SOTT Focus:

Connecting the Dots: Cosmic Climate Change, Financial Terrorism

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:41 UTC

Earthquakes dominate once again this month as a string of strong quakes prompts us to ask, "What in Earth is going on?" That the US government would engage in such nefarious activity to induce a strategically-placed earthquake in Haiti is a frightening prospect. Could any or all of the recent cluster have been deliberately induced? Or have we just witnessed Nature's awesome retort to the Evil Empire's puny arsenal? We'll examine the political state of play in Chile on the occasion of its most powerful earthquake in 50 years and recall the notorious roots of the Pathocrats' economic shock therapy that's so prevalent today.

Record snowfall blanketed all but Hawaii in the US and freezing temperatures froze ships mid-stream in Europe, yet Canada emerged from the cruelest of winters warm and dry. We would ask the "climatologists" for their take on this but they're too busy modelling alternate realities, answering corruption charges and just generally keeping well below the radar. We'll present an alternative Cosmic Climate Change hypothesis that honours the scientific data and doesn't require sleight of hand to "hide the decline."

Financial terrorism from Wall Street's finest banksters struck gold again this month with a false-flag attack on the euro. Economic warfare, like any other form of warfare, sears a trail of tears and destruction through innocent peoples' lives, only it comes in the covert manner of currency manipulations and speculative attacks on target economies. And just as with conventional warfare, its psychopathic conspirators often hatch their murderous plans over dinner and fine wine. From a meeting in Manhattan we'll chart the Evil Empire's desperate pitch to keep its paper-worthless dollar atop the sinking pile.

When a tiny country like Israel can manipulate empires from afar, what is there to stop it walking into its neighbour's house and murdering him? Well, nothing, as the Mossad brazenly demonstrated in January. But if Dubai can have Interpol serve arrest warrants where no other country dares to tread, we wonder if the international exposure Mossad Murder Inc received this month has severely compromised its cover of darkness? More light, say we!

Join us as we Connect the Dots in February...

Earth Changes

Buckle your seatbelts, this ride is about to become very interesting! Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and unusually cold weather have been increasing in frequency in recent years, but February and early March saw things shift up a notch. Strong earthquakes hit regions across the globe, climaxing with Chile's devastating one that killed hundreds and affected 2 million people:

Feb. 2nd: a swarm of over 1,200 tiny quakes hit Yellowstone National Park in the US.
Feb. 4th: a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck offshore northern California.
Feb. 7th: an earthquake magnitude 6.4 hit the southwestern Ryukyu Islands of Japan.
Feb. 10th: a 3.8 earthquake rattled Chicago in the US.
Feb. 12th: a 6.2 earthquake shook seven Chilean regions, including the capital, Santiago.
Feb. 13th: a 6.1 quake damaged more than 100 homes in central Honduras.
Feb. 16th: a 6.2 quake struck offshore Indonesia.
Feb. 17th: an earthquake magnitude 6.9 rocked China-Russia-North Korea border region.
Feb. 25th: a 5.1 earthquake hit southwestern China.
Feb. 26th: a 7.3 quake rattled Japan's Okinawa island. A tsunami warning was issued, but fortunately there was no damage or casualties. This earthquake didn't receive much media coverage, despite registering at magnitude 6.9.
Feb. 27th: a catastrophic and deadly 8.8 magnitude quake struck central Chile, just 10 hours after the strong Japanese earthquake. [See below for full account]
Feb. 27th: 2 people were killed by an earthquake of magnitude 6.1 in Argentina.
Feb. 28th: a 6.2 quake jolted northern Pakistan.
Feb. 28th: a 3.9 quake rattled western Quebec, Canada.

March has brought further strong quakes to Vanuatu island in the South Pacific Ocean, and Taiwan, both on March 4, and both with a magnitude of 6.4. Then hours after the Taiwan quake, four moderate tremors shook four different parts of the Philippines. The following day, March 5th, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, while devastated Chile trembled again from a powerful 6.3 aftershock, terrorizing its already traumatized population. Then on March 8th, 51 people lost their lives from a magnitude 6.0 quake in Eastern Turkey, where the Kurdish village of Okcular was flattened, Argentina's Salta province trembled from an earthquake measuring 5.7 and a 4.5 quake rumbled Hawaii.

The frequency of strong earthquakes appears to be on the rise. We searched the EBSCO database for the terms "earthquake" or "quake" reported in press releases since 1990 and came up with the following table:

1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
79	61	63	35	172	226	44	59	65	221

2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
101	578	307	396	836	1871	1348	1057	1394	1307

Rycharde Manne of Scientific Blogging used data from the US Geological Survey to produce the following graph showing historic world earthquakes and those of magnitude 5 and greater since 1980:

© Rycharde ManneAlong the y-axis is the average number of earthquakes of magnitude at or above 6.0 globally per year as monitored by the USGS, and along the x-axis are the years 1980 to 2009. The line is the 10-year rolling average of such earthquakes.

More quakes means more volcanism heating the oceans and increasing evaporation. However, save for pockets of isolated warming, this hasn't led to a corresponding increase in atmospheric temperatures because of the cosmic factor, as we'll see further on. This month the Montserrat volcano in the Carribean erupted sending ash 15 kilometers high, followed two days later by two of the Kamchatka peninsula's active volcanoes erupting simultaneously. On February 5, the underwater Mount Fukutokuokanoba volcano in the Pacific Ocean erupted and Japanese coastguard were around to film the event:

On February 17th, the CNN reported that Chile's Chaiten volcano was put under red alert due to the seismic activity in the area in recent weeks. In the aftermath of the massive quake of February 27, David Pyle, volcanologist at Oxford University, stated that an upsurge in volcanic activity is to be expected over the next 12 months, given past precedent:

In particular, they found that after a magnitude 8.3 in 1906 and a magnitude 9.5 earthquake in 1960 [in Chile], there were three or four more volcanic eruptions within about 500 kilometres of the epicentre in the following year than would normally be expected.

Pyle was quick to reassure us that, "at volcanoes that are already active we might see an increase in steam explosions, but we don't expect it to present a significantly increased danger." The thing to bear in mind is that most volcanoes are underwater, so their significant contribution to Earth Changes goes relatively unnoticed. One item we couldn't fail to notice this month reports that current methane concentrations in the Arctic Ocean are "the highest in 400,000 years." The Warmists are fretting about the extra CO2 this will add to the warming atmosphere, but their alarm is misplaced: any warming that takes place is dwarfed by the hazards this toxic gas presents to our immediate environment and by the deeper significance of the planet outgassing.

The biggest quake in the recent cluster hammered Chile in the middle of the night on February 27 and registered a massive 8.8, the strongest earthquake recorded there in over 50 years. The main quake lasted for about three minutes, during which buildings collapsed and the resulting tsunami swept away entire coastal Chilean towns, resulting in the death of around 800 people. Panic spread accross the Pacific Ocean over fears tsunamis would radiate out from the Chilean coastline but only nearby islands were affected. Alaska, Mexico and California were put on earthquake alert, in fear that Chile's quake could have had an immediate knock-on effect along plate boundaries all the way up the Americas. We get an idea of its intensity, and the terror it brought to those who had to live through it, in this video footage:

Did you notice the "Earthquake Lights" in the video? There was another strange feature in the sky the day before the quake struck. Speaking to MSNBC soon after the quake, journalist Cecilia Lagos described "seeing the sky changing colors [...] it was really like Apocalypse Now!"

NASA scientists claimed the Chilean earthquake shifted the Earth's axis by "2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches)" and shortened the day by "1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second)". Just one strong quake, imagine! But the claim was countered as unverifiable and ludicrous by German scientists:

Professor Rainer Kind from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) in Potsdam said: "It is highly doubtful that these calculations are correct. The changes to the Earth's axis caused by an earthquake would be so tiny that it isn't measurable and therefore impossible to reliably detect."

Existing calculations of the movement of the Earth's axis by past earthquakes are still being debated, the expert added.

Professor Karl-Heinz Glassmeier from the Deutschen Geophysikalischen Gesellschaft (German Geophysical Association) also criticised the alleged discovery: "I hit my hand on my head as I read that yesterday.

"NASA can only make the headlines with it. A figure of eight centimetres is absolutely unverifiable."

The influence of an earthquake on the Earth's tilt would in any case be extremely low, explained Dr. Mojib Latif from The Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel.

He said: "The heavenly bodies around us are mainly responsible for the Earth's tilt. The gravity of the heavy and big planets in particular determines the gradient of the Earth's axis.

"That can not be changed by an earthquake, even one as powerful as that in Chile."

Professor Kind added: "It is impossible that there could ever be such a severe earthquake which would observably move the Earth's axis. That would only be possible through outside influences, for example a meteorite.

"The destruction however would be so great, that the movement of the Earth's axis would be comparatively insignificant."

So while a strong earthquake may not be sufficient to shift the planet's axis and thus alter the length of days, it's conceivable that a change in the arrangement of "the heavenly bodies" might well do so. The good professor probably didn't have this in mind when he used that term, but if we consider that comets and their debris trails are also "heavenly bodies", then we can see that earthquakes may be a symptom of an external cosmic force affecting Earth's rotation. Any slowing down of rotation, however imperceptible, would be sufficient to affect the magnetic field and produce incredible pressures within the planet that then shift tectonic plates, resulting in more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as that pressure is released.

Aftershock Therapy

Could the Chile quake have been induced? We think it's worth asking given the particular political crossroads Chile is at and US imperial designs on the region.

The dust had barely settled by the time Chile's military, in keeping with the trend set by US and UN enforcers in Haiti, took control of the affected cities, imposed curfews and guarded businesses under the pretext of protecting them against "looting:"

There were the usual promises of swift action to arrest "looters" and criminal gangs taking deadly advantage of the absence of authority, but pray tell, what is the difference between a completely traumatized people suddenly bereft of the basic necessities of life breaking into grocery stores and other businesses in order to feed themselves and their families and base evildoers intent on profiting from anarchy and who makes the call?

Chile's popular outgoing president, Michelle Bachelet, was criticised for not implementing stricter controls and for initially denying international aid. World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick said "the Bank Group would draw on its considerable expertise in catastrophe management and reconstruction to support Chile in the aftermath of this earthquake." She was obviously aware that such "aid" comes at a high price. Michelle Bachelet's father, who was a supporter of Allende's, was tortured to death at the hands of Pinochet's army because he refused to go into exile following the 1973 coup. Bachelet and her mother were also imprisoned, interrogated and tortured, before being exiled to Australia. Bachelet was not allowed by the country's constitution to run for a second consecutive term, despite having 75% of the population's approval.

