To Warm or not to Warm For Naomi Oreskes, professor of scientific history at Harvard, there’s no more vivid illustration of the bitter war between science and politics than Florida’s ban on state employees using terms such as “climate change” and “global warming”. No matter that the low-lying state is critically vulnerable to rises in sea level, or that 97% of peer-reviewed climate studies confirm that climate change is occurring and human activity is responsible, the state’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, instructed state employees not to discuss it as it is not “a true fact”. “The scientific community feels it worked incredibly hard on this issue,” Oreskes says. “It has done exactly what it is supposed to do, which is study the question carefully from many angles, publish the results in peer-reviewed journals, explain it to the public and in reports. Yet it has gained no traction. Or worse – scientists are facing active attempts to deny, discredit, harass and, in some cases, sully their reputations.” The political split on the issue grew last week when secretary of state John Kerry warned climate-change deniers and obfuscators – presumably including 2016 presidential contender Jeb Bush (who accepts global warming but not that it is disproportionately caused by human activity) – that there is no time to waste on debating the subject. Fail to act, he said, and future generations will want to know how world leaders could have been “so blind or so ignorant or so ideological or so dysfunctional and, frankly, so stubborn”. As a historian of science, Oreskes is better-positioned than research scientists to challenge the situation. She recently suggested that the threat of climate change is so extreme, and time to curb its accelerating effects so short, that the scientific community should abandon its conservative, 95% confidence standard – which, she argues, is an unfair burden of proof that has no actual basis in nature. The recent data published by the NOAA is quoted as saying they have a 38% Confidence Interval that 2014 was the warmest year on record. That is meeting no standard. That means that the real data is so far away from the regression slope that it resembles a cloud and not a trend. It means it is no more a trend than a bucket full of BB’s dumped on the street is a road map to Oz. The fact is that according to Arctic Ice News, the current Arc tic ice cap is within 1% of the cap from 1981, the year that records were first recorded. 1%. And the trend has been going the other way…cooler and not warmer. That is according to the NOAA site itself. 2014 was the third smallest January ice level. 2012 was the smallest, then 2013, and now 2014. That means it has been growing each of the last three years, since 2012. When future generations try to understand how the world got carried away around the end of the 20th century by the panic over global warming, few things will amaze them more than the part played in stoking up the scare by the fiddling of official temperature data. There was already much evidence of this seven years ago, when I was writing my history of the scare, The Real Global Warming Disaster. But now another damning example has been uncovered by Steven Goddard’s US blog Real Science, showing how shamelessly manipulated has been one of the world’s most influential climate records, the graph of US surface temperature records published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAA’s US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been “adjusting” its record by replacing real temperatures with data “fabricated” by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data. In several posts headed “Data tampering at USHCN/GISS”, Goddard compares the currently published temperature graphs with those based only on temperatures measured at the time. These show that the US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record; whereas the latest graph, nearly half of it based on “fabricated” data, shows it to have been warming at a rate equivalent to more than 3 degrees centigrade per century. The facts are not there to prove this. But, there is no money in growing ice packs. There is no funding. There are no grants. There is no panic. But, there should be alarm. The Earth is about to enter a 207 years cycle of ice ages. Now is the time to prepare, and begin to move people south, and to get oil and gas pipelines into place. Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to War we Go Today we are going to look at a convergence of events that show we are "one event" away from World War III. From Israel to Iran, North Korea against South Korea, China and Japan, Iran claiming they take the US on militarily, the world is in chaos, but it is the situation in Ukraine, with the NATO and the west, led by the US, and their actions against Russia that the focus needs to be on. As NATO creeps closer and closer to Russian borders, with US military bases all over Russia's backyard so to speak, ANP sources tell us "it can happen at any time, this is it," and that all it will take is one tactical nuke in Ukraine or elsewhere, which will immediately be blamed on Russia and it will mean "World War III has arrived." A portion of the signs we are seeing which show Russia is actively preparing for war with the west, were discussed in the Endgame article, shown below, and recent headlines since that was written make it obvious the preparation on the part of world powers has kicked into high gear. "Russia is acquiring new vessels for their naval strength, developing technology that turns the US military into helpless sitting ducks, flexing their military and nuclear might with warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who states "Thank God, I think no one is thinking of unleashing a large-scale conflict with Russia. I want to remind you that Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers," while making it clear that Russia is preparing for the possibility of nuclear war. Russia is also preparing their population for all out war, as Washington Post reports on March 8, 2015, that "Russia’s anti-American fever goes beyond the Soviet era’s." Russia is also simulating "attack scenarios" on NATO ships." On March 11, 2015, a couple important pieces of the puzzle were revealed but was buried under an avalanche of other "news" but keeping the warning we were given in mind, these articles cast a new light on the escalation of preparation on the part of Russia for what they know is coming. The first is that Russia has launched simultaneous miltary drills in the west, south and far east. During a tactical fight training exercise in South Russia’s Stavropol Territory, about 20 Su25SM (NATO reporting name Frogfoot) fighter-bombers will make 30 sorties with live firing of missiles and rockets. Meanwhile, some 7,000 kilometers (4,200 miles) away, the Peresvet and the Admiral Nevelsky amphibious warfare ships have begun exercises in the Sea of Japan that include live firing at secure coastal targets. Air defense units in the westernmost Russian region of the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, have also launched large-scale exercises involving over 500 servicemen and 100 units of military hardware. The current Russian military drills are taking place concurrently with the annual US military exercises in Estonia and NATO naval drills in the Black Sea. Warships from Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania are participating in the Black Sea exercises. Secondly, both NBC and RT reported the same day, that according to Mikhail Ulyanov, the head of the ministry's department on arms control, Russia has the right to deploy nuclear weapons in Crimea. Countries practice, conduct war games as they call them, training exercises, all the time, but with tensions high between Russia and the west, NATO and the US deliberately interfering in Ukraine by supporting the ouster of the duly elected Ukrainian president to insert a puppet government, then escalating those tensions by sending arms, troops and encroaching closer and closer to Russian borders, that "one event" that will kick off World War III is being systematically orchestrated and no matter who "fires" that first shot, that first nuke, the west with the help of the MSM (as shown in the video below), is already prepared to blame Russia in order to justify a full scale, global nuclear war. Headlines today indicate that things are heating up even more, where Russian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the defense industry, Dmitry Rogozin responds to concerns voiced by the commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) over Russia’s growing military potential and deterrence capabilities. Sputnik headline "Moscow to NORAD Head: Yes, We Can Contain Your Missiles Better Now. Sorry." Then we have the mysterious deaths of six former Ukrainian officials, allies of the pro-Russia ousted President Viktor Yanukovych: Oleksandr Peklushenko, former head of Zaporizhzhya, had suffered a gunshot wound to the neck and authorities said initial inquiries pointed to suicide. A member of Ukraine's Party of the Regions, he was being investigated over the dispersal of protesters last year. Five other officials also died in mysterious circumstances this year. All of them supposedly took their own lives in the past six weeks • Stanislav Melnyk, 53, an ex-MP was found shot dead in his bathroom on 9 March • Mykhaylo Chechetov, former party deputy chairman, died after apparently jumping from a window in his 17th-floor flat on 28 February; he had been accused of abuse of office and fraud • Serhiy Valter, a mayor in the south-eastern city of Melitopol, was found hanged on 25 February; he too had been accused of abuse of office • Oleksandr Bordyuh, a former police deputy chief in Melitopol linked to Mr Valter, was found dead at his home on 26 February • Oleksiy Kolesnyk, ex-head of Kharkiv's regional government was found hanged on 29 January. Makes one wonder what these men knew and ask who wanted to silence them? In the first video below, Fabian4Liberty lays out the patterns being seen now in comparison to events that were seen as the world was led into the first two world wars, showing that World War 3 Draws Near" as he titles his video. We see the "spin" from the MSM in the second video below, where it is stated outright that US officials say "Ukraine will be the epicenter of a 'new' European war." Make no mistake, in 2007 when Putin made it clear they would not rubber stamp every war the US decided to wage, then proved it by blocking the Obama administration from war in Syria, the puppet masters in control started to systematically implement a plan to start WW3 and lay the entire blame at Russia's feet. The UK Dumps the US? Don’t believe it Et tu, Britain? United Kingdom to join China in the anti-dollar alliance, In another awkward blow to the rapidly waning US-dollar hegemony, America and Britain just had their “It’s not you, it’s me” moment. Late yesterday, the government of the United Kingdom announced that they would be applying to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank… as a founding member. This is huge. Right now, the United States dominates the global financial system. But after years of endless wars, spying, debt, money printing, bailouts, and insane regulations, the rest of the world has had enough. And they’re looking for an alternative. China is coming up with an answer. The soon-to-be-live Chinese International Payment System (CIPS) will provide a way for banks to transfer funds to one another without having to use the US banking system… or the US dollar. China is also the ringleader behind both the BRICS development bank (called the New Development Bank, or NDB) as well as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Both of these are multilateral development banks that aim to end the dominance of the westerncontrolled World Bank and IMF. NDB includes all the BRICS nations– Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Founding members of the AIIB include China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, etc. They’re typically all rapidly growing and/or resource-rich developing nations. New Zealand was the first western nation to join AIIB back in October. And yesterday afternoon, Britain announced its intention to become the second. (Of course in the UK’s eyes they’re the first since New Zealand still belongs to the Queen!) This is a massive, embarrassing blow to the United States, and to the future of the US dollar. It’s pretty obvious when you look at the dozens of signatories to the NDB and AIIB charter documents: the rest of the world is sick and tired of the United States dominating the global financial system. And by putting these new development banks and alternative payment systems together, they’re actually doing something about it. Even America’s own allies have supported this anti-dollar movement. Last summer the French Finance Minister explained to reporters how completely unnecessary it was for a European aircraft manufacturer to sell jets to European airlines in US dollars (instead of euros). He also slammed the US government for arrogantly fining French bank BNP a whopping $9 billion for doing business with countries that the US doesn’t like. (Side note: one of the ‘evil’ countries BNP did business with was Cuba, and they were heavily punished for this, even though BNP broke no law in France. But now all of a sudden the US and Cuba are buddy-buddy again. Is BNP going to get a refund?) His conclusion? It’s time for a ‘rebalancing’ of the global financial system away from the US dollar. Other political allies of the United States have echoed similar sentiment. But now we can see words are turning into action. Britain might be too polite to tell the US straight