That Sunday Night Look of Parenthood

There are times when only impromptu clown magic will do.
Ok, there really aren't any times like that.

Bolt Outta the Blue... in Your Toaster?

Aiiiee!

Zeus hurled it. Dr. Frankenstein used it. The monster lived it. Eldritch ZAP of dreams and horror movies, it's even used to describe sudden inspiration -- like the rather hackneyed title of this post.

Lightning strikes the earth approx. 100 times every second, 8.64 million times a day, 259.2 million times a month, 3.1 billion times a year. (Note: Wikipedia has a lower figure.) And besides creating pretty light shows and some fairly complex chemistry, it's pretty much all going to waste.

SHOCK AND AWE

Scary to some, would lightning scare you that much if you could harness and store its cumulative energy? The answer is NO. "Lightning Farms" could be installed places with high lightning potential, like Colorado Springs. Global weather changes should spawn whole orders of magnitude increases in lightning. If this blue-white dragon could be tamed, it could even spawn extra-planetary energy systems for astronauts and future colonists to other planets. We know other planets like Venus, Jupiter and Saturn have lightning -- in fact, Jupiter has epic lightning that must be truly amazing to behold.

Lightning just happens to repeatedly strike those developing parts of the earth that could use the energy the most.

IF YOU BUILD IT...

If we could somehow harness lightning, we'd be getting about 30,000 amps of electricity for an average bolt, enough to make steam on a moderate scale and drive turbines. Bigger strikes have about 120,000 amps. Sure, that's not that much energy when compared to how much people use, but multiply by the total number of lightning strikes and you've got a potential for 93.3 trillion amps, or 1.6 trillion megajoules -- 1.6 x 10^18 joules. That's 1.6 sextillion joules, or... one exajoule.

Global energy usage today is about 550 exajoules per year. Yeah, read that again. We use 10X more energy today than we did a century ago.

Of course, Da-da makes this lightning-grab sound easy. Lightning is devilishly complicated, with both positive and negative charged bolts, cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-ground, space-to-chicken, etc. Positive lightning, which comes fro the tops of the highest clouds, makes up about only 5% of total lightning strikes -- but yields 300,000 amps and a billion volts, and of course much higher temperatures. Positive lightning can bring down planes, and has done so, which is why pilots work so hard to avoid it.

[Speaking of planes, it's possible that the water vapor (and whatever else a plane might be leaving behind) could make a path-of-least-resistance for lightning... or perhaps other high-energy sources, HAARP for instance, those contrails creating a kind of high-altitude energy grid for whatever purposes that might serve. Bet you could even use it to spy on people.]

ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION

Speaking of spying on people, lasers have been used to do just that as well as create pathways for lightning. If the incoming energy exceeded the outgoing, and it could be reliably sourced and stored, then that could be one method toward lightning as an alternative energy source. Then again, lighting -- for reasons we don't yet understand -- releases X-rays (which are really just localized gamma rays). So, that pretty blue eye-melting glow plus the incredible noise and non-stop lightning flashes might be a bit too much for a nearby population to endure. Unless they like light shows. And non-stop thunder. It's a tourist attraction! It's a power plant! Stop it, you're both right.

Sure, some have argued that there's not that much energy in one lightning bolt, 'cause there isn't, but if you make up that deficit with sheer volume? And supplement between-storm usage with solar panels? AND somehow harness (and shield yourself from) those ambient X-rays? It's intriguing.

ENTER THE FMC (FREAKING METRIC CRAPLOAD)

Ok, NOW let's think about lightning's source.

Lightning is static electricity generated by all those mega-gajillions of air molecules rubbing against each other all over the place, tickled by EM dynamos of both the earth and sun, pummeled by gamma rays and meteors striking it... blah blah blah. Basically, there is a Freaking Metric Crapload (FMC) of energy floating around over our heads 24/7/365.25... and you don't necessarily need a lightning rod to harness it.