In January Chile voted billionaire Sebastian Pinera into office in a close contest. Pinera is the first right-wing leader of Chile since Pinochet's dictatorship ended in 1990. Some of his coalition members were actually member's of Pinochet's cabinet (his brother was actually Pinochet's Minister of Labor). He bragged that he "would create one million new jobs and crack down on delinquency and drug trafficking" and that "he would seek to privatize a part of Codelco, Chile's state-owned copper company and the world's largest copper producer".

Those familiar with Chile's recent history will know that America's Chicago School of Economics, led by the schizoidal "free-market" ideology of Milton Friedman, and working hand in glove with the CIA, overthrew Chile's democratic government and installed Pinochet's totalitarian regime. Naomi Klein's groundbreaking book, The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism, has this to say about the privatization of Codelco:

The only thing that protected Chile from complete economic collapse in the early eighties was that Pinochet had never privatized Codelco, the state copper mine company nationalized by Allende. That one company generated 85 percent of Chile's export revenues, which meant that when the financial bubble burst, the state still had a steady source of funds. [pg. 104-105]

The one thing even Pinochet dared not attempt is now the "dream" of Pinera and the nightmare of the Chilean population, as it will bring an economy still marked by huge gap in inequalities between the parasitic elite and the normal population to ruins. Remember the World Bank's 'generous offer'? Klein's book reveals how the World Bank and the IMF, in times of crisis, capitalise upon the uncertainty brought on by traumatic events, whether natural or induced. Pinera is an "American man", according to British journalist, Mark Williams:

Pinera's father was a CIA informer in the 1960s, and his brother, Jose, is a high-flyer in the American Cato Institute - an organisation which claims to be non-partisan but, in fact, is an economic think-tank that is almost completely in the pocket of the Republican party, with policies of 'self-determination' and 'minimal governance' - code for 'no social welfare available' and 'don't tax the rich.'

© Daniel Garcia/AFP/Getty ImagesConcepcion, Chile's second largest city: Is this a war zone or a disaster zone? Do Disaster Capitalists make that distinction?
Before he landed that job, Jose had been one of Pinochet's right-hand men. One of his 1980s reforms is a Chilean national pension scheme, closely aligned with US interests, which is so useless, employees paying into it would be better off tucking cash under the mattress - quite literally. Administration fees (payable to US interests) outstrip the rate interest accrues, so your cash actually evaporates once in the scheme.

Sebasian Pinera built his wealth by owning the biggest credit card company in Chile - an enterprise which would have had no future without the backing of US banking. However, CIA documents reveal that he did, in fact, have close ties with Pinochet and, in particular, with a peculiar banking scandal during the horrific Pinochet years.

It was Pinera who placed Talca Bank in administration, having (with his brother) created 80 fake companies to be its creditors. The badly-organised robbery failed and, so concerned were the Americans, that they instructed the CIA to swoop in and 'rescue' Pinera from Chile and keep him out of the way of investigation until the scandal blew over. The journalist who discovered the inconvenient CIA documents which tell the story has since had his life threatened for publishing them.

The installation of Pinera as a puppet president in Chile is better than sending in the cruise missiles. But Chileans should now check their wallets as Pinera's policies begin to siphon their taxes away into the rich's personal fortunes...

The US government can now rest assured that Chile will be under its thumb with Pinera getting comfortable in the Palacio de La Moneda. What we've seen happening in the aftermath of Haiti's murdering earthquake, where parasitic "free-market" loving US corporations stepped in to rebuild the island's economy in their own image, we see happening in Chile also. It's a recurring theme: Chile's Pablo Neruda, lamenting his country's betrayal in the late 60's, never lost hope and wrote in his poem, The Victorious People:

My heart's in this struggle.
My people will overcome.
These sorrows will be wrung like handkerchiefs
until all the tears shed on the desert's galleries,
on graves, on the steps of human martyrdom,
are squeezed dry.
But the victorious time's nearby.

Until we reach that time - because with knowledge, humanity and unity we will - the world will continue to feel the aftershocks of disaster capitalism in every corner...

Rain - Snow - Ice

There were a number of intense storms around the world this month. Wild storms lashed Australia's coastal cities with copious amounts of rain and even brought flooding to deserts far inland. By the end of the month Britain was on flood alert as "Xynthia" battered much of western Europe, causing significant damage and leaving at least 51 dead, the majority of casualties in France. 32 people were killed by a ferocious storm on the Portugese island of Madeira, while another 4 were killed during a thunderstom in Egypt. Meanwhile downpours produced mudslides in Mexico and flooded a desolate Haitian city that escaped January's earthquake (which you'll recall from last month's CTD we strongly suspect was induced, a form of "eco-terrorist attack", to borrow a phrase from former US Secretary of Defense William Cohen).

A cyclone in the southern Pacific Ocean is to be expected at this time of year, but snow in Florida and Mississippi most certainly is not! Indeed the freezing weather in Florida has washed dead sea turtles and Manatees ashore.

At one point mid-month, the northern hemisphere as a whole experienced its second highest extent of snow cover in 50 years, although North America in particular saw its highest extent since records began. The trend continued throughout February with blizzard after blizzard blanketing all but one of the US' 50 states! Just as Washington DC was recovering from its single heaviest snowfall in its history, a third major blizzard paralysed the northeastern seaboard, leaving 200,000 homes and businesses without power. This storm also brought Toronto to a standstill, but ironically this went against the trend in Canada this winter season, which has been the warmest and driest for several generations.

It's surely an irony of cosmic proportions that the Winter Olympics were held in Canada this year! Global warmists have clung hard to this anomaly to reinflate their skewed computer models, but rather than signify an overall warming trend it's simply that pockets of warming remain amidst the freezing trend. Ultimately, we don't anticipate that Canada will escape the Big Freeze.

The 'Cold War' took on new meaning as Moscow imitated DC's record snowfall with a Snowmageddon of its own dumping the most snow the capital had seen in 50 years. Rome's heaviest snowfall in 25 years was matched by southern France which remains blanketed in snow as we go to press. Elsewhere in Europe, Ireland has just come out of its coldest winter since 1963, topped only by Scotland which recorded its coldest winter since... well, since records began 100 years ago! More rain in a cooling environment inevitably means more snow... which means more ice: In a scene that wouldn't have been out of place in The Day After Tomorrow, 1,000 people sailing to Sweden had to be rescued by ice-breakers when their ferries froze stiff in pack ice in the Baltic Sea.

Bad science

© UnknownIt is easy to see that the meteorological station located on the territory Russia is not entirely uniform, and their concentration significantly and predictably higher in western and southern parts of the country, while in the north and east - notably below.

There's been a torrent of 'truth-letting' since the leak of the internal emails and documents of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in November. We didn't have to wait long for another shoe to drop. First up this month were the Russian scientists, who didn't take kindly to their carefully amassed data being cherry picked and manipulated. Moscow Institute of Economic Analysis alleged that the Hadley Center for Climate Change used only a quarter of the data provided by Russia in order to support their "warming" trend. As it turns out, HCCC conveniently used only the data collected by the stations placed too close to cities or other heat sources such as airports, buildings, or paved surfaces, ignoring the rest of the information recorded over Russia's vast land mass, 10% of the world's total. But this wasn't the first time our bear-hugging crypto-scientists make such glaring omissions. Real scientists like Anthony Watts and Joseph D'Aleo have been pointing out the defects in the temperature records for years, but were routinely ignored by the climate science authorities and media:

The same happened to John Christy of the University of Alabama when he tried to get the IPCC to acknowledge a satellite temperature records anomaly:

The puzzle deepens when more accurate satellite temperature records, available starting in 1979, are considered. There is a glaring anomaly: the satellite records, which measure temperatures in the middle and upper atmosphere, show very little warming since 1979 and do not match up with the ground-based measurements. Furthermore, the satellite readings of the middle- and upper-air temperatures fail to record any of the increases the climate models say should be happening in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. John Christy of the University of Alabama, a contributing author to the IPCC's Working Group I chapter on surface and atmospheric climate change, tried to get the IPCC to acknowledge this anomaly in its 2007 report but was ignored. (Christy is responsible for helping to develop the satellite monitoring system that has tracked global temperatures since 1979. He received NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement for this work.) Bottom line: expect some surprises to come out of the revisions of the surface temperature records that will take place over the next couple of years.

Perhaps the times when mainstream media turned a blind eye to this debasement of science are over. British and world media, having taken a while to wake up from its long 'follow the global warming party line' hibernation, now leads the 'frozen delivery' campaign. And deliver they did. Pages and articles of previously cautious mass media, document a billion dollar "global warming" industry aligned with a trillion dollar trading scheme.

The apparent and undeniable conclusion is that self-serving climate "authorities", some of whom aren't even genuine scientists, like Rajendra Pachauri (an economist and former railroad engineer who is also closely involved with commercial energy schemes that benefit from greenhouse gas regulation), or Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change (who chose to step down from his position and hide out in the private sector after years of saying that warming is "the greatest threat humanity has ever faced"), shamelessly abused people's natural good qualities like compassion and sense of responsibility to make their egos even bigger and their pockets even heavier.

Christopher Booker, writes in the Telegraph:

Since 1988, when the greatest scare the world has seen got under way, hundreds of billions of pounds have been poured into academic research projects designed not to test the CO2 warming thesis but to take it as a given fact, and to use computer models to make its impacts seem as scary as possible. The new global "carbon trading" market, already worth $126 billion a year, could soon be worth trillions. Governments, including our own, are calling for hundreds of billions more to be chucked into absurd "carbon-saving" energy schemes, with the cost to be met by all of us in soaring taxes and energy bills.

With all this mighty army of gullible politicians, dutiful officials, busy carbon traders, eager "renewables" developers and compliant, funding-hungry academics standing to benefit from the greatest perversion of the principles of true science the world has ever seen, who are we to protest that their emperor has no clothes?