up– “Look, you have $18.1 trillion in official debt, you have $42 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and you’re kind of a dick. I’m dumping you.” So instead they’re going with the “it’s not you, it’s me” approach. But to anyone paying attention, it’s pretty obvious where this trend is going. It won’t be long before other western nations jump on the anti-dollar bandwagon with action and not just words. Bottom line: this isn’t theory or conjecture anymore. Every shred of objective evidence suggests that the dollar’s dominance is coming to an end. It’s happening. Time to plan for it. Our goal is simple: To help you achieve personal liberty and financial prosperity no matter what happens. If you liked this post, please click the box below. You can watch a compelling video you’ll find very interesting. THE CRASH OF THE U.S. TREASURY PONZI MARKET: Shown In Two Scenarios The future of the U.S. Treasury Ponzi Market will likely unfold in two scenarios. Unfortunately, both end up with a crash of the U.S. economic and financial system. Which is precisely why it is important to own physical precious metals before this occurs. Chris Hamilton explains these two scenarios in his most recent article: Treasury Buying – Pyramid, Ponzi or GDP Crushing Paradox??? By Chris Hamilton, If we believe the Federal Reserve’s emergency policies of QE (quantitative easing…aka, printing money to buy select US debt) are finished nor is there an unannounced “shadow QE” taking place behind the scenes, then two of the four sources of US Treasury buying have dried up (Federal Reserve plus waning “intra-governmental” surplus trust fund purchases). Unless the third source (“foreign holdings”) is re-doubled (at continued record low yields) the last man standing is the “domestic public” (US domestic institutions like insurers, pensions, banks, plus retail buyers, etc.). Without the Fed and much larger “foreign” bid, the Domestic Public has only one choice available; the interest rates by which either the public goes bankrupt or the government goes bankrupt. Over the next four years (’15-’18…and beyond) the Domestic Public is left with buying 10x’s more Treasury debt than over the previous four (’11’14)…effectively crashing US GDP and the US economy. (Source TIC, Federal Reserve) How it all Works: The Treasury puts all potential Treasury buyers into four distinct classifications: 1. Intra-government (Social Security and other surplus trust fund tax revenues held in special Government Account Series or GAS Treasury’s). 2. Domestic pubic meaning US institutions like pensions, insurers, banks, plus retail Treasury buyers. 3. The Federal Reserve 4. “Foreign holdings” The chart below outlines the changes in ownership since ’09…note that ’12 through ’14 nearly all buying is courtesy of Fed and “Foreign held”. As an aside, clearly whatever has intrigued the “foreign held” bid since 2011 has not intrigued US institutions to buy more record low yielding US Treasury’s. Strange such different business models and yield expectations exist domestically vs. “foreign held”?!? (Source TIC, Federal Reserve) We Are In BIG Trouble – Here and Now! Intra-governmental net surplus’ and resultant buying has slowed (and will likely turn into outright selling over the next 4 years), the Federal Reserve’s QE has run its course, meaning they have printed every dollar that is possible to print, and still it has not done anything except kick the can down the highway. The kicker is that the Federal Reserve should begin a “normalization” of its balance sheet concurrently or some time shortly after its much discussed interest rate hikes begin. This puts the US domestic public as last man standing and a lot of issuance (new and rollover) coming our way. It also means two more things. First, the dollar will begin to rise in value, because they cannot print any more money. Second, the derivatives hot potato has finally stopped moving. The music has stopped. All the other banks have taken chairs, and "The decline in bank numbers, from a peak of more than 18,000, has come almost entirely in the form of exits by banks with less than $100 million in assets, with the bulk occurring between 1984 and 2011. More than 10,000 banks left the industry during that period as a result of mergers, consolidations or failures, FDIC data show. About 17% of the banks collapsed." The number of banks is largely irrelevant. It is obvious that the big will keep on getting bigger, and the Big 5 banks will do all in their power to either acquire their profitable competition or put everyone else out of business. Only the service r4elewase premiums on the selling of debt is left for them to count toward profits. However, the far bigger question is what happens to bank deposits now that the Fed had ended pumping phony cash into the bond markets. Derivatives played a crucial role in bringing down the global economy, so you would think that the world's top policymakers would have reined these things in by now - but they haven't. Instead of attacking the problem, regulators have let it spiral out of control, and the result is a $600 trillion time bomb called the derivatives market. They have done this on purpose, because they work for the trans-Atlantic banks. Think I'm exaggerating? The notional value of the world's derivatives actually is estimated at more than $600 trillion. Notional value, of course, is the total value of a leveraged position's assets. This distinction is necessary because when you're talking about leveraged assets like options and derivatives, a little bit of money can control a disproportionately large position that may be as much as 5, 10, 30, or, in extreme cases, 100 times greater than investments that could be funded only in cash instruments. The world's gross domestic product (GDP) is only about $65 trillion, or roughly 10.83% of the worldwide value of the global derivatives market, according to The Economist. So there is literally not enough money on the planet to backstop the banks trading these things if they run into trouble. The US has two choices – either the public maintains the buying at near record low yields and the public slowly goes bankrupt due to loading up on low yielding debt instruments (far below their plan returns and payout schedules)…or the yields rise to something like the 50 year average around 7%…bankrupting the Federal Government with interest payments of $1.25 trillion annually based on 7% blended interest rates (and a third of all interest payments will be paid to “foreign holders”, providing little to no velocity for the US economy). If the Fed raises interest rates anywhere near enough to improve on this yield, this alone would represent a -5% headwind annually to GDP…worse than any seen in the ’08 crisis. There are only two choices left. 1) Keep pumping phony cash into the bond markets. No further Federal Reserve QE is planned as the Fed states near full employment has been reached. I think they are getting these numbers from deep inside Obama’s bowels, because the real numbers are 16.2% unemployment, and nearly 22.3% underemployment, due to part time or far lesser paying jobs taken to survive. This does not count the jobs that are faked by one person being hired, multiple times each year at the same job. Kind of like the US Census workers who were fired each Friday and hired back each Monday to make it look like 7 times as many jobs were created as actually were. The excuse does not hold water, but there will still be no more pumping of phony cash, because this would flush Obama’s lying grouse into the open. 2) Another option certainly could be that “foreign holdings” in BLIC (Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Cayman Islands), and Japan effectively re-double their holdings, as they did from July ’11 through ’14. Or perhaps the ECB or BOJ or other central banks could step in to buy US Treasury’s via dollar swaps with the Fed? But the Fed loaning, swapping (giving away?) money so it can reduce its balance sheet is again kicking the can or playing a silly shell game. Not only that, the Bail-In game is not so popular among depositors, who end up paying the bill. Still, that appears what has happened since July 2011, as China has been a net seller since then and off shore financial centers have quadrupled their holdings (below). In other words, China’s slowing economy is still ten times the growth rate of the US economy, but they are just not buying the US debt any longer. I think they know something. (Source TIC, Federal Reserve) China, although running record trade surplus’ with the US between the year 2000 and 2014 in excess of $1 trillion, has been a net seller of US Treasury. This is a huge change from the previous decade, where the US sought to balance its trade deficit not with productive workers in US manufacturing, but by exporting debt for sale at bargain basement prices. Mid 2012, the larget buyer became the same source that was printing the money in the first place; the Federal reserve. How does that work? Print money to buy back the debt the receiver of the money is paying back? If that sounds like a Ponzi scheme, it is because that is exactly what it is. The first people in make money from the second people in, and so forth. So, we have two scenarios: 1) Get Ponzi’er with the Fed directed scheme of more QE or Fed sponsored Treasury buying in BLIC nations (with no dollar surplus’) used to mop up the selling in BRICS nations (with dollar surplus’) and mask the lack of domestic buying. All this to maintain even lower rates to facilitate even more debt. -OR2) A no win scenario of the domestic public buying the majority of Treasury debt at low rates (bankrupting the public due to the extremely low yields) or buying Treasury’s at high rates (bankrupting the federal government in interest payments). The retraction of domestically available cash to purchase Treasury’s would detract 5% from GDP and crush economic activity. Takeaway: I know it seems like a cartoon story and yet those are the choices before us after the Fed’s temporary(?) quantitative easing synthetically created demand for a real, permanent supply of debt. Ramp up the Fed’s Ponzi / Pyramid (and crash) or leave it up to the public (and crash). Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve directed pyramid or ponzi scheme seems to be the only politically viable option, even if it leads directly to a condition known as hypermonetization, which is tantamount to hyperinflation. We have seen this movie before, I think, back in 1928. What does it lead to? Well, if the trans-Atlantic banks follow true to form, there will be a world war to reset the clock and reduce our population in the process. What Was The Great Depression of 1929? The Great Depression of 1929 was a worldwide depression that lasted for 10 years. Its kickoff in the U.S. economy was “Black Thursday," October 24, 1929, when 12.9 million shares of stock were sold in one day, triple the normal amount. Over the next four days, prices fell 23%. This was known as the stock market crash of 1929. Unemployment Reached 25% During the Great Depression By 1933, the height of the Depression, unemployment had risen from 3% to 25% of the nation’s workforce. Wages for those who still had jobs fell 42%. GDP was cut in half, from $103 to $55 billion. This was partly because of deflation, where prices fell 10% per year. Panicked government leaders passed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs to protect domestic industries and jobs. As a result, world trade plummeted 65% as measured in dollars and 25% in total number of units. Keep in mind that this largely affected those who were in debt to their eyeballs, or who lived in the cities. The rural areas with paid for real estate went largely unharmed by the event. Life During The Great Depression The Depression caused new farmers to lose their farms, because they had not had harvests yet to pay off their loans. At the same time, years of erosion and a drought created the “Dust Bowl” in the Midwest, where no crops could grow. Thousands of these farmers and other unemployed workers traveled to California to find work. Many ended up living as homeless “hobos” or in shantytowns called “Hoovervilles," named after then-President Herbert Hoover. It is so strange that I have not heard the thousands of tent cities springing up all over America being called Obamavilles. What Caused the Great Depression of 1929? According to Ben Bernanke, the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the stock market crash and the subsequent Depression were actually caused by tight monetary policies that the Federal Reserve instituted at that time. Bernanke highlighted several key Fed mistakes: The Fed began raising the Fed Funds rate in the spring of 1928, and kept raising it through a recession that began in August 1929. This led to the stock market crash in October 1929. When the stock market crashed, investors turned to the currency markets. At that time, dollars were backed by gold held by the U.S. Government. Speculators began selling dollars for gold in September 1931, which caused a run on the dollar. The Fed raised interest rates again to preserve the value of the dollar. This further restricted the availability of money for businesses, causing more bankruptcies. The Fed did not increase the supply of money to combat deflation. As investors withdrew all their dollars from banks, the banks failed, causing more panic. The Fed ignored the banks' plight, thus destroying any remaining consumers’ confidence in banks. Most people withdrew their cash and put it under the mattress, which further decreased the money supply. Bottom line...thanks to the Fed, there was just not enough money in circulation to get the economy going again. Instead of pumping money into the economy, and increasing the money supply, the Fed allowed the money supply to fall 30%. Now, we pump and then let is crash even harder. What Ended the Great Depression of 1929? In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President based on his promises to create Federal Government programs to end the Great Depression. Within 100 days the New Deal was signed into law. This created 42 new agencies designed to create jobs, allow unionization, and provide unemployment insurance. Many of these programs, such as Social Security, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), and FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) are still here today, helping to safeguard the economy.