Tesla, who gave the word, "amazing" a run for its money, showed how you could place a pole in the ground, say 50 feet tall or taller, and generate electricity from the differences in electrical potential from the top of the pole to the bottom -- with a secure ground. This is like slow lightning, much easier to harness, manage and deploy. (Tesla noted that to make this work, you had to have a very reliable ground, either down to groundwater level, or using a tree with roots touching the water table.) Hm. Maybe that's what this very interesting thing used to be, long ago, a base to a larger electrical structure, though it's probably just an amazing example of ancient metallurgy, one we cannot date and cannot reproduce.

Basically, energy and lost ideas are all around you. Get creative.

You don't want to look like this guy.

DON'T PULL A BEN

NEEDLESS TO SAY, If you choose to experiment, BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL AROUND LIGHTNING and electricity. One amp can kill you. Don't go sticking copper rods in the ground and attaching wires and standing next to the damn things during electrical storms. Ben Franklin was lucky he wasn't killed. (He flew kites with wires instead of string into electrical storms.) Use thought experiments, please. And some common sense. Which is not common anymore. So use uncommon sense. And Vive Muchachos.

Just trying to help the ballclub and all that. Tesla did much more, securing some 300 patents (!) worldwide, but alas, he died penniless. The guy invented radio (not Marconi), A/C motors, A/C current, fluorescent lighting and about a zillion other things that you and your kitty cat use every single freaking day and he died broke, his journals stolen and hoarded by the government after his death. Tesla invented the modern world you live in and you just thought he was a bad '80s band.

Anyway, if any of the above sparks an idea and you somehow make a zillion dollars -- or save a zillion -- please remember to return here and DONATE to Da-da a small fraction, thereof -- a return stroke, if you will. Da-da could use it. Unlike Tesla, Da-da has dependents.

Who's your exajoule da-da?

Main data source: Wikipedia.

But It's a Wet Heat

That's still 250 degrees cooler than Venus, but it's a wet heat.

A Sign Unto You

Da-da's Gothic Home Improvement for the Haunted Parent

A rare view of Da-da's street. Great synthetic people watching!
Note the Google Camera Cars -- on the ground and in the sky!

Da-da's Gothic Home Improvement for the Haunted Parent

Da-da just installed a fog machine and track lighting. Homey!

Assorted Scenes From Da-da's Mind-Roasting Summer

Get That Dinosaur Outta There

So long. Don't let the next era hit you in the butt on the way out.

Da-da rarely does this kinda thing, but this must-read bears reposting. It's only a matter of time before someone high-up breaks ranks and spills their guts.

US rulers fear American people

veteransnewsnow.com/2013/06/24/224729-us-rulers-fear-american-people/

What the disclosures of former CIA contractor Edward Snowden show perhaps above all else is just how petrified the leaders of the United States have become – of ordinary citizens both in the US and around the world. When we say “leaders” we mean the ruling elite – the top one percent of the financial-corporate-military-industrial complex and its bought- and paid-for politicians.

by Finian Cunningham


The international manhunt by the US authorities for Snowden, which has accelerated with his flight to Moscow to evade extradition from Hong Kong, is indicative of the desperation in Washington’s elitist establishment to quash him and what he is revealing about their despotic rule.

Today, the US has evolved into a dystopia, not a democracy, where obscene wealth and privilege stand in the face of massive poverty and misery. One indicator of this abysmal inequality is the fact that the 400 richest Americans have more material wealth than 155 million of their fellow citizens combined. Another datum: some 50 million Americans – a sixth of the population – are surviving on food handouts. Unemployment, homelessness, suicide rates, prescription drug addiction, rampant gun crime all speak in different ways of social meltdown.

American society is collapsing from the sheer weight of its decrepit capitalist economy. The social system is unsustainable. It is like a distended rotten sack that is coming apart at the seams from inexorable burgeoning pressure. This is not unique to the US. All around the world, people are rebelling against the inequity of crony capitalism – there is only one form of capitalism – from Europe to the Arab Middle East, from Turkey to Brazil.