How egotistic is it to lead the "save the earth" crusade, while having so many skeletons and dark secrets in their closets? For example, from this precarious position, the leading actor of this X-rated saga, Rajendra Pachauri, chose to publish a soft-core pornographic novel. The lead character is an aging environmentalist and engineer engaged in a "spiritual journey" that involves meeting Shirley MacLaine, detailed explorations of the Kama Sutra, and group sex. Really, you thought we were dealing with glaring inaccuracies of the "global warming" concept, while for Pachauri, it was "global get it on" all along!

We've been had, like we've been had on so many other levels in this tale as old as time. But we are only getting started. In order for the message that we've been living in a lie to sink in, additional layers of this particularity stinky onion should first be peeled off.

We'll start with Professor William Schlesinger, a lead author for the IPCC. The Professor was asked in a public debate how many of its contributors are in fact climate experts, since one of the enduring myths of our time is that the case for global warming is supported by "the world's top 2,500 climate scientists". The best he could come up with was that "something on the order of 20% have had some dealing with climate".

We guess that he is talking about the same 'experts' "who had some dealing with climate" and who stated that Himalayan glaciers were in danger of melting as soon as 2035. As mentioned in last month's Connecting the Dots, the source for the melt-by-2035 claim turned out to be not a peer-reviewed scientific assessment, but a report from an advocacy group, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which in turn lifted the figure from a popular magazine article in India whose author later disavowed his offhand speculation. In response, the IPCC hurriedly moved to cover its behinds and issued several embarrassing retractions from its most recent 2007 report. Not surprisingly, Dr Pachauri has rapidly distanced himself from the IPCC's baseless claim about vanishing glaciers. The same "rats deserting the sinking ship" behaviour was exhibited by many of the scientists and economists who not so long ago led their righteous "save the planet" parade with fire in their eyes and venom on their tongues. And now they run like jackals, with the tails between their legs, in a sorry attempt to salvage their precious careers and phony reputations.

And what about the IPCC's claim that 40% of the Amazonian rain forest was at risk of destruction from climate change? Can you guess? It was also revealed to be without scientific foundation, and the WWF was again the source. Numerous other claims were sourced to unpublished student papers and dissertations, or to misstated or distorted research. For example one of the most ignorant and embarrassing claims still being used for propaganda purposes, was that 55% of the Netherlands was below sea level, and therefore gravely threatened by rising sea levels. The correct number is 26%, by the way. Understandably, Dutch scientists weren't amused and apparently tried to tell the IPCC to correct their error before the 2007 report was published, but to no avail.

Funny how the tables have turned, and those who in the past considered themselves bonafide idealists and Nature Knights, turned out to be nothing more than arrogant and self-righteous thugs. Their mistakes are so glaringly embarrassing it makes you wonder if there is even one competent person among them. The research about incompetent people not knowing that they are incompetent comes to mind. More so when the key figures exhibit clear signs of pathological behavior. Rajendra Pachauri, for example, will neither resign nor apologise for his involvement in the dissemination of misleading science. According to him, offering an apology for spreading intentional lies is a "populist move", and "You can't expect me to be personally responsible for every word of a 3,000 page report." That's right, it's all your fault, naive folks. Better store your fantasies of an honest science somewhere deep, and maybe go read a soft porn novel or watch Fox news.

But what about our Nobel star, Al Gore? Well, his diagnosis is even less sympathetic. Being labeled a narcissist on the pages of one of the leading financial magazines is not exactly the brightest spot in the career of a man who was once nominated for "man of the year." The paper described him as having a grandiose sense of self-importance, being preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, requiring excessive admiration and having no empathy. A description applicable to most of our World's leaders, we should add.

Phil Jones isn't faring too well, either. New reports of him suppressing flawed data which would invalidate his past claims continue to surface. When asked for the raw data, which would allegedly confirm his claims, Jones offered up the lame platitude that his record-keeping is "not as good as it should be." Where have we heard that one before? In keeping with the slew of retractions issuing forth from the mouths of the climate authorities, Jones admitted that there has been no "statistically significant" warming for the past 15 years and that if the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent, then our current climate is not unprecedented, and so the science is not settled.

The Cosmic Catalyst for Climate Change

So here we are, driving last nails into the "Global Warming" coffin. The future is rosy, and we can continue living our peaceful lives, right? Well, not so simple, because who knows better than us that truth is usually conveniently sandwiched between two plausible lies. Beware the Republican, Neocon and Conservative spokespersons that now freely bash "anthropogenic global warming" on its way down. They will have you believe that the status quo has triumphed - humanity is redeemed, the climate will remain stable forever... now please, move along to your next shopping experience!

Here's the kicker: Gore's tall tales are not that outlandish. In fact, he is telling a half-truth. According to him, the world awaits

"an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it." How awful a calamity? "The displacement of hundreds of millions of climate refugees, civil unrest, chaos and the collapse of governance in many developing countries, large-scale crop failures and the spread of deadly diseases."

And this part is strikingly true. What is not true is that it is not due to global warming, but to climate change, i.e. The Ice Age Cometh. What's more, "carbon credits" nonsense, Gore's favorite, is nothing but the elite's way of trying to capitalize on human suffering, and to keep the reins of control in their own hands by bankrupting everyone, driving them into the ground, and making sure they can't look out for themselves and their families in a world of diminishing resources.

What we suspect has really been happening, based on our research thus far, is that the upper atmosphere is cooling because it is being loaded with comet dust, which shows up in the form of noctilucent clouds and other upper atmospheric formations. The comet dust is electrically charged which is causing the earth's rotation to slow marginally. The slowing of the rotation is reducing the magnetic field, opening earth to more dangerous cosmic radiation and stimulating more volcanism. The volcanism under the sea is heating the sea water which is heating the lower atmosphere and loading it with moisture. The moisture hits the cooler upper atmosphere and contributes to a deadly mix that inevitably leads to an ice age, preceded for a short period by a rapid increase of greenhouse gases and "hot pockets" in the lower atmosphere, heavy rains, hail, snow, and floods.

Expect this trend to continue but don't believe in "man-made global warming". Whatever warming there has been, it's really a prelude to the way ice ages begin. Let's hope that there aren't any catastrophically large chunks in that stream of comet dust cycling through our solar system. The outlook isn't very promising in this regard, as we'll see further on.

An unimaginable calamity indeed.

Just in case anyone still doubts that we are in big doodoo, here is what acclaimed astrophysicist Victor Clube has to say:

There is a paradigm shift involved in recognizing that it's not just ancient history we have got wrong - it's all history.

So, what is my point? My point is that you do not have to dabble first in mythology and prehistory and geology, as Velikovsky did, in order to understand the sky. You first take the modern sky accessible to science, especially during the Space Age, and you look at its' darker debris with a view to relating its behavior to the more accessible human history which we can, in principle, really understand. And by this approach you discover from the dynamics of the material in space which I'm talking about that a huge comet must have settled in a Taurid orbit some 20,000 years ago, whose dense meteor stream for 10,000 years almost certainly produced the last Ice Age.

Also, from Clube and Napier's Cosmic Winter:

The Pleistocene ice epoch began about 2.5 million years ago, consistent with a sudden influx of comets from the disturbed cloud, although mountain glaciers were beginning to extend even before then. This epoch, like others which have occurred in Earth history, is broken up into a series of very erratic ice ages, each of duration typically 10,000 to 100,000 years. Again, these timescales are about those associated with the intermittent arrival and disintegration of the greatest comets, although no great precision can be put on the figures.

The last ice age ended just over 10,000 years ago. We are therefore, at the moment, living in a warm interglacial period. Interspersing such warm periods, however, are short cooling episodes, very sudden in onset, and lasting typically ten to a hundred years. During these episodes the Earth's climate plunges into glacial severity.

Such cooling episodes may be of great human consequence and will be discussed presently; for the moment we note only that for the first time there is a scientific basis for a catastrophic interpretation of human history; and we begin to discern that the threat from the sky may have a wintry aspect.

As for the message that the events described above might happen very soon - and this is a gross understatement - here is a summary of February's Cosmic symphony of fire and stone. We also want to add our usual disclaimer that the list is incomplete, and will continue to be incomplete as long as there is a deliberate media clamp down on anything related to fiery visitors from space. In fact, one of the impacts in Mexico described below was another good example of "responsible" authorities and the media's ridiculous attempts to cover up the true nature of such events.

Another reason worth mentioning, which might have contributed to the lack of good coverage of meteorites all over the world, is actually quite prosaic and understandable in our "confusion of tongues" reality. In some countries, like Russia, France, Italy, various East European countries, media or people themselves report sightings in their own language, which never reach English speaking sites or newspapers. This fact is obviously quite convenient and useful to those who try to hide the truth.

We are fortunate to have many dedicated SOTT readers who live in diverse countries, so we are sometimes able to penetrate this thick wall of deception to get accurate, translated reports. Sott.net loves data, so one of the things you, our dear readers, can do, is keep an eye out for local stories of possible meteorite sightings, translate them into English and send them to us. Your help is greatly appreciated. Among the available sightings last month, we are able to report the following:

February 1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 14, 18, 26: In Italy, Fireballs Flame Through February Skies

February 3: Fireball seen over Ireland

Mr Moore said: "A major explosion happened in the sky over Ireland. We think it's a fireball, that's a rock from space the earth has slammed into and they burn up as huge shooting stars. This one appears to have lit up the whole country. The phones here in Astronomy Ireland are going crazy."

The Irish sighting is interesting for several reasons. Various people reported seeing seemingly the same meteorite but in different colors. In one case it was pure white, in another orange, and in another bright green. A cosmic joke to send Ireland a fireball in the colours of the Irish flag perhaps?! A more prosaic explanation was offered in this article, suggesting that there were actually two meteorites in the sky that night:

According to the Irish Astronomical Association, the fireball was seen in a number of counties including Tyrone, Donegal and Sligo.

"There were two separate events," a spokesman said. "The first, and almost certainly the most important, was at about 5.50pm, and seems to have travelled from Kerry at least as far as Armagh and south Tyrone. That one may have been a 'meteorite dropper', though it's too early to say.

"The second, not as big or bright, but at least as bright as Venus, was at about 7.30 - 7.40pm more than one and a half hours later. It was seen from near Moy, Co Tyrone, and was travelling in a north east direction."

Another worth noting detail is the following remark by Terry Moseley from the Irish Astronomical Association:

"It is pretty unusual that you would get one that is so widely seen, and that is so bright."