(Source: Roosevelt Institute, The New Deal) Many argue that New Deal didn't end the Depression, that World War II did. However, if FDR had spent as much on the New Deal as he did on the War, it would have ended the Depression. From 1932, when the New Deal was launched, to 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, spending only increased the debt by $3 billion. In 1942, defense spending added $23 billion to the debt. and $64 billion in 1943. If that much had been spent on the New Deal, it would have been enough to end the Depression. In fact, WWII had its roots in the Depression,which allowed a desperate people to elect Hitler as Chancellor in 1933. If FDR had spent enough on the New Deal to end the Depression before Hitler consolidated his power, World War II may never have happened. Could a Great Depression Happen Again? A Depression on the scale of that in 1929 could not happen exactly the way it did before. Central banks around the world, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, are so much more aware of the importance of monetary policy in regulating the economy. However, there is only so much monetary policy can do to offset fiscal policy. The incredible size of the U.S. current account deficit, and the national debt, could possibly trigger an economic panic that would be difficult for monetary policy to affect. No one really knows, since the current U.S. debt level is unprecedented. The current thinking is that a Great Depression could not happen again because the global economy is much more integrated, and all central banks are working together to make sure it doesn’t. The Last, Great Run For The U.S. Dollar, The Death Of The Euro And 74 Trillion In Currency Derivatives At Risk Are we on the verge of an unprecedented global currency crisis? On Tuesday, the euro briefly fell below $1.07 for the first time in almost a dozen years. And the U.S. dollar continues to surge against almost every other major global currency. The U.S. dollar index has now risen an astounding 23 percent in just the last eight months. That is the fastest pace that the U.S. dollar has risen since 1981. You might be tempted to think that a stronger U.S. dollar is good news, but it isn’t. A strong U.S. dollar hurts U.S. exports, thus harming our economy. In addition, a weak U.S. dollar has fueled tremendous expansion in emerging markets around the planet over the past decade or so. When the dollar becomes a lot stronger, it becomes much more difficult for those countries to borrow more money and repay old debts. In other words, the emerging market “boom” is about to become a bust. Not only that, it is important to keep in mind that global financial institutions bet a tremendous amount of money on currency movements. According to the Bank for International Settlements, 74 trillion dollars in derivatives are tied to the value of the U.S. dollar, the value of the euro and the value of other global currencies. When currency rates start flying around all over the place, you can rest assured that someone out there is losing an enormous amount of money. If this derivatives bubble ends up imploding, there won’t be enough money in the entire world to bail everyone out. Do you remember what happened the last time the U.S. dollar went on a great run like this? As you can see from the chart below, it was in mid-2008, and what followed was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression… A rapidly rising U.S. dollar is extremely deflationary for the overall global economy. This is a huge red flag, and yet hardly anyone is talking about it. Meanwhile, the euro continues to spiral into oblivion… How many times have I said it? The euro is heading to all-time lows. It is going to go to parity with the U.S. dollar, and then it is eventually going to go below parity. This is going to cause massive headaches in the financial world. The Europeans are attempting to cure their economic problems by creating tremendous amounts of new money. It is the European version of quantitative easing, but it is having some very nasty side effects. The markets are starting to realize that if the value of the U.S. dollar continues to surge, it is ultimately going to be very bad for stocks. In fact, the strength of the U.S. dollar is being cited as the primary reason for the Dow’s 332 point decline on Tuesday… The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 300 points to below the index’s 50-day moving average, wiping out gains for the year. The S&P 500 also closed in the red for the year and breached its 50-day moving average, which is an indicator of the market trend. Only the Nasdaq held onto gains of 2.61 percent for the year. There’s “concern that energy and the strength in the dollar will somehow be negative for the equities,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities. He noted that the speed of the dollar’s surge was the greatest market driver, amid mixed economic data and concerns about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. And as I noted above, when the U.S. dollar rises the things that we export to other nations become more expensive and that hurts our businesses. This is so basic that even the White House understands it… Despite reassurance from The Fed that a strengthening dollar is positive for US jobs, The White House has now issued a statement that a “strengthening USD is a headwind for US growth.” But even more important, a surging U.S. dollar makes it more difficult for emerging markets all over the world to borrow new money and to repay old debts. This is especially true for nations that heavily rely on exporting commodities… It becomes especially ugly for emerging market economies that produce commodities. Many emerging market countries rely on their natural resources for growth and haven’t yet developed more advanced industries. As the products of their principal industries decline in value, foreign investors remove available credit while their currency is declining against the U.S. dollar. They don’t just find it difficult to pay their debt – it is impossible. It has been estimated that emerging markets have borrowed more than 3 trillion dollars since the last financial crisis. But now the process that created the emerging markets “boom” is starting to go into reverse. The global economy is fueled by cheap dollars. So if the U.S. dollar continues to rise, that is not going to be good news for anyone. And of course the biggest potential threat of all is the 74 trillion dollar currency derivatives bubble which could end up bursting at any time. The sophisticated computer algorithms that financial institutions use to trade currency derivatives are ultimately based on human assumptions. When currencies move very little and the waters are calm in global financial markets, those algorithms tend to work really, really well. But when the unexpected happens, some of the largest financial firms in the world can implode seemingly overnight. Just remember what happened to Lehman Brothers back in 2008. Unexpected events can cripple financial giants in just a matter of hours. Today, there are five U.S. banks that each have more than 40 trillion dollars of total exposure to derivatives of all types. Those five banks are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citibank and Morgan Stanley. By transforming Wall Street into a gigantic casino, those banks have been able to make enormous amounts of money. But they are constantly performing a high wire act. One of these days, their reckless gambling is going to come back to haunt them, and the entire global financial system is going to be severely harmed as a result. As I have said so many times before, derivatives are going to be at the heart of the next great global financial crisis. And thanks to the wild movement of global currencies in recent months, there are now more than 74 trillion dollars in currency derivatives at risk. Anyone that cannot see trouble on the horizon at this point is being willingly blind. The Derivatives Bubble Twenty years ago, the total notional sum of derivatives in the entire world was close to zero. At least that is the impression you get from looking at a chart showing the growth of derivatives in the years since. From nothing, the global supply of derivatives rose faster than the Nasdaq, faster than oil, faster even than prices of Mayfair flats. Other market bubbles were like soap bubbles compared to the Hindenburg of derivatives. The latest estimates judge it to be worth some $236 trillion – or about eight times the GDP of the entire planet. In other words, it is a bubble larger than the world itself. What a nice time to be alive. There in front of us is the biggest bubble that ever existed. We feel like a boy with a pin in his hand! What are these derivatives? Our own Cris Sholto Heaton answers the question in The dangers of derivatives and raises many more, ‘don’t bubbles always blow up?’ being the headliner. We have no ready answers. But consider this: behind the complexity of derivative contracts are simple-minded human beings who are either long or short. Every contract is a bet. And every bet can go either way. You might think this means the whole shebang is a zero-sum game. Let them blow up, you might say, the longs and the shorts will offset each other. For every winner there will be a loser; for every half-dozen fools separated from their money there will be a new billionaire with a home in Kensington. Alas, that is not the whole story. Derivatives are not a zero-sum game, but a game in which the actual odds themselves follow long patterns of boom and bust. There are, for example, trillions of dollars of securities whose value derives from the housing market. Fast-talking lenders write an adjustable-rate, payment-optional mortgage contract for a slow-witted buyer. Then, they sell the contract on – whence it is packaged with thousands of others into a mortgage-backed security. This security is backed by a mortgage that is backed by a mortgage payer. Most of the time, especially during the long bull market in housing – roughly equating to the bull market in credit derivatives – payers are ready and able to pay. Sometimes they are not. When they are not, the security in mortgage-backed securities disappears. The typical American mortgage payer has not had a real wage rise in 34 years. He can only afford his bigger house and bigger car by working longer hours, putting his wife to work, and taking on more debt. This he can do easily – as long as the credit bubble, the housing bubble, and the bubble in credit derivatives are still expanding. When they stop growing, then the poor homeowner seeks another source of cash. Finding none, he can no longer pay his mortgage. And then all the bubbles blow up – including the mother of them all, the bubble in derivatives. Hillary Clinton Wouldn't Take an Official BlackBerry: State Department Piling on more embarrassment for Hillary Clinton amid a row about her emails, U.S. officials revealed Thursday that during her time as secretary of state she had declined a governmentissued cellphone. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Clinton was "not issued a State Department BlackBerry, and that wasn't a requirement — no one is required to be issued a State Department BlackBerry." The revelation is likely to raise more concerns about national security as well as speculation that the former first lady may have been hiding information that could embarrass her in her presidential campaign. Clinton is at the center of a political firestorm about her use of a private email account during her four years as secretary of state, and her attempt earlier this week to douse the flames left many questions unanswered. Clinton said Tuesday she had used her private account as "a matter of convenience" and that she did not want to carry multiple devices. She insisted the private computer server that hosted her 60,000-plus emails during her tenure -half of which she deemed to be official government business -- would not be handed over to the State Department or an independent body for review. The State Department is trawling through those emails she has submitted to see which ones can be released to the public. Clinton was famous, however, for using her BlackBerry while on the road to the record-breaking 112 countries she visited. A black-and-white shot of her consulting her smartphone while sitting in the bowels of a C17military plane went viral when it was turned into a popular Tumblr meme dubbed "Texts from Hillary." The series included an imagined exchange between her and President Barack Obama, asking "Hey Hil, Whatcu' doing?" Clinton's reply? "Running the world." Clinton, who is widely believed to be preparing to announce in the coming months that she will run for the White House in the 2016 elections, insists she has done nothing wrong and has turned over all the emails related to government business during her time in office. But the controversy will only further fuel suspicions among her detractors that she -- and her husband former president Bill Clinton -- have deliberately sought to hide information from the American public. Psaki meanwhile offered assurances that as well as using an official state.gov email, Clinton's successor John Kerry also has a State Department issued Blackberry. Clinton's Deleted Emails a Loss for Future Historians Hillary Clinton's decision to delete more than 30,000 personal emails is marking more than a loss for modern-day people wanting more information about her, but for future generations who will no longer have access to information about her everyday life, historians believe. "A government official is not just an official," Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin told The New York Times. "They have marriages and children and rich private lives that are all mixed up with their public lives. As a biographer, that's what you want." On Tuesday, Clinton said she had turned over 30,490 emails from the private account she'd used while serving as secretary of state, but said she deleted more than half the emails she either wrote or received from 2009 through 2013 after designating them as being personal. But it's those emails that are the most valuable to future generations, particularly if she becomes the 45th president and the first woman to win the White House, historians say, as her private life while serving as the nation's first lady, secretary of state, and senator of New York will be important to historians. It's not just the missing Clinton emails that are worrisome to historians, who say that while the advance of technology has made sharing information easier, it's also easier to lose digital files than written documents or photographers that have allowed historians to look into the private lives of leaders from other centuries. Clinton, as a potential presidential candidate, likely deleted the private emails out of concerns they could embarrass her or undermine her candidacy, and told reporters this week that "no one wants their personal emails made public, and I think most people understand that and respect that privacy." But to historians, the quest for privacy now means a loss for generations to come. "If she becomes president, we would eventually want to have all the intimate details of her life before the presidency," Robert Dallek, a prominent presidential historian, told The Times. "It's all part of the historical record." In addition, he said that most public figures' personal archives are not made public for several years after their deaths. In the late 1990s, for example, Dallek was the first scholar to be allowed to examine late President John F. Kennedy's medical records, which had been under the control of three Kennedy associates who had rejected access to them for decades after he was killed. Dallek discovered Kennedy had even more serious health issues than had been known and that he'd been treated with a wide variety of drugs, which "provided a new perspective on his life and his presidency." Goodwin, whose biographies include accounts of late Presidents Abraham Lincoln and both Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt, said modern technology also means the loss of tangible records, such as handwritten letters and diaries that allowed a more intimate look at the leaders' lives. "You feel like you're looking over their shoulder as they write," Goodwin said, where emails offer less depth and intimacy. "I would never write about a modern president." However, some archivists, like Larry Cebula, a digital archivist for the state of Washington, says historians of the next century may have more than enough material. Cebula, apologizing in a blog post to future historians, joked that Thomas Jefferson would comment on his friends' Facebook pages and post to Instagram is he was still alive. "I think historians a century from now will view this period as a time of an explosion of records," Cebula said. "Even if Facebook is out of business, someone will have bought the archive." There are some politicians, though, who are careful of the records they leave behind. Clinton's predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, did not use email for work because she was concerned about the possibility of diplomatic issues. And after former President Richard Nixon's recordings during the Watergate era helped cost him the White House, many of his successors have not allowed Oval Office recordings, which Dallek calls "a shame." Clinton Neighbor Posts Sign Mocking Email Scandal A neighbor of Bill and Hillary Clinton is poking fun at them in the wake of an email scandal that has threatened to derail former secretary of State Hillary's potential presidential run. Gary Murphy, who lives down the road from the Clintons in Chappaqua, N.Y., posted a sign at the end of their street with the message: "FOR SALE. Used Email Server. Clean Hard Drive. 15 Old House La. — See Bill." The Putnam Daily Voice reports that Murphy is a registered Republican but referred to both political parties as a mess." The sign was referencing the scandal involving Hillary Clinton's use of a private email address during her time as secretary of State (2009-2013) in the Obama administration. The email address was set up on a server located at the Clintons' Chappaqua home. The Daily Voice report claims Murphy's satirical sign was posted at Old House Lane and Route 117, near the Clintons' home. In a separate Washington Post interview, Murphy said the idea to create the sign came to him after listening to Clinton explain the scandal during a Tuesday press conference. "I listened to that press conference, and something bothered me … it seemed like such a controlled environment," Murphy told the Post. "It was kicking around in my head, just because she says it's over doesn't mean it's over. … It was a real arrogant way to do it. "I see her playing the bully and the victim, and I don't think you can be both." Meanwhile, a Business Insider report from Wednesday quoted an expert who said Clinton's body language as she answered questions about the scandal showed "a high level of discomfort." Limbaugh: This Time, Media Not on Side of a Clinton Democrats are worried about Hillary Clinton's ability to win the White House because the mainstream media are treating her like it typically treats Republicans in the wake of her current email controversy, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Thursday. "If Hillary's being treated like a Republican, it means she's being treated like Sarah Palin to an extent, which means the media's out to destroy her — which means it could," Limbaugh said on his program. Limbaugh said the media scrutiny on the former secretary of state is not nearly as focused and targeted as when they go after a Republican. "But it's different this time, and the Democrat Party powers that be are worried that Hillary doesn't have the ability to overcome this and the overall image that's being created by this media attack," he said. Not everyone in the media is attacking Clinton, he said. Younger journalists who don't remember Clinton and her husband, President Bill Clinton, from their days in the White House are more likely to go easy on her, Limbaugh said. "But most of the media from the '90s that covered the Clintons and adored them and loved them, they're the ones not excited about all this and not eager to help her through it," he said. Red Dawn Let’s dust off some old evidence from last year when a rash of UN vehicles were being spotted as they were being transported to places unknown. In retrospect, it is clear that these vehicles are being stored for future use. Sightings of these vehicles have been widely reported beginning last Spring. And this has led some to suspect that an occupation force is being mobilized. Given what is to be revealed in the rest of the article, these UN vehicles were being transported to staging areas in preparation for a later roll out, such as the implementation of a real Red Dawn scenario. What Lies Ahead? As I have written multiple times, America will be taken down according to the following scenario: (1) A false flag, more than likely a scenario resulting in economic collapse and the destruction of the dollar. This is in line with what Dr. Todd stated on the radio on March 12, 2015; (2) The implementation of martial law rule, perhaps involving the use of foreign troops; and (3) All out conflict. There are clear economic, political and military reasons why the Russians would want to occupy Alaska. My interest in this topic surfaced quite serendipitously as a couple of listeners to my radio program sent me information on the Agenda 21 invasion of small Alaska communities, and oh, by the way, they also reported that they were seeing Russian troops in their respective communities. The adjacent maps reveals the towns where Russian troops, or there is a large contingency of Russian civilians in Alaska. The sighting of Russian troops in small Alaskan towns such Ketchikan, Alaska, got my undivided attention. Ketchikan is the southeastern most city in Alaska. With an estimated population of 8,050. Ketchikan is the fifth-most populous city in the state. Another area where there are civilian sightings of Russian troops is in Sitka, Alaska. The City of Sitka, formerly New Archangel under Russian rule, is located on Baranof Island and the southern half of Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean. Additionally, one military veteran reports seeing Russian submarines, on a frequent basis, just off the coast. Further, there are civilian reports of Russian vehicles and troops moving through Alaska north of Anchorage. Because of the multiplicity of the reports, these are indeed verifiable, reported accounts of Russian troops on American soil. Russian and American troops at Fort Carson, May 2012 The presence of Russian troops on American soil is very troublesome. America does not need to rely on the anecdotal accounts of Alaskan civilians to be concerned about the presence of Russian troops on American soil. Russian commandos are also “training” at Fort Carson, in Colorado Springs. There are additional reports of Russians in and around the Alaskan town of Wasilla. The sight of much Russian activity. I have learned, from multiple sources that the Russians have moved at least one, and probably two divisions of troops into the Eastern Arctic just outside of Alaska. This dovetails with another Russian military/political actions in recent times as we know that the Russians have established a very large presence in the Arctic, just above Alaska. Russian troops are amassing just East of Alaska and to the North in the Southern Arctic. I have also learned that Russians, in large numbers have crossed over into Alaska. Many are in civilian clothes and many are being housed in several closed Alaskan military bases and abandoned motels. I am told that Russian troops are being maintained in the following two closed Alaskan bases. Site Name City Type NPL Status BRAC Round Closure Agency Adak Naval Air Station Adak NPL/BRAC Final 4 US Navy USARMY Fort Greely Fort Greely BRAC 4 US Army Further, it is not a secret that some of these forces have worked with DHS on abduction exercises in which hypothetical members of the Independent Media and uncooperative and influential politicians (i.e. just like the movie Amerika) are snatched by troops offloaded from low-flying helicopters in the middle of the night. These drills have been coordinated in multiple locations which leads one to believe that when this scenario is acted upon, these abductions will take place on the same night. More Supporting Documentation I have repeatedly stressed the importance of seven Islands that Obama gave away to Russia. Please note their location. Two of the Islands are ideal for launching an invasion of Alaska. The other five Islands are serving to block access to the American navy in and around the Arctic interests of Russia. Multiple reports from Alaskan fisherman have observed that Russian troops are occupying US/Alaska’s Wrangell Island in the Arctic which was one of the seven Islands given to Russia by Obama. Interestingly, Google posted the following pictures and labeled them as “Russian military troops sighted in Alaska” Maybe someone should be asking Google where they got these photos of what Google labels “Russian troops in Alaska”. If one does not believe that Obama is capable of facilitating this kind of treason, perhaps Obama would care to explain what happened when In March of 2012, with a microphone left on. Obama made an unguarded comment to Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev to be “more lenient on nuclear issues” because he could be more flexible “after the November election (2012)”. Does more flexible mean killing the Keystone Pipeline prior to giving away seven rich Alaskan Islands to the Russians? Obama did indeed do that. Does more flexible mean letting the Russians train in Colorado Springs and in Alaska? Obama did indeed do that too. Does being more flexible mean compromising our defense of Alaska? This is absolutely the case, as Alaska is being prepared to know exception. There is yet another rumor that is persistently being reported and it is that Putin has disappeared. This led to an Internet rumor, yesterday, that Putin was dead. The more credible sources states that Putin has, instead, retired to his nuclear bunker in the Ural Mountains at Yamanatu. What we do not know is if Putin is carrying out a drill, or is this the real thing? Either way, his retreat to his bunker should signal to the rest of us, his true intent. Former Soviet Union Defectors Have Warned US Anatoliy Golitsyn, a high-ranking KGB defector who fled to the United States in order to warn Americans about the secret Russian plan to attack the United States. Golitsyn is generally considered to be among the first and most revealing on the subject of the secret Russian plans to attack. Having