Northen Cyprus. Some of these are asking for full independence and other more autonomy.
It is the economic issues intermixed with the refugee crisis that is sparking these movements today.
October 31, 2017
Second Crash Warning From The IMF – This Time It’s About Vol
Another week, another warning regarding financial crash scenarios from those keen minds at the IMF.
In “Here Is The IMF’s Global Financial Crash Scenario” last week, we highlighted the institution’s surprisingly candid discussion hidden away in its latest Financial Stability Report “Rising Medium-Term Vulnerabilities Could Derail the Global Recovery”…or as we paraphrased the IMF’s “politically correct way of saying the financial system is on the verge of crashing”.
As we noted previously, in the section also called “Global Financial Dislocation Scenario” because “crash” sounds just a little too pedestrian, the IMF uses a DSGE model to project the current global financial situation, and ominously admits that “concerns about a continuing buildup in debt loads and overstretched asset valuations could have global economic repercussions” and – in modeling out the next crash, pardon “dislocation” – the IMF conducts a “scenario analysis” to illustrate how a repricing of risks could “lead to a rise in credit spreads and a fall in capital market and housing prices, derailing the economic recovery and undermining financial stability.”
This week the IMF has gone a step further, courting the mainstream financial media to publicise its warning about the dangers of historically low volatility and related short volatility strategies.
As The FT reports, The International Monetary Fund has warned that the increasing use of exotic financial products tied to equity volatility by investors such as pension funds is creating unknown risks that could result in a severe shock to financial markets. In an interview with the Financial Times Tobias Adrian, director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the IMF, said an increasing appetite for yield was driving investors to look for ways to boost income through complex instruments.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How the US Aristocracy Deceive the US Public
How the US Aristocracy Deceive the US Public
The progressive former Democratic US Senator Ted Kaufman wrote at Forbes, on 22 July 2014:
Another year has passed with no one from a Wall Street bank going to jail for the criminal behavior everyone knows helped cause the financial crisis. Fines against Wall Street banks are reaching $100 billion, but all will be paid by stockholders. Bank CEOs and managers pay no fines and face no prison.
There has been no reform — zilch, nada — of the credit-rating agencies. They are right back rating securities from issuers who pay them for their ratings.
If you still can’t trust the credit-rating on a bond, and if Wall Street’s bigs still stand immune from the law even after the 2008 crash they had played a huge role to cause, then in what way can the US Government itself be called a ‘democracy’?
Kaufman tries to get the American public interested in overcoming the US Government’s profound top-level corruption, but few US politicians join with him on that, because only few American voters understand that a corrupt government (especially one that’s corrupt at the very top) cannot even possibly be a democratic government.
However, America’s aristocracy are even more corrupt than Wall Street itself is, and they control Wall Street, behind the scenes. And their ‘news’media are under strict control to portray America as being still a democratic country that somehow lives up to its anti-aristocratic and anti-imperialistic Founders’ intentions and Constitution. Maybe all that remains of those Founders’ intentions today is that Britain’s aristocracy no longer rules America — but America’s aristocracy now does, instead. And, this isn’t much, if any, of an improvement.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Europe Fears ‘The Big One’ After 140 Earthquakes Strike The French Alps In 40 Days
In recent weeks, the locals living in the Maurienne part of Savoie in the French Alps have been getting used to being shaken awake at night. The region has been rocked by 140 earthquakes in a mere 40 days sparking fears that Europe may soon experience “the big one.”
Sismalp, a French earthquake organization, has registered 140 minor tremors in the area in the last month or so. And with the strongest tremor being recorded 3.8 on the Richter scale, many are panicked that Europe’s “big one” could occur soon. While none of the earthquakes have been strong enough to cause any structural damage, they are starting to worry locals. Residents have been briefed about how to act in the case of a powerful tremor.
Martine, a resident of the village of Montgellafray, told a local radio station: “The noise is like a storm coming from far away. Everything shakes. I said ‘that’s it, all the tiles are going to break’. The last earthquake was really frightening. Since the end of August, it has never stopped. Every two days there is one and they are getting more common.”
Other village residents say many are asking questions about the earthquake swarm and the potential large-scale quake in the near future. “Everyone is asking questions. Everyone in the village is talking about it,” Yves, a fellow resident said.
But those living in the region have not had their fears alleviated. Seismologists say they are unable to explain the increase in the number of quakes in the region but have placed five new sensors in the valley to “monitor and better understand the phenomenon”. Back in 2014 after a series of earthquakes along the French Riviera, a seismologist specializing in the swarms told The Local that south-east France would be hit with a huge quake at some point.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Biofuels: Can They Save the Airlines from the Seneca Collapse?
Painting planes green is much easier than making them run on biofuels.
“Can the airlines be run on biofuels?” As it often happens, this simple question doesn’t have a simple answer. First of all, it is a question that makes sense only in terms of a “sustainable” plane, that is one that doesn’t run on fossil fuels. That’s a major technological problem. Whereas cars can be made to run on battery-powered electric motors, the power/weight ratio of the combination is simply unacceptable for a passenger plane that could provide a performance comparable to that of current jet planes. Hydrogen planes have been proposed, but they are a nightmare for several reasons and it is unlikely that they could become practical in the short and medium term future.
That would leave only biofuels as a “sustainable” fuel that could power the current fleet of jet planes. Indeed, a small number of tests have been carried out showing that it is possible to fly planes using biofuels. But can it be done on the large scale needed to get rid of fossil fuels?