Mr Moseley said there were "only about half a dozen" recorded meteorite falls in Ireland.

"The last one was in 1999, and the last one in the north was in County Derry in 1969," he said.

Now, we know that astronomers like to portray these events as either 'extremely rare' or 'extremely common', depending on their agenda, and also note that the quality of recording in some cases leaves much to be desired. But there was another curious article about meteorite impacts across the Atlantic. Apparently, meteorites are common in Northern Alberta. Is it possible that meteorite sighting or impacts are more common in some places than others? And if so, what might be the reason?

Whyte realized that Alberta is rich in meteorites and he cites examples like the 1,100-year-old crater near Whitecourt; finds near Ferintosh, Vulcan, Kinsella, Mayerthorpe, Bruderheim; the nationally acclaimed Edmonton meteorite to the almost mystical Iron Creek meteor. The list is endless.

But none of this is new. Meteor hunters have been scouring the province for nigh a century and have gone to great lengths to find these extraterrestrials, even plumbing the depths of Lake Wabamun or slogging through countless square kilometres of bogs and forest on a hunch of a reported sighting.

The '60s were a golden decade in Alberta's meteor hunting history. No fewer than seven were found in an eight-year span, a record unequalled in Canada until the 21 Century.

Fireball over Germany 04 Feb 2010

Below is an actual eyewitness report called in shortly after 3:06 A.M.:

Hello!!! I've just seen a bright, glowing fireball outside the window of my porch. Because my T.V. is right in front of the window, I could see it just as soon as it appeared. I was very startled.

At first I thought that it was a New Year's rocket, but those usually fly upwards, and downwards, and they don't have a tail. It looked like it broke apart, like a sparkling candle. Unfortunately, there is another house 50 meters away from me, so I could only see the fireball for about two seconds. It must have hit the ground!

I know how little 'falling stars' look, but this one was ENORMOUSLY larger, (maybe because it was close), I can just describe it as a light projectile from a signal gun. It must have been really fast, unbelievable.

With Warm Regards from Upper Bavaria (Bayern),

M.S.

February 5:England: Fireball sighted over Northamptonshire
February 5: US: A bright blue/green object seen over Simi Valley, California
February 6: England: Orange object with an aura around it and a tail seen over South Manchester
February 7: US: Large White Ball With Long Tail (Fireball) Seen in Night Sky
February 9: Wales: Two see 3 balls of fire traveling an identical course

Witness Statement: Whilst standing outside in the back yard we both looked up to try and make some sense of what appeared to be 2 fire balls traveling through the night sky in complete silence, it was spooky. I ran in to check the local news but couldn't find any details mentioning the sighting. In the meantime my partner had witnessed a third ball of flames go past. They appeared very equal in distance between each other and to be traveling an identical silent course. These were NOT lanterns...meteors?

On February 11 a meteorite smashed into the ground in Mexico, leaving a 30 meter (100 feet) wide crater:

Reports of a possible meteorite impact in Mexico are popping up on various places around the net. Via Twitter, this translated article said a bright light "accompanied by a roar which swayed buildings and houses" was reported in towns in the bordering states of Puebla and Hidalgo, at about 18:30 local time on Wednesday, Feb. 10, and is being attributed to a meteorite. The article includes reports of a bridge collapsing and a 30-meter crater causing "tension among people."

But by the following day, the given explanation had morphed into something else:

"Prof. Ana Luisa Cid, following up on developments in the story of the "Hidalgo Crash", informed us today at 3:02 pm Eastern Time that the Mexican Space Agency (AEXA) has determined that "Cosmos 2421, a Russian naval reconnaissance satellite placed in orbit on June 25, 2006, broke up in February 2008 leaving 15 fragments. These fragments were cataloged by NORAD as space junk. An analysis of Fragment 33006 of Cosmos 2421 allowed its reentry to be predicted on February 10, 2010."

Those pesky Russian satellites. If we received a dollar (or several) for every occasion some "authority" used falling Russian satellites to explain genuine meteorite impacts, we would have enough money by now to purchase a private jet to begin air-dropping truth leaflets!

Not surprisingly, the Russians didn't like being used and issued an official denial. Also consider the following words on Discover magazine's site:

Breaking: Mexican meteorite impact?

Just for the record, a quote from Nicholas Johnson, director of the Orbital Debris Program Office of the Johnson Space Center (Houston) and director of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee

"The association of the event over Mexcio with a piece of Cosmos 2421 appears to be in error. No part of Cosmos 2421 reentered at the time and location reported.

For the record, Cosmos 2421 fragmented at least three times in 2008, producing more than 500 pieces which were large enough for the US Space Surveillance Network to catalog. The vast majority of them have now already reentered. A piece of Cosmos 2421 did reenter recently, but it was well after the time of the event over Mexico.
No known man-made object reentered the atmosphere near the time mentioned in the media reports.

February 14: Ibaraki, Japan: Meteor Lights Sky
February 14: Bright white circular object over Costa Mesa, California
February 14: Huge ball of fire in daylight hours seen over England
February 15: Bright Multi-colored light streaked across the sky over Airdrie, Alberta, Canada
February 15: US: Blue-green object falling from the sky over Gardena, California
February 15: Orange glowing light over Nairn, Scotland
February 15: Shetland Islands: Auroras and a fireball

February 20: Blazing fireball turns London sky from night to day
February 20: Orange fiery balls of light over Mier Park, Stoke-on-Trent, England
February 23: Another fireball blazes across southern Finland
February 25: Fireball lights up sky north of Winnipeg
February 26: Did You Hear a Big Boom in Central Virginia This Morning?
February 26: New Zealand: Origin of explosion near river a mystery.
February 26: Virginia, US: 8News Investigates Mysterious "Boom"

An enormous fireball exploded over eastern Europe early this month and was seen from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic. Witnesses described the light as "brighter than the full moon" and accompanied by "a loud noise which words cannot describe."

The shockwave from the explosion actually shook the security cameras which captured the moment night became day:

Inhabitants from the Slovak town of Košice were frightened Sunday night by a bizzare light in the sky and a loud explosion followed by a shock wave. According to astronomers apparently an object from space collided with the Earth and shortly before impact most likely exploded in the atmosphere. [...]

"At around eleven thirty a light appered in the courtyard window and slowly began to glow brightly," stated a resident from the village Jasov near Košice. "Not like lightning, but really slowly, until the room was lit like during the day." She continues, "we thought it strange that the dog didn't bark."

"After that the light faded and we heard the sound. The noise was similar to drumming, we felt pressure in our ears like when you stand next to speakers. It lasted at least a minute," the resident of Jasovanka described the Sunday event.

According to Chochol the object entered the atmosphere where friction caused it to heat up and explode at an altitude of roughly 30 kilometres above the surface. The explosion was accompanied by light that at its maximum brightness was a thousand times brighter than a full moon.

And finally, we came across this video footage of the fireball that excited South Africans last November. Now we can see what all the fuss was about!

Cosmic Tricksters

Our cosmic tale wouldn't be complete without mentioning another set of extraordinary events and recurring sightings, because strange as this may sound, both are intimately interconnected.

UFOs, ghosts, big cat sightings, raining fish, bigfoot sightings, etc. They are all part of the phenomena that many of us still deny; some of us still try to explain using conventional science; and the minority that knows the truth does everything possible to muddy the waters even further, and leaving us chasing our own tails. As the late great John Keel was fond of saying, "we are at the mercy of a Cosmic trickster."

If so, then there is no harm in permitting ourselves to speculate and point out an obvious and direct connection between an increase in Cosmic phenomena like fireballs and the UFO phenomenon. It seems that if we are to ever understand the mystery of UFOs, we first need to redefine their very nature. What if we aren't dealing with "interstellar spacecraft" (unless by "interstellar" we include paranormal connotations)?

For those with eyes to see, all the evidence points to the "alien" and "UFO" phenomena being, for the most part, paranormal phenomena. Specifically, that they are manifestations of a hyperdimensional universe where layers of reality are embedded within one another. And that is why there will never be "disclosure." Can you imagine the government having to disclose that the Paranormal is real? Something to ponder about.

Here is what John Keel had to say about this in Operation Trojan Horse:

Something dropped out of the sky that night onto the grounds of the Salvation Army Camp near Upland, Pennsylvania. A group of boys watched a strange blue light descend into the woods, and John Wesley Bloom was the first to reach it. It smelled like burning rubber, was about two feet long, a foot high and a foot wide when they first saw it, the boys reported Young Bloom claimed that something got into his eyes and blinded him. His friends had to help him home. His mother later told reporters that his face "was red and his eyes were swollen" and she placed cold compresses on his eyes. The next day there was a crimson blotch on his cheek. The Upland object burned itself out. The next day searchers found a small coallike lump at the spot. Dozens of other youngsters substantiated the story, according to a lengthy report published in the Delaware County Times an April 27, 1966. But Dr. I. M. Levitt. director of the Franklin Institute's Feis. Planetarium, declared. "I just don't believe it. Meteorites do not continue to burn when they reach earth."

© David ClarkeJohn Keel at the 1992 IUN conference.
Thousands of miles away, in. the far-off soviet state of Tashkent, a Soviet scientist named Galina Lazarenko was awakened at 5:23 A.M. On April26,1966, by a brilliant flash of light. "The couryard and my room were brightly lighted up; she said later. "It was so bright that I could clearly see all the objects in my room. Simultaneously, an engineer named Alexei Melnichuk was walking down a Tashkent street when he heard a loud rumble followed by a blinding flash. "I seemed to be bathed in white light that extended as far as I could see," he recalled. "I was forced to shield my face with my hands. After a few seconds, I took my hands away from my face, and the light was gone." Moments later the great Tashkent earth fault shuddered and buckled, and a tremendous earthquake struck, killing 10 and leaving 200.000 people homeless. As the dazed and terrified residents staggered into the rubble-strewn streets, they saw strange "glowing spheres floating through the air like lighted balloons."

There is a nine-hour time difference between our Atlantic seaboard and Tashkent. Furthermore, Tashkent is at exactly the same latitude and longitude as the northeastern United States, precisely on the opposite side of the earth. We were watching that "meteor" cruising overhead at exactly the same time that a brilliant and inexplicable flash of light was announcing the impending disaster in Tashkent. These correlations are exact. Our "meteor" and the Tashkent earthquake occurred simultaneously on opposite sides of the earth!