authored the The Perestroika Deception in which Golitsyn wrote about the deceitful intent behind the Leninist strategy in which the present-day Communists are actively pursuing as they fake American style democratization efforts in Russia. According to Golitsyn, the short-term strategic objective of the Russians is to achieve a technological convergence with the West solely on Russian terms and mostly through a series of one-sided disarmament agreements. According to Golitsyn, after the United States military is eliminated as a strategic threat to Russia, the long-range strategic Russian plan is to pursue Lenin’s goal of replacing nation states with collectivist model of regional governments as a stepping stone to global governance. In order to achieve their final goal, Golitsyn states that Russia, after lulling America to sleep, will join with China in order to attack the United States from both the outside and inside as he detailed that …the Soviets and the Chinese will be officially reconciled and enact a “scissors strategy” in which China will attack the US through the southern border and Russia through northern border by way of Alaska. As the reader will clearly see in the following paragraphs, Obama is the catalyst in making these long-range communist plans come to fruition. Has Obama already signed Amerika’s surrender papers? Black hole theory contradicts itself. Most astrophysicists try to explain narrow jets erupting from various sources by using words like “nozzle” or “high pressure,” contradicting the known behavior of gases in a vacuum. For example, according to a recent press release, “flares” have been discovered jetting from a source close to the center of our galaxy. Consensus opinions call that source a black hole. As Poshak Gandhi from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said, “If you think of the black hole’s jet as a fire hose, then it’s as if we’ve discovered the flow is intermittent and the hose itself is varying wildly in size.” Discovered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), GX 339-4 is approximately 20,000 light-years away. It is conventionally presumed to be at least six times more massive than the Sun, with a gravity field 30,000 times more powerful than Earth. GX 339-4’s extreme activity is supposed to be due to a companion star “feeding” its stellar matter into the black hole’s putative gravity well. However, some of that material gets blasted into space at close to light speed. The mechanisms by which intense gravitational fields eject tightly collimated steams of matter are not understood. It is thought that strong magnetic fields are required, but the source of that magnetism is not known, since no mention of electricity exists in the reports about such phenomena. Some flares and X-ray jets are thought to be generated by heat from molecular collisions, causing the gas to glow. As theories indicate, gamma rays might also appear when the superaccelerated matter is eventually sucked into the black hole. Excess heat, X-rays, and gamma rays are not created by gravity. In laboratory experiments, it has been found that they are most easily produced when charged particles are accelerated through an electric field. Previous Picture of the Day articles about black holes suggested that the terminology used to describe “gravitational point sources” is highly speculative: space/time, singularities, and infinite density are abstract concepts, precluding a realistic investigation into the nature of the Universe. Stars are nodes in electrical circuits. Electromagnetic energy could be stored in the equatorial current sheets surrounding them until some trigger event causes them to switch into a polar discharge. The electric jet could receive its energy from a natural particle-accelerator, a “plasma double layer” with a strong electric field. Toroidal magnetic fields would form because of the polar plasma discharge, confining it into a narrow channel. Axial electric currents should be flowing along the jet’s entire length. Only electric fields can accelerate charged particles across interstellar space. There is no evidence that matter can be compressed to “infinite density.” Z-pinches in plasma filaments form plasmoids that become stars and galaxies. Electricity is responsible for star birth, as well as death. When current density gets too high, double layers in the stellar circuit catastrophically release excess energy, appearing as gamma ray bursts, or X-rays, or thermal flares. Why Valerie Jarret Wants Hillary to Lose the Nomination Veteran journalist Ed Klein said on Saturday that the Obama administration "is up to its eyebrows in efforts to stop" Hillary Clinton from running for the White House — including six investigations launched by longtime presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett involving Clinton's years as Secretary of State. "This administration, the Obama administration, will do virtually anything to prevent Hillary from becoming president," Klein told renowned economist Larry Kudlow on his WABC radio show. Kudlow is also a Newsmax columnist and works for NBC's business channel, CNBC. "It's their view that if she does become president — like her husband, Bill — she will govern from the left of center and not be a true liberal," Klein said, "and will, therefore, compromise with Republicans like Bill did when he was in office, and will undo a lot of the Obama legacy. "They are determined to stop her — and, of course, it's not going to be easy," he said. Klein, who worked as the editor of The New York Times Magazine from 1977 to 1987 and as an editor for Newsweek, has written several books critical of Bill and Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama His most recent book, "Blood Feud," was released last year and detailed the longstanding rift between the Obamas and the Clintons. It topped No. 1 on the Times' best-seller list. Klein's previous work, "The Amateur," was about Obama's first term in office. It was released during the 2012 presidential election and remained at the top of the Times' list for six weeks. He told Kudlow that Jarrett, who is a close Obama family friend, began six investigations of Clinton's years at the State Department — and that his reporting had discovered that the White House was behind the leak of Clinton's use of emails to The Times, though he is not sure of Jarrett's role in the leak. The inquiries surrounded "the use of her expense account," Klein said, "the disbursement of funds, her contact with foreign leaders, her possible collusion with the Clinton Foundation — and of course, first and foremost — her use of emails." He added that "the White House knew, from the time Hillary became Secretary of State, that she was using these private emails and warned her against them. "We find it hard to pin down Valerie Jarrett per se as the person who leaked this story," Klein told Kudlow. "It was, in fact, the White House behind this leak — and they used six degrees of separation so that they couldn't be identified between them and the person who actually leaked the story to The New York Times." The Times reported March 3 that Clinton had used the private email account during her entire term as the nation’s top diplomat. Other reports later surfaced that the account was hosted from a private server at the Clinton home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Clinton admitted on Tuesday that she should have used a government email account for her official emails, as well as a separate mobile device for her personal correspondence. She said that most of her correspondence went to employees using government addresses — and those were automatically preserved. She told reporters that she provided the State Department with all of her emails that could possibly be work related for archiving purposes. "I saw it as a matter of convenience," Clinton said at a news conference that came more than a week after The Times’ original report. "I now, looking back, think that it might have been smarter to have those two devices from the very beginning." Republicans and Internet experts have raised security concerns and have attacked Clinton for possibly shielding important facts about her tenure from the public. Democrats are also wary that the party's likely presidential front-runner could be tarnished. Klein said that investigations spearheaded by Jarrett are "still informal" at this point. "My understanding is that tons and tons of papers are being taken from the archives of the State Department and are being examined as far as Hillary's conduct is concerned." He told Kudlow that Jarrett also has been holding "secret meetings" with two likely Democratic presidential challengers, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley — "both of whom, I think, are going to have a hard time taking the nomination away from Hillary." In the Times interview, Jarrett responded to statements by David Axelrod that Obama's former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, now Chicago's mayor, disliked Jarrett's influence over the Obamas, saying: "In a town where access is so important, initially it probably made people a little uncomfortable. I think that has faded. I just want to do my job, and part of my job for the president is to be his friend." She took the opportunity to take swipes at the GOP leadership in Congress, telling the Times that she believes criticisms of Obama for not reaching out to Republicans were not warranted. "They weren't interested in playing golf, and they weren't interested in being schmoozed, and they weren't interested in going up to Camp David. They weren't interested in going to state dinners. They just wanted to say no," she told the Times. In a nod to the divisive relationship between the GOP Congress and the White House, she told the Times: "We would far prefer to have kept the Senate in Democratic hands, but we play the hand we're dealt. The president still has a robust agenda that involves Congress." Jarrett said Obama had expected to have a better working relationship with GOP lawmakers, and added: "As a very junior state senator, the president was able to work with the other side of the aisle. What became clear when we came here is that there was not a willing spirit on the other side of the table." The Push for a Third Term The case can be made, with the political end of the Clinton regime, that there is no one who can make the Obama ship float. No one wants to be elected with the sole purpose of spending the first term taking America backward to the way things used to be. O Malley is already talking about putting Glass Steegal back into place. Cruz is talking about abolishing the IRS and disemboweling Obamacare, with no real solution in sight. Of course, there could be a call for the young zealot to continue his transformation of the nation. He could be called to run a third term. Could he be beaten? Is there a way this can be done? With the debate over the fiscal cliff dominating most of the discussion on Capitol Hill of late, the legislation has managed to slip under the radar. It was introduced on Jan. 4 again this year and immediately referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. George Washington declined to run for a third term, despite his wide popularity. Thomas Jefferson later foreshadowed the need for a formal limit when, in 1805, he wrote to John Taylor that he would follow Washington’s example. Two years later he warned that without term limits, U.S. presidents would become like kings, which the colonists had fought a bloody war to escape. “If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution or supplied in practice,” Jefferson wrote to the Vermont Legislature, “his office, nominally for years, will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance.” Formal limits were established March 21, 1947, when Congress passed the 22nd Amendment after the infirm FDR, by then not even to even stand erect, won a fourth presidential term. His Agency Government had every American that worked for a living eating out of his hand. By Feb. 26, 1951, the amendment was ratified by the required number of states and was added to the Constitution. The 22nd Amendment states, “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the president more than once.” Congressman Serrano’s bill currently has no co-sponsors. It states, “Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twentysecond article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as president.” It continues: “Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification.” WND reported four years ago when Obama was preparing for his 2009 inauguration gala (costing more than $170 million), the same plan was before the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. At that time, Serrano’s bill was H.J.R. 5, which proposed “an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as president.” Eisenhower, Clinton and Reagan all were critical of the amendment at times. The amendment limits presidents to a maximum of eight years in office or, under unusual circumstances, such as succession following the death of a president, a maximum of 10 years in office. Should Serrano succeed in repealing the amendment, Obama would be cleared to run for an unlimited number of terms, restricted only by the vote of the electorate. To achieve repeal of the 22nd Amendment, Serrano’s proposal must be approved by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress and ratified by three-quarters of the states’ legislatures. “Gen. Washington set the example of voluntary retirement after eight years,” Jefferson wrote in an 1805 letter to John Taylor. “I shall follow it, and a few more precedents will oppose the obstacle of habit to anyone after a while who shall endeavor to extend his term. Perhaps it may beget a