But the US is a phenomenal case in point of collapsing capitalist society. It’s hard to believe that not so long ago, within living memory; the US was regarded as the economic paradigm of the world. Now it more and more resembles a giant sprawling ghetto of unremitting poverty that is interspersed with a few gated rich communities, the latter populated by the top one percent of society.

This is the historical context for fully understanding the significance of gargantuan state surveillance by the elite against the citizenry, as revealed by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The American ruling class, as with their elite counterparts around the world, are figuratively sitting within their privileged niches and petrified by the mounting discontent “outside”. Through their criminal ransacking and rigging of wealth, the powers-that-be have through their own insatiable greed created a powerful potential enemy -virtually the entire population, both in the US and around the world.

In this highly unstable situation of elites and masses that bankrupt capitalism has furnished, “democracy” can no longer be tolerated by the rulers. That is why the rulers have embarked on massive information gathering, monitoring, spying and surveillance. It is all about maintaining “control” of a precarious and explosive disequilibrium.

One basic duty of any state is to protect its citizens from foreign enemies. Enemies are conventionally understood to be state militaries or non-state terrorist groups. But from Snowden’s revelations of US government surveillance of telecommunications, the vast bulk of America’s spying is on civilians. The phone calls, emails, cyber chats and photos of billions of people all around the world are vacuumed up and stored for analysis. Snowden disclosed in one instance how Chinese hospitals and universities – not military installations – were among the many international civilian targets for American government snooping.

US national security officials defend this global dragnet method as a necessary way to trawl for terrorists. Last week, the chief of the National Security Agency, General Keith Alexander told the American Senate that more than 50 terrorist plots against the US had been foiled by the NSA’s interception of civilian communications. The evidence for the alleged thwarted terrorist attacks cited by General Alexander was sketchy at best, so we are obliged to accept the NSA’s dubious word on its self-serving claims of success.

Even if we accept this claim on face value, an alleged terror threat numbering 50, gleaned from billions of communication files, is a negligible ratio, akin to a needle in a haystack. That means two things. First, the statistical terror threat against US citizens is likewise negligible to the point of being virtually non-existent. As Snowden himself pointed out, the chances of Americans dying from slipping in their bathtub are far great than from terrorism. The second thing is that the official pretext for global, industrial-scale infringement of privacy – that is, national security of its citizens – is grotesquely disproportionate, and therefore unjustifiable.

In the aftermath of these revelations, US President Barack Obama and his security officials are claiming that the infringements of individual privacy are minor. “No-one is listening to your phone calls,” said Obama. He also added that there must be a trade-off between national security and what he called “minor breaches” of civil liberties.

These assurances from Obama and US National Intelligence Director James Clapper, among others, are rejected by Snowden and other NSA whistleblowers, as well as by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is litigating against the American government over the recent revelations. Official claims of limited surveillance and breaches are also repudiated by various digital privacy advocates, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as by common knowledge of American constitutional rights.

Edward Snowden says that when he was working at the NSA, he had clearance to hack into anyone’s email “including the president’s”. That is far from “minor”.

Another former senior employee of the NSA, Thomas Drake, who was prosecuted under the US Espionage Act for similar whistleblowing in 2011, says that the American government and its secret agencies have systematically “subverted the constitution” by arrogating the power to tap into all and any communications that they desire. In a narrow sense, Obama may be right that “no-one is listening to your phone calls”. Not yet, at least, but the executive powers and technology are in place for this totalitarian system of eavesdropping to be switched on.

Drake writes, “The supposed oversight, combined with enabling legislation – the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court, the congressional committees – is all a kabuki dance, predicated on the national security claim that we need to find a threat. The reality is: they [the US government] just want it all, period.” He added: “They have this extraordinary system: in effect, a 24/7 panopticon on a vast scale that it is gazing at you with an all-seeing eye.” 