What kind of coincidence was this?

Is it possible that unidentified flying objects may have some tenuous relationship to natural disasters? There are many baffling cases which seem to point to such a relationship, particularly in Europe and South America. Dr. Martin D. Altschuler contributed an interesting paper on earthquake-related UFO's to the Colorado University: Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. He cited several Japanese cases in which spheres of light, powerful beams of light, and assorted fireballs appeared before, during, or after Japanese earthquakes.

Large numbers of UFOs were reported over Algeria shortly after the tragic quakes of September 9 and 26, 1954 (1,100 dead; 2,000 injured). When a very heavy quake shook eleven counties in England on February 11, 1957, five "tadpolelike objects" were reported over the towns of Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. The former was the epicenter of the quake.

Flying saucer sightings have been numerous and spectacular around the great San Andreas Fault in California since 1896.

At the beginning when we worked on preparing this article, we thought to include as many February UFO sightings as possible. But there were so many, the final list would be almost as long as the entire Connecting the Dots! Practicality prevailed, so here is a small sample of an ever-expanding record of UFO sightings:

Jan 27: US: Off-duty pilot sees white sphere doing manuevers in flight path of airplanes at LAX
Jan 28: US: Huge triangular-shaped craft seen floating over highway
Feb 10: US: Amateur astronomer reports bright red lights in triangle formation
Feb 11: US: UFO hovers over Arlington's Cowboys Stadium
Feb 12: US: Large Yellow Square Shaped Object Seen With Green & Red Lights
US: Woman & Son See Disk Shaped Object Turn & Appear Triangular
Feb 14: Scotland: 3 witness 2 red/orange, egg-shaped craft over Glasgow
England: A couple sees 2 misty concentric rings in the sky
Feb 16: US: Woman Sees Silent Delta Shaped Craft Flying in Night Sky
Feb 19: US: Man & Niece See Dark Circular Object Disappear Into Storm Clouds
Feb 20: England: A couple sees a wing formation of lights speed across the sky
England: A woman sees a large object in early morning hours
US: Strange craft making jet-like sound seen three different nights/day by the same person
US: Witnesses in two states see UFO as 'staggered' set of lights
Feb 21: US: Red Light With White Lights Moving Around it Seen in Day Sky
Feb 22: Scotland: 3 witness 7 orange objects that came together in the sky and then split up going in differenet directions
US: A strange schreeching-almost-animal sound is heard coming from a stange craft flying in the sky
Feb 23: US: Witness sees transparent triangular object above him
Feb 24:UFO seen and filmed by tourists visiting Rome

If you click on the title of this article it will take you to the original site where there are comments being made about this video. One of the commenters has found footage of the same objects since 1995 in different countries.

Another says it is just a remote-controlled toy. But were such toys commercially available in 1995? And in different countries?

Feb 25: US: Tennessee witness observes "straight line" of UFOs

Financial Terrorists Strike Again

It doesn't get much more explicit than this folks. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, a very special and very private "idea dinner" was held on February 8 in Manhattan. Invited were a list of Wall Street hedge-fund representatives from SAC Capital Advisors, Soros Fund Management, Greenlight Capital and Brigade Capital. At the dinner, the speculators are said to have 'predicted' that the euro is likely to plunge in value to parity with the dollar. The euro has been under pressure because of Greece's debt crisis, in addition to similar fiscal worries about Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland ("PIIGS", in financial parlance - ingenious, no?) But the euro has also been sapped of its strength because certain hedge funds have been placing huge bets on the currency's decline, which could make the speculators hundreds of millions in profit. In other words, the expectation of the euro's decline is a prophecy that the financial mafia is happy to fulfill itself. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and Barclays Bank of London were also playing "let's sink the euro," cashing in on the trend by betting on the currency's fall. And this was worked out over dinner. That's all it takes for a handful of psychopaths to cause untold misery for millions upon millions of people.

Apparently the aim of this exercise in 'creating your own reality' was to defend the beleaguered US dollar, deciding that its roughly 40 per cent slide versus the euro in the past decade was excessive. It was also decided during the dinner that the weakest link through which to attack the Eurozone economy was Greece, specifically Greek government bonds. By speculating against them, they expected to detonate a crisis that would have a negative effect on the euro - and ultimately on all people everywhere (including the US), who will shortly be facing the second wave of the global depression as this new crisis spreads, of course. The masses are just not invited to Manhattan dinners, are they?

A Greek Tragedy - and why Goldman Sucks

The rules of the Stability and Growth Pact agreed among EU members states that budget deficits must not exceed 3% of GDP - a convenient opening for various EU governments to cut spending on welfare and public services. With a deficit of 12.5%, Greece has been instructed to make big spending cuts to meet the EU target. The new socialist government of George Papandreou was elected on a promise not to cut wages, but its spending cuts agreed with the EU includes a 10% cut in wages. Papandreou defended the measure by claiming that Greece's government bonds were under a speculative attack - and he was right, as we have learned - which means it costs Greece more than twice Germany to fund its deficit.

Ireland is an example of what happens to a country with a government seeking to meet the EU's targets. The Irish government's response to the economic crisis was to impose several austerity budgets. As a result, GDP shrank by 5%, unemployment has risen to 12.5%, and a wave of mortgage defaults has left thousands of families without homes. The rest of the 'PIIGS' are expected to obediently follow a similar path.

As Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the [European Central Bank] is happy to lend to banks, but not when it comes to member states. It's all stimulus where private finance-capital is concerned, but sour-faced austerity when public sector budgets are involved. But then, that is the point.

It is an old story; bankers and financial speculators create a crisis and the people pay for it when their governments follow the orders of their masters in betrayal of their duty to those who elected them into power. Not only did speculators attack Greece's economy, but they helped prepare the ground for the attack. In February of 2010, the New York Times revealed that Greece engaged in a decade-long effort to skirt European debt limits. One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government obscure billions of its public debt from the EU budget overseers. In early November, a team from Goldman Sachs, led by its president Gary D. Cohn, offered "a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece's health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards.". Athens did not in this case pursue Goldman's proposal, although it did in 2001. Once was it admitted into the EU's monetary union, Greece borrowed billions with Goldman's help "hidden from public view because it was treated as a currency trade rather than a loan." Apparently some of these transactions were so well hidden that not even Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, was aware of it. A Goldman Sachs managing director, Gerald Corrigan, has admitted that Greece was helped to "fiddle the books" at the cost of an "accentuated risk" on the country.

This was not an exceptional case. The New York Times reveals:

As in the American subprime crisis and the implosion of the American International Group, financial derivatives played a role in the run-up of Greek debt. Instruments developed by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and a wide range of other banks enabled politicians to mask additional borrowing in Greece, Italy and possibly elsewhere.

In dozens of deals across the Continent, banks provided cash upfront in return for government payments in the future, with those liabilities then left off the books. Greece, for example, traded away the rights to airport fees and lottery proceeds in years to come.

The Greek National Intelligence Service is said to be investigating the speculators who destroyed the economy. We do not have high hopes that the financial terrorists will be punished. Quite the contrary, they seem to be rewarded with more power to do as they please. The head of the Greek debt management agency, Spyros Papanicolaou, lost his job only to be replaced by Petros Christodoulou, who worked not only as head of derivatives at JP Morgan but also held comparable posts at Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs! Can there be any doubts as to who is calling the shots here?

William Engdahl explains the role of Wall Street on these off-balance sheet manipulations. Notice Engdahl's argument that this attack on the EU occurs at a time when the dollar should be tumbling; we will come back to it further on.

A commission of experts in Athens recently told the country's parliament that it had uncovered €40bn of "hidden debts" during an investigation into past manipulation by the financial authorities. Today Greece "owes the world $300 billion, and major banks are on the hook for much of that debt. A default would reverberate around the globe."

Not that the elite has anything to worry about though, as the working classes are already contributing to the bankers' future bonuses - albeit unwillingly. The government will raise the retirement age, freeze public-sector wages, stop new hiring in 2010 and apply higher levies on fuel, tobacco and alcohol; and the possible abolition of one of two additional months of pay received by public-sector workers and by employees at many private firms. Among the government's new rules for taxation we find one which is rather curious:

"From 1. Jan. 2011, every transaction above 1,500 euros between natural persons and businesses, or between businesses, will not be considered legal if it is done in cash. Transactions will have to be done through debit or credit cards."

Presumably, the Greek government is trying to have all significant transactions on record in order to stop tax evasion, and one way to do it is by banning cash transactions. However, such a bizarre rule is to be regarded with great suspicion in a world already threatened by the Orwellian phantom of techno-totalitarianism. Does this set a precedent for other countries and is it a further step towards a cashless society in which all our "money" will only exist as numbers in databases controlled by the Big Brother? Is this not a wonderful example of how a crisis provides opportunities to introduce unpopular measures which further erode our freedom?

The Greek people reacted to the austerity measures by staging a series of protests against deficit-cutting measures and a national public sector strike. The strike has grounded flights at airports, closed schools and put hospitals into emergency-only service. The private sector joined the strike and farmers have been blocking major roads across the country for the past month to demand subsidies from the government.

The rightful sentiments of the Greeks were succintly expressed by a demonstrator:

"It is a simple issue of survival," said Anna Tsounara, a protester sitting in a tent lined with sleeping bags and blankets. "I am a divorced mother-of-two. I have never demonstrated like this before but now I want answers. All of us here worked in the public sector on contracts for years and now we are told the state is bankrupt by a government that comes in and says it wants to get rid of us. Just like that. That's not fair." [...]

© Simela Pantzartzi/EPA"Sell our islands? You must be joking!" An elderly Greek man protests near the entrance to the government's headquarters...
Pavlos Tzimas, a leading political commentator, put it another way: "People are puzzled. They spent the best part of the last decade thinking 'it's over, we made it, we're rich' and then suddenly they're told the country's bankrupt. Like the past conservative government, many bought into the illusion that borrowing was OK. And now they, too, are weighed down by debt."