disposition to establish it by an amendment of the Constitution.” In the same letter to the Vermont Legislature in which he warned of a presidential monarchy, Jefferson further explained why he refused to run for a third term. “Believing that a representative government, responsible at short periods of election, is that which produces the greatest sum of happiness to mankind,” Jefferson wrote, “I feel it a duty to do no act which shall essentially impair that principle; and I should unwillingly be the person who, disregarding the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor, should furnish the first example of prolongation beyond the second term of office.” “President Obama only faces opposition in the House,” a White House insider told WWN. “Barack plans to divide the Republicans in the House and so weaken them that in 2014, the Democrats will once again be the majority. After that he will introduce an amendment to repeal the 22nd amendment, which limits the President’s term in office.” Chris Matthews of CNBC is already pushing the idea and said on the air that he thinks Obama will successfully pass an amendment doing away with the 22nd Amendment. Many in Washington feel that if President Obama can get the amendment on the docket, he can successfully get two-thirds of the states to ratify it. “The President is extremely confident that he can get the necessary states to ratify the amendment and then he can run for office in 2016 and 20120.” Sources say that President Obama believes that his plan is already working. The Republicans in Congress are having a Civil War over the Fiscal Cliff. “President Obama’s master plan is working,” reportedly said top adviser, David Axelrod. President Obama has long felt that the 22nd Amendment was put in place in a hasty manner and only in response to FDR’s death. “The amendment is ridiculous. There are no Congressional term limits, why should there be a Presidential term limit?” said Axelrod. Republicans are furious that the President would even contemplate this idea. A number of groups are already pulling out the old buttons: Overturning the amendment would require a two-thirds vote by both chambers of Congress, followed by ratification of the proposal by 38 states. The White House predicts this will happen in 2015. Well, there is no fact to support it The truth is that he cannot run, and there are no co-sponsors for an effort to repeal the 22nd Amendment. Such an effort cannot stand. It will never happen. But, we said the same thing about letting the largest insurance companies in America dump 25 million sick people odd their roles while forcing millions more people to buy health insurance they could not possible need. We said the same thing about the president using EO’s and EM’s to write law and enforce only the laws he wants to, when he needs them. We said the same thing about using the IRS openly as a political hit squad against the enemies of the president. We said the same thing about 50,000 no knock military assaults on American homes in which citizens are killed, maimed, and abused without due process every single year. We said the same thing about invasion of privacy and 100% surveillance of law abiding citizens as a retroactive data mine that could be used as evidence in a court of law for a perception of violation of a future law that might be issued in the middle of the night by the president. We said the same thing about operatives going to foreign countries, making deals to undo sanctions put in place by Congress. We said the same thing about blatantly assassinating the president of another country, taking his weapons stockpile, and giving it to enemies of the United States to kill Americans. We said the same thing about White House witness tampering and the murder of witnesses in a Federal investigation, including a sitting US ambassador, two former CIA heads, and more than 71 high-level bankers in less than 5 years. We said the same thing about laundering $2 trillion dollars of taxpayer money to party supporters who kicked back nearly half a billion in campaign funds. We said the same thing about seizing control of one of the largest car companies in the world and summarily ending 788 franchises who were contributors to your opponent’s political party. We said this when the minister of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms decided the main ammunition used by the US military for more than 50 years was banned from sale in the US, effectively turning every rifle that utilizes this ammo into a useless club. We said the same thing when the minister of health and human services spent nearly half a billion dollars marketing SNAP cards to poor Americans in exchange for their vote. We said the same thing when the minister of immigration and naturalization openly marketed as far south as Nicaragua to tens of millions of people to make the long and arduous trip to America for free citizenship, tax benefits, and the chance to form the world’s largest labor union, the dues from which would make the Democrat Party unstoppable for the next 50 years. This is the truth that cannot be? The repeal of the 22nd Amendment pales in comparison to these horrendous violations of the US Constitution and the laws and traditions that have kept us free for nearly 300 years. I tell you that this amendment will not last longer than it takes the ink to dry from his left handed signature. He will do it and dare the tiny, feckless Republican Congress to do anything about it. They will not. You will not. You have the freedom to think, but you no longer have the freedom to act. After everything that has been mounted against him, he still has a 43% approval rating, only one percent lower than it was when he was elected. There is no candidate that even comes close to him, once Hillary is out of the way. The Electric Universe By Wal Thornhill We live in an electric world. Our cities are visible from space at night, blazing with electric lights. The electricity courses invisibly in the darkness over great distances along thin power lines. We find electricity indispensable. Nature does the same since all matter is electrical. Yet astronomy is stuck in the gas-light era, unable to see that stars are simply electric lights strung along invisible cosmic power lines that are detectable by their magnetic fields and radio noise. It is now a century since the Norwegian genius Kristian Birkeland proved that the phenomenal ‘northern lights’ or aurora borealis is an earthly connection with the electrical Sun. Later, Hannes Alfvén the Swedish Nobel Prize winning physicist, with a background in electrical engineering and experience of the northern lights, drew the solar circuit. It is no coincidence that Scandinavian scientists led the way in showing that we live in an Electric Universe. Why have they been ignored? The answer may be found in the inertia of prior beliefs and the failure of our educational institutions. We humans are better storytellers than scientists. We see the universe through the filter of tales we are told in childhood and our education systems reward those who can best repeat them. Dissent is discouraged so that many of the brightest intellects become bored and drop out. The history of science is sanitized to ignore the great controversies of the past, which were generally ‘won’ by a vote instead of reasoned debate. Today NASA does science by press release and investigative journalism is severely inhibited. And narrow experts who never left school do their glossy media ‘show and tell,’ keeping the public in the dark in this ‘dark age’ of science. It is often said, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” History shows otherwise that entrenched paradigms resist extraordinary disproof. This article is for the curious, those who are eager to discover some reasonable answers about life, the universe and everything (as far as it is possible today) free of old beliefs that have shackled progress for centuries. It requires a beginner’s mind and a broad forensic approach to knowledge that is not taught in any university. The payoff is the spark that lights up lives. Synopsis 1 – Preface “The most merciful thing in the world… is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents… The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but someday the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality… That we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” ~ H. P. Lovecraft In a broadly interdisciplinary inquiry such as this, communication itself can pose quite a challenge. Typically, the greatest difficulties in communication will occur when one is questioning something already “known” to be true. On matters of underlying principle, the confidence behind established ideas can be so high that discussion itself may seem quite senseless. This difficulty is aggravated by fragmentation of the process by which information is gathered and evaluated. The specialization of intellectual inquiry carries with it certain risks when assumptions within one discipline rest upon prior assumptions in other disciplines. No one can be an expert on everything, and when considering possibilities outside one’s personal expertise, it is only natural to defer to what specialists in other studies claim to know. But what are the consequences of this when theoretical suppositions, though perceived as fact, cannot account for compelling new fields of data? Given the extreme fragmentation of established science today it is difficult to imagine that the enterprise as a whole could ever “correlate all its contents.” Yet extraordinary strides toward that “someday” envisioned by Lovecraft may now be possible through a new approach – one in which electrical phenomena receive the full attention they deserve, and all appropriate fields of evidence are included. To some, the prospects may appear every bit as disturbing as Lovecraft imagined. But for those who instinctively seek out unifying principles, the new horizons will be at once breathtaking and hopeful. This introduction will present a new “deep focus lens” for viewing the physical universe, from sub-atomic particles to galactic realms unknown before the Hubble telescope. The Electric Universe is a holistic answer to myopia – a disinclination to acknowledge the existence of something. For those with the courage to see clearly, the required “unlearning” of fashionable ideas carries no real cost whatsoever. The terror Lovecraft envisioned is only the first rush of uncertainty, when ideas long taken for granted are thrown into question by facts and simple reasoning previously ignored. The “piecing together of dissociated knowledge” will only require us to confront the deep contradictions in things experts have long claimed to know. With the courage to see clearly, the adventure itself could well be “the most merciful thing in the world”, adding new insights into the greatest dramas of early human history and vital perspective to humanity’s situation in the cosmos. Lovecraft did not realize that the “terrifying vistas” are but a mirage seen through an open door. The truth is always unified, and as such it can only be friendly to those who seek the truth first. As we pass through the door, it is not fear that goes with us, but the exhilaration of discovery. Synopsis 2 – The Electric Universe The Electric Universe model is a coherent “Big Picture” of our situation in the universe, spanning many disciplines. It highlights repeated electrical patterns at all scales that enable laboratory experiments to explain the strange, energetic events seen, for example, in deep space, on the Sun, and on Jupiter’s moon, Io. The Electric Universe works backward in time using observations rather than forward from some idealised theoretical beginning. It provides simple answers to problems that are now clothed in fashionable metaphysics and mysticism. It is more interdisciplinary and inclusive of information than any prior cosmology. It points to practical possibilities far beyond the limits set by current science. The Electric Universe model grew out of a broad interdisciplinary approach to science. It is not a technique taught in universities. The Electric Universe is based more on observations and experiment than abstract theory. It recognizes connections between diverse disciplines. It concludes that the crucial requirement for understanding the universe is to take fully into account the basic electrical nature of atoms and their interactions. Strangely, this is not the case in conventional cosmology where weaker magnetism and the infinitely weaker force of gravity rule the cosmos. Such a simplification may suit a theoretical physics based on electrical neutrality of matter in Earthly laboratories but it does not apply in space where plasma dominates. Plasma has been called the “fourth state” of matter, after solids, liquids and gases. Most of the matter in the universe is in the form of plasma. A plasma is formed if some of the negatively charged electrons are separated from their host atoms in a gas, leaving the atoms with a positive charge. The negatively charged electrons, and the positively charged atoms (known as positive ions) are then free to move separately under the influence of an applied voltage or magnetic field. Their net movement constitutes an electrical current. So, one of the more important properties of a plasma is that it can conduct electrical current. It does so by forming current filaments that follow magnetic field lines. Filamentary patterns are ubiquitous in the cosmos. Synopsis 3 – A Little History “To be sure, nature distributes her gifts unevenly among her children. But there are plenty of the well-endowed, thank God, and I am firmly convinced that most of them live quiet, unobtrusive lives.” ~ Albert Einstein The pieces of the Electric