The first problem is whether biofuels are truly carbon-free. Most likely, the current fuels made from crops are not; in the sense that they involve extensive use of fossil fuels for their manufacturing. In many cases, however, even the current generation (“1st generation”) of biofuels can provide a significant saving in the use of fossil fuels for the same amount of energy produced. This is the case, in particular, for ethanol produced from sugarcane in Brazil. But there is a more fundamental question is: what would be the consequences of ramping up biofuel production to the levels needed to power the current airline fleet?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The return of the peasant: or, the history of the world in 10½ blog posts. 7. Capitalism, the state and historical progress
The return of the peasant: or, the history of the world in 10½ blog posts. 7. Capitalism, the state and historical progress
Continuing with my history of the world…
Earlier, I characterised the emergence of capitalism in relation to the transformation of the four medieval figures of the lord, the peasant, the merchant, and the king. But I haven’t yet said anything about the king – except in relation to the strengthening of royal houses under absolutist state-forming enterprises which prefigured capitalist development. By the time the star of capitalism was rising, kings had largely lost their medieval role as military strongmen. And as we enter the early modern epoch, the idea of royal sovereignty in the form of an embodied individual – the monarch – started giving way to something more figurative, the fertile but troublesome idea of the sovereignty of the people. Classics of early modern political philosophy such as Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan enable us to peek under the bonnet and watch the workings as the king was thus turned into the modern state. So, likewise, I’ll interpret the question of the role of the ‘king’ in capitalism more figuratively in terms of the role of the state.
The basic point is that despite our contemporary post-socialist tendency to counterpose ‘the market’ of the capitalist economy with ‘the state’, capitalist development has always been a state project, albeit in partnership with private actors. Without the state, there’d certainly be no capitalism, and probably not even all that much of a ‘market’ in the sense of places where people come together to buy and sell goods. The commercial ventures of early European capitalism both within and beyond the subcontinent’s borders were joint public-private efforts. Their success made countries like Britain and the Netherlands the richest tax-states the world had yet seen.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
In Praise of Being Disconnected
A spectacular web in our Beauty bush.
Perhaps the saddest accolade of our modern faith is this: “Our world is more interconnected than ever before.” It’s a statement as bold on the first read as it is meaningless on the second, and one that is not only sad but also somewhat horrifying upon further examination.
So, exactly what is “more” interconnected, and why are we celebrating?
Are we more connected to our natural world in the early 21st century than, say, the early 19th? Is the screen shot of a desert on Windows 10 a more authentic form of experiencing the world’s beauty? Does being jetted to an ecotourism rainforest holiday (with spa) connect us more deeply to the planet than the act of sitting alone under a tree in the local park for an afternoon? Are we truly more connected to each other, as we shuffle to our cars, to our work, to our homes, to our beds?
Is it social media that brings us to be interconnected with our thousands of “friends”? That brings us pictures of intimate dinners, cute cats, clever memes? Can we even begin to measure a hundred Facebook likes against the satisfaction of receiving one handwritten missive from a longtime friend, and years later, discovering her letter of reply, tucked into an old copy of Tartt’s The Secret History? No doubt, for many, racking up likes is a bridge from loneliness; certainly, signing on to social media makes it easier to “connect” than knocking on a neighbor’s door and chatting about the family and the weather.
Perhaps it is through the economy —whose institution has sacrificed the local web of livelihoods for the fragile gratitude of a global supply chain — that we’re more interconnected.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Pesticides Pollution
PESTICIDES POLLUTION
Pesticides are chemicals that are used to kill or control pests. This includes herbicides that are used for getting rid of weeds, insecticides used to treat fungicides, nematocides used to control nematodes as well as rodenticides used to treat vertebrate poisoning.
WHY PESTICIDES CAN BE HARMFUL
Pesticides contain ingredients such as oxygen, chlorine, sulfur, phosphorus, nitrogen, and bromine as well as heavy metals such as arsenic, copper sulfates, lead, and mercury. Pesticides, being toxic chemicals, can interfere with the environment and cause harms in several ways.
When applied on agricultural lands and domestic gardens, they run off these lands and come in contact with natural resources.
HOW DOES IT POLLUTE THE ENVIRONMENT?
This normally occurs when heavy wind or rain falls on the aforementioned lands, spreading the pesticides, being toxic chemicals, into unintended areas, coming in contact with natural resources such clean air, water, land, plants, and animals, thereby contaminating or harming them.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER CONTAMINATION?
Once the aforementioned natural resources are contaminated or harmed by pesticides, they are deemed unsuitable and harmful to the environment as well as to people and communities.
WHAT ARE THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF PESTICIDES POLLUTION?
Some of the environmental impacts associated with the indiscriminate use of pesticides are listed and briefly explained below;
Biodiversity Destruction: The soil contains small naturally occurring organisms know as microbes. They break down organic materials in the soil and absorb water as well as nutrients in the process, and these are then used by plants to grow. As mentioned earlier, the indiscriminate use of pesticides can have unintended consequences, destroying microbes and affecting the growth of plants.
Also, pesticides often stay in the environment long after beening applied on agricultural lands and this means that they could be sent to water bodies by heavy wind or rainfall. Once in water bodies, they can kill aquatic animals such as fish and depopulate fishes.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