During a second national strike, police officers fired tear gas to disperse around 50 young demonstrators who pelted them with stones and paint near the Parliament building in the city center. They were part of a crowd of more than 20,000 who marched holding banners reading "tax the rich" and "hands off our pension funds." The New York Times described the day as "peaceful", but the first few minutes of this Al Jazeera report show a very different story. Expect this to become a familiar scene on the streets of the world as unemployment and hunger spread:

The European Commission has demanded that Athens make further budget cuts. European Central Bank Chief Economist Jürgen Stark called for lower wages in Greece. Berlin is insisting on rigorous policing of the Greek austerity programme by a triple force from the Commission, the ECB and the International Monetary Fund, an exercise never attempted in the eurozone.

Initially it was expected that France and Germany would bail out Greece, just like the banks have been bailed out by the US government. But alas - governments are meant to work for the people, unlike banks who work for the elite only. It is unclear if stronger European nations will step in or not, but Germany has been increasingly reluctant to do so. A few voices have been pointing to the IMF as the savior of the day. An IMF intervention would set even harsher conditions for the Greek population by demanding further cuts.

George Soros, one of the authors of this Greek tragedy, has an idea.

[Soros] believes that unless the European Commission is given sweeping powers over taxation and spending, the single currency will always be vulnerable to financial turbulence in individual states.

'If member countries cannot take the next steps forward, the euro may fall apart,' he added.

How considerate; he creates the problem and offers the solution too! Although the financial terrorists on Wall Street contrived this attack on Greece and other weak links in the Eurozone in order to maintain the illusion of the dollar as safe haven, a scenario best explained by author William Engdahl, the ultimate reason may be to further strip nations from their sovereign powers in favor of international organizations. The hypothesis that the speculators were defending the dollar only goes so far, given that sooner or later the dollar will be hit and that the international money masters are loyal to no single currency or country. Their true agenda lies further ahead in the formal establishment of a World Government, and the way to achieve this is to apply the shock doctrine and detonate successive crises, then offer 'solutions' that absorb more power into the same few hands. Andrew Gavin Marshall explains it as follows:

The general trend has thus become the reformation of the capitalist system into a system based upon the 'China model' of totalitarian capitalism. The capitalist class fear potential revolutionary sentiment among the middle and lower classes of the world. Obama was a well-packaged Wall Street product, sold to the American people and the people of the world on the promise of 'Hope' and 'Change.' Obama was put in place to pacify resistance.

[...] The current crisis is not merely a failure of the US housing bubble, that is but a symptom of a much wider and far-reaching problem. The nations of the world are mired in exorbitant debt loads, as the sovereign debt crisis spreads across the globe, entire economies will crumble, and currencies will collapse while the banks consolidate and grow. The result will be to properly implement and construct the apparatus of a global government structure. A central facet of this is the formation of a global central bank and a global currency.

© Unknown
The people of the world have been lulled into a false sense of security and complacency, living under the illusion of an economic recovery. The fact remains: it is only an illusion, and eventually, it will come tumbling down. The people have been conned into handing their governments over to the banks, and the banks have been looting and pillaging the treasuries and wealth of nations, and all the while, and making the people pay for it.

It is no surprise then that the European Commission will rigorously supervise the Greek austerity programme. The bureaucratic machine of the European Union spent three weeks examining the plan and intends to review its implementation every one to three months. If the Greek government deviates in any way from the programme, Brussels will fine Greece with compounding austerity measures. In the words of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso:

The economic crisis is worse than anyone imagined and increased economic inter-dependence demands a more determined response and makes the case for stronger economic governance in the EU.

Now we have the Lisbon Treaty, which provides for (economic) policy... warnings. The Commission intends to use these powers to the full.

House of Cards

The immediate result of the Greek crisis has been (apparently) beneficial for the US. Optimism in regards to a bailout have had a bull effect on the Dow Jones. Marshall notes that Morgan Stanley predicts a surge in the dollar for 2010 - an effect of the flight of capital from Europe into the traditional "safe haven". For a while this may provide the illusion that economic recovery is real. But as economic historian Niall Ferguson writes:

[...] This effect may persist for some months, just as the dollar and Treasuries rallied in the depths of the banking panic in late 2008.

© Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty ImagesSolidarity: Policemen on strike being applauded by passing demonstrators in Athens
Yet even a casual look at the fiscal position of the federal government (not to mention the states) makes a nonsense of the phrase "safe haven". US government debt is a safe haven the way Pearl Harbor was a safe haven in 1941.

Even according to the White House's new budget projections, the gross federal debt in public hands will exceed 100 per cent of GDP in just two years' time. This year, like last year, the federal deficit will be around 10 per cent of GDP. The long-run projections of the Congressional Budget Office suggest that the US will never again run a balanced budget. That's right, never.

The International Monetary Fund recently published estimates of the fiscal adjustments developed economies would need to make to restore fiscal stability over the decade ahead. Worst were Japan and the UK (a fiscal tightening of 13 per cent of GDP). Then came Ireland, Spain and Greece (9 per cent). And in sixth place? Step forward America, which would need to tighten fiscal policy by 8.8 per cent of GDP to satisfy the IMF.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has also warned that the United States could soon face a debt crisis like the one in Greece, adding that the central bank will not help legislators by printing money to pay for the ballooning federal debt.

The UK is in no better position, as its debt is set to be higher than that of Greece. Investors in Scotland expect the pound to lose between 20 percent and 30 percent against the dollar once investors turn their sights on Britain as the government sells a record amount of debt.

We can list a few more good reasons to be pessimistic about the future of the global and American economies.

Sovereign debt fears signal new stage of global crisis

Wall Street Oligarchs Eying Social Security

Stocks, Commodities Advance as Dollar Falls on Economy Optimism

The Drive to Eliminate Social Security in America

U.S. Treasury takes another step on the road to hyperinflation

A Country of Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs

Chris Hedges: Brand Obama masks corporate rape of America

America's new slave trade

The frustration is apparently taxing the morale of Americans as shown by the cases of a man who flew a single-engined airplane into the side of an office building housing IRS offices with 190 staff; and another who bulldozed his house when the bank began foreclosure proceedings. The former case was marked by a number of oddities, so it is worth asking if the event was somehow induced or manipulated in order to impart violent ideas to the public.

Add to the information above rumors that China will be buying 191.3 tons of gold from the IMF. This is significant for the US economy because it means that China is diversifying by pulling money out of US treasury holdings. One of the reasons the US economy has not collapsed as it should is that the US has been dependent upon China as a buyer and holder of US debt and so far China has lent its support because it depends on the US as a consumer economy. This situation may already be changing.

Big Brother loves you (not)

In light of the fiscal pressures facing the western nations, even the US has been forced to prioritise it's Big Brother activities. The US Department of Agriculture announced that it is suspending its controversial National Animal Identification System and instead the Government is focusing it's efforts on the more profitable ventures of tracking and restricting movement of its human cattle.

Governments have completely ignored valid health concerns with the new airport scanner technology, chief among them that they cause miscarriages and can damage DNA. They have ignored the protests of civil liberties and privacy campaigners outraged at what amounts to a virtual strip search of dubious reliability. Along with increased control, one of the main reasons is the profitability of these new security measures for the 'surveillance industrial complex' . Tom Burghardt illustrates the point succinctly:

While Republicans and Democrats squabble over who's "tougher" when it comes to invading and pillaging other nations (in the interest of "spreading democracy" mind you), a planetary grift dubbed the "War on Terror," waiting in the wings are America's new snake-oil salesmen.

Welcome to Scannergate!

With airport security all the rage, companies that manufacture whole body imaging technologies and body-scanners stand to make a bundle as a result of last December's aborted attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. [The underpants fiasco]

Like their kissin' cousins at the Pentagon, poised to bag a $708 billion dollar windfall in the 2011 budget, securocrats over at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stand to vacuum-up some $56.3 billion next year, a $6 billion increase.

To implement the deployment of unpopular new invasive technology the security services have chosen to add new security measures, such as child-attacking dogs and hand swabbing. There has been a marked increase in brutality, cruel investigative procedures and inhumane treatment of ordinary passengers combined with hysterical over-reactions to ensure the people are reminded that the fake war on terror is real.

In Detroit an Indian man cut through a passenger security checkpoint without a ticket, boarding pass and luggage. The result: He was tasered by an FBI agent, wrestled down and handcuffed. Panicked passengers fled the terminal after a full scale evacuation and flights were delayed for hours.

In Canada, which is also introducing full-body scanners in 44 major airports (at a cost of $11 million), an 85 year old Canadian woman was subjected to a humiliating search prior to boarding an internal flight. The woman was asked to remove her boots and then unzip her pants. A female inspection officer then poked at her abdomen. Canada's Transportaion Minister's justification was that:

"The reality is, as we've seen in Iraq, the al-Qaida network has put explosive devices on developmentally disabled adults and then sent them into marketplaces where their bombs were detonated."

The reality is in fact that, as we've seen in Iraq, British SAS units were caught driving around in a car packed with explosives, shooting and killing Iraqi police officers, while dressed as "Arabs".

In the UK, despite assertions that naked scanning would not be racially targeted, predictably, a Muslim woman became the first passenger to be barred from a flight after refusing to enter the £80,000 Rapiscan naked body scanner.

In our last Connecting the Dots we reported on the "Iranian cyberarmy" cyberattacks on China and Google's accusation of cyberattacks emanating from China. Since then, Google.gov's allegiances with the US Government is developing with its enlisting of the National Security Agency to "help It ward off" cyberattacks:

The world's largest Internet search company and the world's most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google -- and its users -- from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google's policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans' online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users' searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

What the 'anonymous' sources above are actually saying is that the partnership will now give both Google.gov and the NSA the ability to share information on virtually everyone. The cybersecurity threat is being exaggerated in order to build the pretext to combine these two data-mining monsters. Yet again it is China and Iran implicated as the "evil other" to make the public believe that it is for their own safety and protection. In reality the result will be an increase in the ability of the Internet gatekeepers to impose greater control, communication surveillance and restrictions.

Further reports would support this development. The FBI has announced that it wants records kept of Web sites visited. Rather than incur the costs themselves they are pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years. Again it uses the now common 'for your own safety' meme by claiming this preemptive dragnet will help catch paedophiles and copyright infringers. This is in fact a global initiative as a leaked ACTA draft revealed. The US, Europe and other countries including New Zealand are secretly drawing up rules designed to crack down on copyright abuse on the internet, in part by making ISPs liable for illegal content. It does seem that the Cyberwar and copyright hype has much more to do with the former director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell's plan to destroy the open internet than Chinese government hackers or greedy anti-net-neutrality ISPs.