Universe “Big Picture” are supplied by some remarkable individuals, most of them unknown and who have lived or are living “quiet, unobtrusive lives” away from universities. For those with a sense of history this fact should serve to increase curiosity rather than dull it. Most revolutions in science have come from people who taught themselves outside the academic system and were not constrained by the fallacies and fashions of the day. It has been well documented that modern institutions of science operate in such a way as to enforce conformity and prevent research and publication of revolutionary ideas. J. R. Saul argues that medieval scholasticism was re-established during the 20th century. If so, the new “Enlightenment” will have to come, as before, from outside academia. For me, enlightenment began with the controversial polymath and author of Worlds in Collision, Immanuel Velikovsky. In 1950 he demonstrated an interdisciplinary, comparative technique for uncovering hard evidence of planetary catastrophe from the recorded memories of the earliest civilizations. His method was forensic in that he looked for reports of physical events of a highly unusual nature that were nonetheless corroborated globally by totally separate cultures. Then by applying scientific knowledge of cause and effect, it was possible to build a very detailed model of the sequence of those events. Finally, the model enabled specific predictions to be made and confirmed – a requirement of a good scientific theory. Some of the predictions he made were outrageous at the time: Venus would be near incandescently hot, Jupiter would emit radio noise, the Moon rocks would be magnetised, and so on. Velikovsky was right, astronomers of the day were wrong. However, you will not find any textbook that gives him credit because his theory was judged to be wrong. Presumably they were all lucky guesses! It became clear to Velikovsky that Newton’s concept of gravity was insufficient to explain the reported behaviour of the planets. And it certainly could not answer the obvious question, “why do the skies look so peaceful now?” This allowed a dogmatic response by academia to Velikovsky’s seminal breakthrough. It was said his theory didn’t obey Newton’s laws. But what did Newton know of electricity? And if anyone believes that Newton’s laws guarantee a stable planetary system – think again! Any gravitational system with more than two orbiting bodies is unstable. Yet the question is hardly ever asked, let alone answered, “what produces the observed stability of the solar system?” Velikovsky was convinced that the clue lay in his discovery that electrical forces dominate the incredibly weak force of gravity at times of planetary close encounters. Although he was unable to explain at the time how this would create the observed stability of the solar system, with his uncanny prescience he had pointed the way to the Electric Universe. Since then sceptical scholars have shown Velikovsky’s historical perspective of cataclysmic events to be wrong. However, his basic premise of planetary encounters has been confirmed and the details fleshed out to an extraordinary degree. Several pioneering researchers in this new field now agree that awe-inspiring planetary encounters did occur in pre-history. To the most ancient civilizations they were a culturally defining memory. They were the inspiration for pyramids, megaliths, statues, totems and sacred rock art. The survivors of global upheaval felt it imperative that the memory be preserved and passed down faithfully to future generations in the expectation that the “gods” would return. The memorialization took the form of architecture, ritual and story to re-enact the apocalyptic power of the planetary gods over human destiny. Such a catastrophic beginning explains why civilization appeared like a thunderclap out of nowhere. Unfortunately, with no reference points in the present behavior of the planets, the stories lost their real meaning. This short explanation may seem contrived until the wealth of supporting evidence can be presented. However, it highlights the crucial distinction between the planetary catastrophism of the Electric Universe and that of neo-catastrophists who attempt to explain the evidence for planetary encounters in terms of cometary phenomena. Modern comets simply do not fit the descriptions from the past. Nor can they account for abundant evidence of fresh looking planetary cratering and scarring. Besides, in an Electric Universe comets are not the apocalyptic threat to the Earth imaginatively portrayed by artists. Such pictures are entirely fanciful because a comet would be disrupted electrically by a cosmic thunderbolt before it hit the Earth. The only visible evidence remaining would be an electric arc crater like Meteor Crater in Arizona. The Electric Universe model grew from the realization that a new plasma cosmology and an understanding of electrical phenomena in space could illuminate the new work being done in comparative mythology. In return the images of events witnessed in the prehistoric sky and their sequence could help unravel the recent history of the Earth, Mars and Venus. By accepting data over a far wider span of knowledge and human existence than conventional cosmology allows, the Electric Universe model began to provide pragmatic and common sense answers to many questions that seem unrelated. It followed the entreaty of the Nobel Prize winning plasma physicist and cosmologist, Hannes Alfvén, to work backwards in time from observations rather than forward from some idealized theoretical beginning. “We have to learn again that science without contact with experiments is an enterprise which is likely to go completely astray into imaginary conjecture.” ~ Evolution of the Solar System, NASA 1976, H. Alfvén & G, Arrhenius, p. 257. The result is now a “Big Picture” that emphasizes our dramatic prehistory and essential connectedness to the universe. No longer do we have to look at ourselves and the universe through the distorting sideshow mirrors of modern science. The implications of electrical activity between planets will be profoundly disturbing for those who have built their cosmology around the weak force of gravity, acting in an electrically sterile universe. This strange, dogmatic oversight guarantees that nothing will remain in future of the fanciful Big Bang theory or the simplistic story of the formation of the solar system. Synopsis 4 – What Big Bang? The Big Bang is already dead! The unheralded “Galileo of the 20th century”, Halton Arp, has proven that the universe is not expanding. The Big Bang theory is based on a misinterpretation of redshift. The redshift of a distant galaxy is measured in the light coming from that galaxy. Lines in the spectrum of that galaxy show a shift toward the red compared with the same lines from our Sun. Arp discovered that high and low redshift objects are sometimes connected by a bridge or jet of matter. So redshift cannot be a measure of distance. Most of the redshift is intrinsic to the object. But there is more: Arp found that the intrinsic redshift of a quasar or galaxy took discrete values, which decreased with distance from a central active galaxy. In Arp’s new view of the cosmos, active galaxies “give birth” to high redshift quasars and companion galaxies. Redshift becomes a measure of the relative ages of nearby quasars and galaxies, not their distance. As a quasar or galaxy ages, the redshift decreases in discrete steps, or quanta. The huge puzzle for astrophysicists is why a galaxy should exhibit an atomic phenomenon. So we turn to particle physics. This difficulty highlights the fact that quantum “mechanics” applied to atoms is a theory without physical reality. The weirdness of quantum theory has been attributed to the subatomic scale to which it applies. But now that we have quantum effects in something the size of a galaxy, this convenient nonsense is exposed. If Arp is right many experts are going to look very silly. His discovery sounded the alarm in some halls of Academe and since nobody likes a loud noise – particularly if they are asleep – the knee-jerk response was to attack the guy with his finger on the alarm button. Arp’s telescope time was denied, papers rejected, and he was forced to leave the US to pursue his work. Synopsis 5 – Electric Galaxies For more than 10 years plasma physicists have had an electrical model of galaxies. It works with real-world physics. The model is able to successfully account for the observed shapes and dynamics of galaxies without recourse to invisible dark matter and central black holes. It explains simply the powerful electric jets seen issuing along the spin axis from the cores of active galaxies. Recent results from mapping the magnetic field of a spiral galaxy confirm the electric model. On the other hand, cosmologists cannot explain why spiral shapes are so common and they have only ad-hoc explanations for galactic magnetic fields. More recently, inter-galactic magnetic fields have been discovered which is the final straw to break the camel’s back. Incredible gravitational models involving invisible “black holes” have had to be invented in a desperate attempt to explain how the attractive force of gravity can result in matter being ejected in a narrow jet at relativistic speeds. Why do we accept such science fiction as fact when an Electric Universe predicts spiral shapes, magnetic fields and jets? The cosmic magnetic fields simply delineate the electric currents that create, move and light the galaxies. Synopsis 6 – Electric Stars Plasma physicists argue that stars are formed by an electromagnetic “pinch” effect on widely dispersed gas and dust. The “pinch” is created by the magnetic force between parallel current filaments that are part of the huge electric currents flowing inside a galaxy. It is far more effective than gravity in concentrating matter and, unlike gravity, it can remove excess angular momentum that tends to prevent collapse. Stars will form like beads on a wire until gravity takes over. The late Ralph Juergens, an engineer from Flagstaff, Arizona, in the 1970’s took the next mental leap to suggest that the electrical input doesn’t stop there and that stars are not thermonuclear engines! This is obvious when the Sun is looked at from an electrical discharge perspective. The galactic currents that create the stars persist to power them. Stars behave as electrodes in a galactic glow discharge. Bright stars like our Sun are great concentrated balls of lightning! The matter inside stars becomes positively charged as electrons drift toward the surface. The resulting internal electrostatic forces prevent stars from collapsing gravitationally and occasionally cause them to “give birth” by electrical fissioning to form companion stars and gas giant planets. Sudden brightening, or a nova outburst marks such an event. That elucidates why stars commonly have partners and why most of the giant planets so far detected closely orbit their parent star. Stellar evolution theory and the age of stars is an elaborate fiction. The appearance of a star is determined largely by its electrical environment and can change suddenly. Plasma physicists and electrical engineers are best able to recognize plasma discharge phenomena. Stellar physics is in the wrong hands. Synopsis 7 – Planets Earth-like planets and moons are similarly “born” by electrical expulsion of part of the positively charged cores of dwarf stars and gas giants. That explains the dichotomy between the dense rocky planets and moons and the gaseous giant planets. In the Electric Universe model, gravity itself is simply an electrostatic dipolar force. So planetary orbits are stabilized against gravitational chaos by exchange of electric charge through their plasma tails (Venus is still doing so strongly, judging by its “cometary” magnetotail, and it has the most circular orbit of any planet) and consequent modification of the gravity of each body. Planets will quickly assume orbits that ensure the least electrical interaction. Impacts between large bodies are avoided and capture rendered more probable by exchange of electric charge between them. Capture of our Moon becomes the only option, it cannot have been created from the Earth. Evidence of past planetary instabilities is written large on the surfaces of all solid bodies in the solar system. That evidence is in the form of electric arc cratering. Synopsis 8 – Electrical Cratering Electric discharges between closely approaching bodies takes the form of “thunderbolts of the gods”, or distinctively shaped helical plasmoids. Such plasmoids were sculpted by many ancient cultures when depicting Jupiter hurling his thunderbolt. Jupiter’s thunderbolt raises questions about the history of mankind and the Earth that have never before been asked. When it comes to dating planetary surfaces, plasmoids cause characteristic electrical arc scarring in the form of sinuous channels and neatly circular craters with steep walls and occasional central peaks. Such craters are universally misinterpreted as impact craters. The sinuous channels are wrongly classified as riverbeds or lava channels. Minutes or hours of electrical scarring can produce a surface like that of the Moon, which is later interpreted in ad hoc fashion to be billions of years old. Hemispheric differences in cratering are expected in this model. And for the sceptics, subdued electric arc machining of a planet-sized body continues to this day on Jupiter’s innermost moon, Io. See the news items on my website holoscience.com for many successful predictions about the discoveries that would be made as close-up images of Io became available. Planetary geologists are not trained to recognize electric arc scarring otherwise they would have seen at a glance