It seems an incredible lack of judgment among some alternative commentators who have dismissed Snowden’s revelations as trivial. Worse still, some commentators have even insinuated that the former NSA analyst is a witting or unwitting player in an elaborate CIA hoax aimed at intimidating citizens from using mass communications.

Such views badly underestimate the extent of American government criminality towards its own sacrosanct constitution and the deeply corrupting implications that has for democracy.

Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Snowden story earlier this month, has said, “The people who have learned things they didn’t already know are American citizens who have no connection to terrorism or foreign intelligence, as well as hundreds of millions of citizens around the world about whom the same is true. What they have learned is that the vast bulk of this surveillance apparatus is directed not at the Chinese or Russian governments or terrorists, but at them.”

Greenwald adds, “And that is precisely why the US government is so furious and will bring its full weight to bear against these disclosures. What has been ‘harmed’ is not the national security of the US but the ability of its political leaders to work against their own citizens and citizens around the world in the dark, with zero transparency or real accountability.”

Since the US Espionage Act was instituted nearly a century ago in 1917, there have been a total of 10 prosecutions against American government employees deemed to have broken the law and compromised national security through whistleblowing. One of those was former State Department staffer Daniel Ellsberg who released the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, revealing the spurious legal grounds for the American genocidal war on Vietnam.

Seven out of the total 10 prosecutions against whistleblowers – 70 percent – have occurred under the Obama administrations. That figure alone tells of a growing anxiety within the American ruling class. That anxiety is related to their increasingly criminal secret powers and the ongoing subversion of democracy. The American rulers are jealously guarding their criminal behaviour and that is why they are hunting down with a vengeance people like Snowden who are seen to be exposing this criminality. It is something of an irony that this week Snowden had to flee to Russia (the former “evil empire” in the words of late American President Ronald Reagan) in order to avoid extradition to the US where he is charged with felonies under the Espionage Act.

Former NSA employee Thomas Drake says that when he was working as an analyst during the Cold War he was assigned to monitor the espionage activities of Stalinist East Germany and its secret Stasi police. Drake says that the Stasi had an obsession to “knowing everything” about its citizens and kept a huge archive of paper files. However, this voluminous archiving is a fraction of what is stored and accessible by American secret services owing to the internet and digital technology. Drake describes the American NSA as “a Stasi on steroids”.

In the 1970s, US Senator Frank Church led a groundbreaking investigation into illicit American government covert operations. Church warned then that if the secret powers of the NSA were to ever become deployed against the American public – as opposed to “foreign enemies” – then that country’s democracy would be finished. That is precisely the present abysmal outcome of secret US state powers.

There are two corollaries of the imploding capitalist system, for which the US still remains the lynchpin for historical reasons. The first is the increasing militarism of the US and its Western allies to compensate for this economic demise. This militarism has evolved over the past decade since the purported 9/11 terror attacks on the US in 2001 to become a condition of “permanent war”. The present US-led covert war in Syria and underway against Iran are part of a continuum of imperialist war-making that connects Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, as well as Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Mali. This state of permanent war is needed by the waning capitalist powers to try to assert control of natural resources, markets, finance and investment against perceived rivals, such as Russia and China.

The other corollary of the historic failure of capitalism, and in particular in the US, is the imperative to assert control over social meltdown and rebellion. That is why the growth in militarism abroad has gone hand-in-glove with the intensification of surveillance powers and repression against citizens at home. American, and Western, democracy is, for all intents and purposes, a dead corpse. Only criminal wars and repression of its citizens are keeping the moribund system on a life-support system.

As Thomas Drake noted, “Since the [US] government unchained itself from the constitution after 9/11, it has been eating our democracy alive from the inside out.”

The rulers of America are despotic elites who are living in fear and trepidation of their own people and of people power around the world rising in rebellion against the misrule of capitalism.