McConnell's not dangerous because he knows anything about SQL injection hacks, but because he knows about social engineering. He's the nice-seeming guy who's willing and able to use fear-mongering to manipulate the federal bureaucracy for his own ends, while coming off like a straight shooter to those who are not in the know. [...]

And now he says we need to re-engineer the internet.
We need to develop an early-warning system to monitor cyberspace, identify intrusions and locate the source of attacks with a trail of evidence that can support diplomatic, military and legal options - and we must be able to do this in milliseconds. More specifically, we need to re-engineer the Internet to make attribution, geo-location, intelligence analysis and impact assessment - who did it, from where, why and what was the result - more manageable. The technologies are already available from public and private sources and can be further developed if we have the will to build them into our systems and to work with our allies and trading partners so they will do the same.
Re-read that sentence. He's talking about changing the internet to make everything anyone does on the net traceable and geo-located so the National Security Agency can pinpoint users and their computers for retaliation if the U.S. government doesn't like what's written in an e-mail, what search terms were used, what movies were downloaded. Or the tech could be useful if a computer got hijacked without your knowledge and used as part of a botnet.

The marriage of Google.gov and the NSA (celebrated with the launch of 'Google Buzz', which has already been reported to federal investigators because it violates privacy law) will clearly facilitate these social engineering aims. In addition, Obama will benefit from his new emergency powers that the cybersecurity bill will give him. Essentially when a 'cyberattack' emerges he (via his handlers) will be able to decide which parts of the internet to keep and which to shut down. The only downside for the US government, Google.gov and Microsoft.gov is that all this technology isn't cheap. So who's going to pay for these new wonderful but expensive business opportunities?

Well predictably, if Microsoft has it's way, we, the lowly internet users will end up facing further taxation to pay for our increasingly controlled and restrictive connections. Unfortunately we just have to accept that there is no such thing as a free lunch and while it was very nice of the US Governement to let us use their network for a while, we're going to have to pay for it now; and not just financially.

Further examples of this Global internet clampdown involve the French Government's intended legislation to enable them to decide for its citizens whether or not they can view content it considers inappropriately racist and or linked to terrorism. Part of a the new security bill, again pretending to be aimed at catching child pornographers, in fact just enables greater Big Brother control: an increase on police spending on "security," multiplying penalties for counterfeiting, increasing the use of CCTV cameras, extending access to the police national DNA database, and authorizing the seizure of vehicles driven without a license.

In the home of Orwellian dystopia, the UK, a new Digital Economy bill will have the effect of forcing the closure of open Wi-Fi services at universities, libraries and small businesses, such as internet cafe's, since they would be open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers. What this bill does is restrict the possibility of anonymity for internet surfers. We're not far behind China which is now requiring photographic ID for anyone who wants to create a website.

Examples of just how far we have gone down the road of civil liberties restrictions are illustrated by the following examples of Police State enforcement: In Florida, a man was charged with the not so funny crime of wearing a clown mask in public. In the UK, a father was stopped from taking picture of his own 4-year-old son on a children's train ride 'in case he was a paedophile'. Lastly, in the US a family was told to cover up their nude snow woman. What is often quoted as a steady creep into an Orwellian nightmare has broken out into a brisk march.

Murderous Chutzpah

Mossad is not just any old run of the mill spy agency, which simply spies on people. It specialises in murdering them.

- Murray Horton, Converge.org.nz, March 2005

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh exits the elevator on his floor in the Al-Bustan Rotana hotel, Dubai. Moments later he will be murdered by Mossad agents hiding in his room.

The murder of Palestinian Hamas member Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel in January was only the latest in a string of targeted assassinations by the Israeli "institute for intelligence and special operations" against perceived "threats to Israel's existence." Israel's covert war across the Middle East has seen Hamas, Hezbollah and possibly Iranian and Syrian officials murdered with impunity of late. Tehran strongly suspects the Mossad for the assassination of a mathematical physicist connected to Iran's civilian nuclear program in January, while some combination of Shin Bet (Israel's equivalent of MI5 or the FBI) and the Mossad played a significant role in orchestrating the Christmas Day Knicker Bomber farce. The current spate of killings began in December when Hamas and Iranian officials were apparently blown apart by a bus bomb in Damascus, Syria. For whatever reasons, the Syrian authorities played the incident down, citing a "tyre explosion" as the cause of death. The Dubai authorities played a different card when it realised al-Mabhouh was murdered and Mossad was the likely culprit. It threatened to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu should Mossad's role be confirmed and has since steadily released evidence of a carefully planned assassination. Our own Joe Quinn covered the Dubai police's initial investigation of the event and remarked how it gives us a "never-before seen inside look at the extent to which the Mossad operates 'by way of deception.'"

This has brought unprecedented international media attention upon the Mossad's nefarious murder racket, resulting in more details emerging throughout the month, and is surely a slap in the face of freedom of movement, highlighting how uselessly insecure biometric passports, 'terror-watch lists' and 'no-fly lists' are so long as the real terrorists are those who devise the systems, then abuse them at will. The number of stolen identities and replicated passports grew from 11 to 26 as the investigation spread from Ireland to Australia over to the US. Credit cards used by the assassins were issued by a US company whose CEO is a former Israeli special forces commando. Among the latest suspects are two Palestinians extradited to Dubai from Jordan. Both worked for a property company in Dubai belonging to a senior official of Fatah, the Israeli collaborationist party in the Occupied West Bank.

Then it emerged that the Mossad had tipped off its partners at Britain's MI6 in advance of the operation, making a complete mockery of the British government's feigned indignation at having its citizens' identities used to murder someone. British loyalties were in evidence when Liberal Democrat spokeswoman Jenny Tonge was entrapped by the Jewish Chronicle, then duly sacked for saying what most know about Israel's disgusting behaviour but are too afraid to say it. Other governments were less lenient. France issued the strongest condemnation of the big three EU countries, Ireland's foreign minister described Israel's siege of Gaza as "medieval", while Australia summoned its Israeli ambassador to demand an explanation and abstained from a resolution vote at the UN General Assembly demanding Israel investigate war crimes during the Gaza Slaughterfest last year. Of course, these amount to token gestures, appearances to absorb public outrage in the countries concerned. Nevertheless, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. The use of "false-flag" passports has long been the Mossad's primary means of moving its agents of death in and out of countries discreetly, alternately masquerading as Canadians, Brits, Australians and Kiwis.

© ReutersChief of Dubai Police Dahi Khalfan Tamim speaks during a video presentation showing Peter Elvinger, one of the 11 suspects involved in the recent killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh during a news conference in Dubai

Theodore Karasik of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis noted that the "Dubai police did a very good job of putting out the evidence." He reckons the Dubai authorities had no doubt from the start that the Mossad was behind the murder but has strategically chosen to release the evidence in increments so as to keep the event in the spotlight and encourage other countries to cough up information. Although the assassins scattered themselves to the four corners of the planet after the murder, they are likely hiding out back in Israel. As well they might with Interpol now formally seeking their arrest. Dubai has banned Israelis from entering the country and reaffirmed its intent to seek arrest warrants for psychopaths Binyamin Netanyahu and Meir Dagan. Not that this stopped Netanyahu visiting Moscow to charm Russia into supporting Israel's war against Iran.

Haaretz correspondent Yossi Melman is undoubtedly correct when he says al-Mabhouh was murdered in order to send Hamas a message that "we can get to you wherever you go." But the "message" is broader in scope than that. Israel has a policy of ambiguity about Mossad hits, nether confirming nor denying responsibility, and is similarly ambiguous about the existence of its nuclear arsenal. It won't admit to possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction, but everybody knows it has them. By not denying that it steals the identities of citizens of 'friendly' countries and saying 'no comment' to reports that it has over 200 nuclear bombs ready for launch, it maintains the psychological edge in international relations and taunts others with suggestive hints, as evidenced by an Israeli embassy official gloating about al-Mabhouh's murder on Twitter. With its global reach, specifically its abilities to use international media, espionage and blackmail to coerce other nations towards its pathological pursuit of regional domination, just about everything Israel does in the international arena is done with the intent of telling the whole world "we can get to you whenever we want," a message all the more easy to broadcast when your agents are editors of international media outlets.

So was this operation sloppy, as some have suggested, or super-efficient? We know that intelligence operations can take anyone out and make it seem like the target died of natural causes. This seems to have been the case here:

Netanyahu Gave Personal Approval For Dubai Assassination

In the room some medicine for high-blood pressure was found - planted by Mossad, say Israeli sources - and the doctor decided that the Palestinian had died of natural causes, possibly from a heart attack. In Gaza and Damascus 40 days of mourning began.

Mossad appeared to have got away with it, though some in Hamas had their suspicions that al-Mabhouh had been poisoned. They well-remembered a previous Mossad plot in 1997 in which an Israeli agent blew poison into the ear of one of its leaders on a visit to Jordan - an operation authorised by Netanyahu during a previous term as prime minister. The Hamas leader, Khaled Mashal, survived only because two agents were caught - and Jordan demanded that an antidote be handed over.

Some Palestinians also suspect that Yasser Arafat, the long-standing leader who died in 2004, was poisoned, though there has never been any evidence to prove it.

When results of al-Mabhouh's post-mortem came through, they were still inconclusive. Yesterday one source claimed that burns from a stun gun were found on his body and that there were traces of a nosebleed, possibly from being smothered. However, no firm evidence of exactly how al-Mabhouh died, either from natural causes or foul play, emerged.

The uncertainty alone was enough for Hamas to declare that Israel had killed their man. The police investigated, CCTV images were gathered and and the affair began to unravel.

One well-informed Israeli source said: "The operative teams were very much aware of the CCTV in Dubai, but they have been astonished at the ability of the Dubai police to reconstruct and assemble all the images into one account."