the characteristic cathodic surface erosion and cathode jets on Io. They are definitely not volcanos as we know them from geology textbooks. Synopsis 9 – Electrical Weather Most people are unaware that we have no understanding of how lightning is created in clouds. The simplest answer is that lightning is not generated there at all. Clouds merely form a convenient path to Earth for electricity originating in space. Without clouds it is possible to have a “bolt from the blue”. That is happening on Venus (although the sky certainly isn’t blue). Weather systems are driven primarily by external electrical influences. Consequently the Sun has weather patterns. And the most distant planet, Neptune, has the most violent winds in the solar system though it receives very little energy from the Sun. Electric discharges from space cause Mars’ huge dust devils and planet-wide dust storms. They are responsible for Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and the “spokes” in Saturn’s rings. It is why Venus has lightning in its smog-like clouds and its mountain-tops glow with St. Elmo’s fire. It is why the Earth has lightning stretching into space in the form of “red sprites” and “blue jets”, and why tethered satellites “blow a fuse”. However, nobody is trained to consider electrical energy input to weather systems. This image (left) is a NASA artist’s view of lightning on Venus during the descent of one of the Pioneer probes. Venus has smog-like clouds that are not expected to generate lightning and yet the planet suffers intense lightning. This argues against the popular notion of what causes lightning. Synopsis 10 – Life Itself It seems that when a dwarf star or gas giant planet “gives birth” to a rocky satellite, parent and child usually remain closely bound. Our solar system, with its widely spaced orbits and chaotic features, appears to be the result of a recent cosmic “traffic accident”. This seemingly wild conjecture is supported by the global stories of prehistoric planetary encounters. So to use our situation as a measure of a normal planetary system will give wildly misleading ideas of how life begins and estimates of the likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe. The most benign situation for life in an Electric Universe is inside the electrical cocoon of a brown dwarf star. Radiant energy is then evenly distributed over the entire surface of any planet orbiting within the chromosphere of such a star, regardless of axial rotation, tilt, or orbital eccentricity. The exceedingly thin atmosphere of such stars has the essential water and carbon compounds to mist down onto planetary surfaces. The reddish light is ideal for photosynthesis. Such a model provides one reason why the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project is unlikely to succeed. Any advanced civilization on such a planet will be unaware that the universe exists outside its own stellar environment, and radio communication through the glow discharge of the star is impossible! Our education systems are not suited to the broad interdisciplinary knowledge required in an Electric Universe. Synopsis 11 – Some Basics “The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding artists generally discover that with fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion than had originally been employed, the same effects may be more easily produced. The first philosophical systems, in the same manner, are always the most complex.” ~ Adam Smith. The Electric Universe takes a simplifying leap by unifying the nuclear forces, magnetism and gravity as manifestations of a near instantaneous electrostatic force. Instead of being “spooked” by the concept of action-at-a-distance, like most physicists this century, the Electric Universe accepts it as an observational fact. Anyone who has tried to force two like poles of magnets together has demonstrated action-at-a-distance. “Electromagnetic” radiation is then simply the result of an oscillating electrostatic force. At the level of the atom, the Electric Universe model takes a lead from the work of Ralph Sansbury, an independent New York researcher. Foremost is the simple recognition of the basic electrical nature of matter and the primacy of the electrostatic force in matter interactions. It also rests upon the simple assumption that the proton, neutron and electron are composed of smaller charged particles, orbiting each other in a classical sense in stable, resonant orbits. That is, the energy exchanged between those sub-particles in elastic deformation during each orbit sums to zero. Being charged, the sub-particles interact via the electrostatic force. A simple calculation shows that the sub-particles that form an electron must travel at a speed far in excess of the speed of light – some 2.5 million light-years per second, or from here to the far side of the Andromeda galaxy in one second! So the electrostatic force must act at a speed which is almost infinite on our scale for the electron to be stable. It is the stable orbital resonances of these sub-particles, both within and between particles that give rise to the phenomena of protons, neutrons, electrons and atoms. Other denizens of the particle “zoo” are merely transient resonant states of the same charged sub-particles. The so-called “creation” of matter from energetic photons is an illusion in which pre-existing matter is reorganized into new resonant states that give the impression that a particle has suddenly materialized. Antimatter is a misnomer since it too is formed from the same sub-particles as “normal” matter except that the total charge is mirrored. Matter cannot be created or annihilated. A Conventional View of Forces in Physics 1. Nuclear forces keep the nucleons (protons and neutrons) together in the atomic nucleus. They are the dominating forces in the nucleus, but of no importance at large distances from it. 2a. Electric forces. A positive charge and negative charge attract each other, but similar charges repel. Electric forces keep the atoms together (” bind ” the electrons to the nucleus). They are of a certain importance in the nucleus. At large distances electric forces are usually not so important because of a screening effect. For example, a positive charge attracts negative charges to its neighborhood so that they screen off the field from the positive charge. 2b. Magnetic forces are closely related to the electric forces. Because they cannot be screened very easily, they are efficient at larger distances than electric forces. Example: the Earth’s magnetic field. 3. Gravitation is much weaker than electric forces and therefore of no importance in the atom. As the gravitation cannot be screened, it is the dominating force at large distances. The orbits of the planets and the motions of stars and galaxies are ruled by gravitation. – H. Alfvén. Quantum Theory For the first time the highly successful quantum theory gains a physical explanation in terms of resonant motion of charged particles, mediated by a near-instantaneous electrostatic force. A quantum electron orbit is one in which the exchange of energy between all of the sub-particles in the nucleus of an atom and those in an orbiting electron, sum to zero over the orbit. Exchange of energy takes the form of distortion of a particle to form an electrostatic dipole or a move to a new resonant orbit. Relativity Theory Einstein’s Special Theory was designed to define simultaneity in a universe where the fastest force or signal was restricted to the measured speed of detection of light from a distant source. With an electrostatic force of near-infinite speed acting between the sub-particles of all matter, relativity theory reduces to classical physics. This leaves open the question of what we are measuring when we determine the speed of light. The speed of light in galactic terms is exceedingly slow, requiring about 150,000 years to cross our galaxy. However, the astronomer Halton Arp has shown that the redshifts of entire galaxies are quantized which requires some form of near instantaneous, galaxy-wide communication at the sub-atomic level. There are now several reported experiments that demonstrate faster than light effects. With the Special Theory gone, and the universe in communication with its parts effectively in real-time, there can be no time travel and space and time are independent. Common sense has always suggested that this was so. Einstein’s General Theory was devised to explain gravity. It attempts to discard the observed action-at-a-distance of gravity by proposing a counter-intuitive warping of space in the presence of massive objects. This unnecessary complication of space is then added to the current metaphysical concepts of what constitutes the mass of an object. But space must also “warp” at near infinite speed to produce the observed planetary orbits. Common sense, observation, and parsimony of hypotheses all suggest that the electrostatic model of gravity (see below) is superior. There is now experimental evidence from gravity measurements at the time of a total solar eclipse that supports the Electric Universe model and discounts the General Relativity model. E = mc2 Einstein’s famous mathematical expression E=mc2, equating energy and mass is known by almost everyone. However, most textbooks go on to use the word “matter” in place of “mass.” But nowhere has it been shown that mass and matter are interchangeable. In fact, we are entirely ignorant of what constitutes the mass of an object. So it is inadmissible to imply that energy and matter are interchangeable. The ultimate expression of this idea led to the nonsense of the big bang. It seems simpler and more sensible to suggest that both nuclear and chemical energy is released or absorbed by the rearrangement of the resonant orbits of charged particles. It is then common sense to suggest that mass is the measured response of a system of charged particles to an external electrostatic force. The more massive an object, the more the electrostatic force contributes to the elastic deformation of its protons, neutrons and electrons, rather than their acceleration. This is the phenomenon seen in particle accelerators and conventionally attributed to relativistic effects. But relativity reduces to classical physics in a universe where the electrostatic force has near-infinite speed. The first question to be asked is – if it is that simple, why hasn’t it been thought of long ago? The answer seems to lie in the propensity for mathematical theory to supersede common sense and observation. There is also a problem of language when mathematicians attempt to provide real meaning for their symbols. Synopsis 12 – So What? The consequences and possibilities in an Electric Universe are far-reaching. First we must acknowledge our profound ignorance! We know nothing of the origin of the universe. There was no Big Bang. The visible universe is static and much smaller than we thought. We have no idea of the age or extent of the universe. We don’t know the ultimate source of the electrical energy or matter that forms the universe. Galaxies are shaped by electrical forces and form plasma focuses at their centers, which periodically eject quasars and jets of electrons. Quasars evolve into companion galaxies. Galaxies form families with identifiable “parents” and “children”. Stars are electrical “transformers” not thermonuclear devices. There are no neutron stars or Black Holes. We don’t know the age of stars because the thermonuclear evolution theory does not apply to them. Supernovae are totally inadequate as a source of heavy elements. We do not know the age of the Earth because radioactive clocks can be upset by powerful electric discharges. The powerful electric discharges that form a stellar photosphere create the heavy elements that appear in their spectra. Stars “give birth” electrically to companion stars and gas giant planets. Life is most likely to form inside the radiant plasma envelope of a brown dwarf star! Our Sun has gained new planets, including the Earth. That accounts for the “fruit-salad” of their characteristics. It is not the most hospitable place for life since small changes in the distant Sun could freeze or sterilize the Earth. Planetary surfaces and atmospheres are deposited during their birth from a larger body and during electrical encounters with other planets. Planetary surfaces bear the electrical scars of such cosmic events. The speed of light is not a barrier. Real-time communication over galactic distances may be possible. Therefore time is universal and time travel is impossible. Anti-gravity is possible. Space has no extra dimensions in which to warp or where parallel universes may exist. There is no “zero-point” vacuum energy. The invisible energy source in space is electrical. Clean nuclear power is available from resonant catalytic nuclear systems. Higher energy is available from resonant catalytic chemical systems than in the usual chemical reactions. Biological enzymes are capable of utilizing resonant nuclear catalysis to transmute elements. Biological systems show evidence of communicating via resonant chemical systems, which may lend a physical explanation to the work of Rupert Sheldrake. DNA does not hold the key to life but is more like a blueprint for a set of components and tools in a factory. We may never be able to read the human genome and tell whether it represents a creature with two legs or six because the information that controls the assembly line is external to the DNA. There is more to life than chemistry. We are not hopelessly isolated in time and space on a tiny rock, orbiting an insignificant star in an insignificant galaxy. We are hopefully connected with the power and intelligence of the universe. The future in an Electric Universe looks very exciting indeed!