Speaking of falsified passports in Dubai... While media attention did its best to give the Mossad's cruelty a James Bond afterglow, a certain Abdolmalek Rigi, leader of (real) terrorist group Jundullah, was arrested in a sophisticated Iranian intelligence operation. The plane he was travelling on was en route from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan, most probably to meet with US 'special envoy' to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke in the Manas Air Base there, when Iran's security forces brought down his plane over Iranian airspace. Rigi was found in possession of a US-issued, forged Afghan passport and had been at another US base in Afghanistan just 24 hours before his capture. What was he shuttling back and forth from Dubai for? For one thing, the emirate is an international drug-running money-laundering playground. We also know that western military-intelligence operations fund their campaign to destabilise central and southern Asia through its lucrative heroin trade. Rigi had some interesting things to confess to Iranian TV viewers of his meeting with CIA officers in Dubai:

"After Obama was elected, the Americans contacted us and they met me in Pakistan. They met us after clashes with my group around March 17 in (the southeastern city of) Zahedan, and he (the US operative) said that Americans had requested a meeting." [...]

"The Americans said Iran was going its own way and they said our problem at the present is Iran... not al-Qaeda and not the Taliban, but the main problem is Iran. We don't have a military plan against Iran. Attacking Iran is very difficult for us (the US). The CIA is very particular about you and is prepared to do anything for you because our government has reached the conclusion that there was nothing Americans could do about Iran and only I could take care of the operations for them."

"One of the CIA officers said that it was too difficult for us to attack Iran militarily, but we plan to give aid and support to all anti-Iran groups that have the capability to wage war and create difficulty for the Iranian (Islamic) system. They reached the conclusion that your organization has the power to create difficulties for the Islamic Republic and they are prepared to give you training and/or any assistance that you would require, in terms of telecommunications security and procedures as well as other support, the Americans said they would be willing to provide it at an extensive level."

© Xinhua/Ahmad HalabisazIranian rebel group Jundullah (God's soldiers) member Abdolhamid Rigi at a news conference in Zanhedan, Iran, August 25, 2009. Abdolhamid, brother of Abdolmalek Rigi, who is the leader and founder of Jundullah, confessed at the news conference that Jundullah is supported by the United States to attack targets inside Iran. The Iranian court has sentenced Abdolhamid to death.

Spot the difference? Rigi, a real terrorist responsible for blowing up mosques in Iran (amongst numerous other atrocities), was funded and supported by western military-intelligence, then intercepted and arrested to make him talk. Al-Mabhouh, a member of the legitimate government of Palestine whose posture is entirely defensive in nature and which was deposed in a coup d'état sponsored by western military-intelligence, was murdered to silence him and facilitate Israel's genocide of Palestinians, then labeled a "terrorist" a posteriori to justify state-sanctioned political murder.

What are the larger implications here? James Petras remarks that if Israel's murderous policies become accepted practice, "we would enter a savage Hobbesian jungle in which individuals would be subject to the murderous intent of foreign assassination squads unrestrained by any law or accountable national authority. [...] The unfettered operation of foreign state-sponsored death squads, carrying out extra-judicial assassinations with impunity, is a serious threat to every critic, writer, political leader and civic activist who dares to criticize Israel." This has long been the case within Israel, where it is now illegal for Palestinians to commemorate Al Nakba, the day their country died and Israel came into being. Ominously, Mossad is being recruited to "sabotage" international criticism of Israel, which it deems a 'Deligitimization Network' comprising a vast global conspiracy of "resistance" poor Israel is confronted with daily; "resistance" of humanity to Israel's lies, deceit and murder. Coupled with the Obama administration's fondness for deploying drones to expunge anyone it considers a threat, including US citizens, it appears that we've already entered that savage Hobbesian jungle:

The news of the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh by a mysterious 'hit squad' is receiving an unusual amount of coverage in the mainstream press. There is however very little, if any, condemnation of the callous, cold-blooded murder of a man whose only real detractors are those who have been waging a war of annihilation against his people for decades. On the contrary, there is a palpable sense of glorification in the press (and in comments left by readers) of the 'skilled' way in which the Mossad went about their task. There is a sense of awe or respect for these psychopaths, a perverse respect which is closely tied to the acceptance by so many people in Western nations of wholesale killing of Palestinians and Muslims in general.

When we really look at what these deranged individuals did, the meticulousness with which they went about maneuvering another defenseless human being into a position where he could be silently murdered in a hotel room, fully sponsored and supported by major Western governments, in the name of 'freedom and democracy', we are left with a lingering and disturbing feeling that, somewhere along the way, we, as a civilization, have taken a seriously wrong turn. We, as a global civilization, appear to have taken a turn, firmly, into a world where psychopathic actions are not only the norm, but the ideal.

Wrapping Up

The manner in which the Green Agenda is cleverly wrapped in concern for the planet's biosphere and natural resources plays on normal humanity's empathy towards the destruction going on around them. We might also consider that people accepted responsibility for 'causing climate change' because it ultimately reinforces the age old belief that man is at the center of all things, is lord over nature and is therefore in control of his destiny. Those who still cling to this belief are in for a very deep shock as the planet continues to rock and roll. Being a 'climate skeptic', to question the 'settled science' of man-made global warming, has become synonomous with being 'funded by big oil' and thus not giving a damn about mother nature. It's a classic paramoralistic argument. If one disagrees with the concept that humanity is solely responsible for causing the planet to warm to the point of endangering the future of all species, one implicitly supports the destruction of the planet! L Fletcher Prouty recounts a very interesting piece of history that goes to the root of how patently ridiculous that notion is:

Even if people remain swayed by the false logic behind the Green Agenda, the death march of capitalism will in no way relent. Big Oil and Big Business profits tremendously from the manufactured scarcity that anthropogenic global warming has imposed on the world and has therefore every incentive to continue pushing it through "climate science" while fiddling with statistics. Its reckless treatment of the environment, in league with every other major racket that feeds off the illusion of peak oil, is a separate matter, and a valid concern for ordinary humanity. We see that our beautiful planet has been turned into an abomination, but we also see that honest efforts to ameliorate the situation are dwarfed by the vast resources the psychopaths in power throw into squeezing Earth and its denizens for all their worth. The only thing that can stop the juggernaut of destruction is a fundamental change in consciousness, a new - or rediscovered - awareness that it's not us, the friends and family we love and strangers we can relate to, that is to blame for our dangerous predicament but a sub-species that has placed a dollar sign on every living thing on this planet... down to the very air we breathe. It will not stop until we become aware of its presence. We can prune the leaves all day long and in our folly coccoon ourselves within normal lives in these most abnormal times, but until we address the root cause of evil, the tree will continue to rot and we will wither along with it.

Reader Comments

Michael · 2010-03-11T19:17:45Z

Thank you

Once again SOTT for connecting some dots, putting things into proper perpective and presenting a fantastic article! Very informative and thorough. Things seem to be heating up in the matrix...

Joey Tavares · 2010-03-11T21:51:35Z

We are not in your debt...

... we are in your honour. Hands down the most important amalgamation on the vines these days.

Thank you.

Ruth · 2010-03-12T02:18:59Z

"let's sink the euro"

What utter fools!

Snow · 2010-03-12T06:13:24Z

Very...

...interesting read! Thank you Sott editors for another excellent CtD. Why do I have this feeling everything is speeding up more and more...

Rylek · 2010-03-13T15:38:40Z

As always

it takes me a couple of days to properly digest the latest installment.

IMO this is THE definitive round up of all that's going on on the Big blue marble with the extras of peeking behind the curtain.

And as always the message is of hope!

thorbiorn · 2010-03-14T22:08:00Z

Thank You

February was remarkable, and your review is well worth printing out, although one can not print it all like the video clips, where I guess one would have to save them or transcribe. The clip on Google is scary, but well done. The explanation of col. Fletcher Prouty on the non-biological origin of oil is really very hearty, not so much due to the subject as to the speaker.

avatarian · 2010-03-15T14:15:18Z

Very profound, but...

So the tree dies and is reborn again anew – or with the same virus inherent – the Phoenix arises from the ashes with a new mentality or the same virus.

History teaches us everything, but we don’t learn – at least history shows us everything and still we don’t learn. Its been this way since history has been recorded, or has it all been a lie? The bible is supposed to teach us something valuable but it finally teaches us the opposite and was any of it true?

What can we say about this current situation? Does it have any future is is the whole torrid thing doomed to collapse beneath the psychotic incompetence of Homo sapiens sp….?

darrenobi · 2010-03-17T10:28:19Z

the awakening is already happening

everywhere i go people are starting to question its just the beggining, but it all has to start at the small to become big, i can already smell the fear of the pathocracy.

System · 2010-03-20T04:31:55Z

I'm Tryin'

My wife said, "You have to read this article." I always try to do as she ask. It also explains why she has been up all night the past week.
Like I said, I always TRY to do as she ask.

darthdo · 2010-03-24T22:35:04Z

Congratulations by the article

First of all forgive my poor English proficiency. The article is excellent. My congratulations to the author.
Only criticize the fact that a little known political reality of our country. I have read in many foreign media the fact that military forces were deployed almost an imposition by the authorities, and I must say emphatically that this is NOT true. The truth was that all the people in affected areas to ask for military intervention screams (I personally myself included) to the vandalism that was being generated. The police had lost control of public order, and were already producing looting in many of our homes. We had barricades and bonfires (there was no electric light for several days) in my area next to the other people in the neighborhood to watch for attacking us. And this was repeated throughout the affected area. We spent two nights without light and concerned to protect our families of these offenders (even leaving aside our physical integrity before the strong aftershocks that continued to occur), while the President said that everything was fine.
Our country, and many countries worldwide, has not only suffered from the consequences of leftist regimes and rightist. By the same token the fact that we had followed with Bachelet (left) was not synonymous with living in a paradise. With Bachelet's government ruled as entrepreneurs and wealthy, and throughout the world. And the fact that Piñera comes to power does not alter the plans of the real rulers behind the curtain. Psychopaths and criminals are not exclusive to a political leaning, so I wonder why demonization of the right as if the left was a white dove. Both are puppets and obey the same puppeteer.

Um, whut? Why is this coming out now? Talk about deflecting from the real issues

globalgrrl

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codis

FOX NEWS and NEWSMAX TV lie about Israel, while the rest of the legacy media lie about everything else.

BobfromDodge

I witnessed CERT team member at the Georgia State Diagnostic Center in Jackson, Georgia brag about murdering inmates, though I never saw them...

BobfromDodge

'Governor Signs Climate Engineering Ban Legislation Into Law' [Link] . "Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has now signed legislation into law that bans...

parzival

SOTT Focus:

Connecting the Dots: Cosmic Climate Change, Financial Terrorism

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