Source : Press Tv

Short URL: http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/?p=224729

One of the pithy commenters (hit the link) seriously hit the nail on the head:

"They are scared sh*tless that Snowden will expose their complicity in 9/11.

They need the secret massive blackmail/enslavement surveillance grid to protect them from the noose."

Childhood's End. 

The Ebb and Flow of Poetic Indecision

The Ebb and Flow of Poetic Indecision                                                                            [via TIH]

The Case of the Haunted, Revolving Egyptian Statue Mystery SOLVED

LONDON: Curse of the spinning statue! In some eerie news, a 4,000-year-old Egyptian statue has puzzled curators at Manchester museum after the relic started to mysteriously spin 180 degrees on its own.

The 10-inch tall relic, which dates back to 1800 BC, was found in a mummy's tomb and has spent 80 years at the Manchester Museum.

However, in recent weeks, curators were spooked after they kept finding the statue facing the wrong way. Experts decided to monitor the room on time-lapse video and were astonished to see it clearly show the statuette spinning 180 degrees - with nobody going near it.

The statue of a man named Neb-Senu is seen to remain still at night but slowly rotate round during the day, 'Manchester Evening News' reported.

This is an easy one.

You'll notice that the statue only moves during the day as people come and go talking of some old pharoah. It's moving in sympathetic vibration to the foot traffic in and out of the building. Give the statue what we former IT pros call, "LRF support" (Little Rubber Feet) and it will stop moving.

QED.

Pay a Modicum of Attention to the Death Star Orbiting the Sun Right in Front of the Curtain

In this image from Friday afternoon, you can see the object at the eight o'clock position.
The little white speck to its below-left is Jupiter, though quite a ways away.

Wow. Da-da didn't want to write about this till he scoped the satellite views for himself. Whatever it is, it's there: an object the size of Jupiter -- bigger, actually, 10X bigger, if the image is accurate -- and two more may also have appeared, as well as a handful of objects larger than the earth. They can't be planets or, "companion stars," as the first one just suddenly appeared, as you'll see in the timecode images below. And glitches don't typically orbit stars.

UPDATE: Click HERE for video of the object, "de-cloaking" -- or impacting the sensor -- whatever's happening here; anomaly pops up around the 6-17-13 date mark. Video is of the sun over a week's timeframe via Da-da's custom data grab.

Here we go.

That Mealtime Look of Parenthood

Time to feed the zombies. Hopefully some hospital somewhere can regrow limbs.

Happy Solstice From the Little Girl on the Sun

At least it's not a unicorn.

A Simple, Complex Entreaty of Puzzling Force and Moment

Enough.

Every day, we read about nearly every branch of the U.S. Government spying on Americans and her allies, or being complicit in this act. We read about billions of bullets being purchased and stockpiled by the government, much more than would ever used during whole wars. We read about IRS agents being armed with AR-15s, and several thousand tanks purchased by, "Homeland Security." We read about people who have brought these activities to light dying in convenient, "accidents," others being hunted, labeled as, "traitors." We read about people held without rights in a prison without end. We read about the Government stealing phone records from the media and using these lists for their own private witch hunt. We read about drones, armed flying robots targeting people, killing people, flying over playgrounds and hospitals at home and abroad. We read about a small, select few selling out their brothers for money and power and creature comforts. We read a lot of things -- most of them in the foreign press, as our own media has been largely compromised. Needless to say, we the people of the United States of America, the people of the world, have had enough.

Those responsible, Da-da speaks to you.

You know what you're doing is wrong. You may feel guilty for it, fearful perhaps. Not knowing what to do with these feelings -- you lash out, projecting this guilt and fear-as-anger onto others, using it for justification of future acts. This magnifies your guilt and fear, making you doubly afraid that you're going to be found out, terrified you'll be one day held accountable.

Da-da is not here to judge, merely to give you some advice.

The only way to stop your feelings of guilt and fear is to look at their source, look at what you're doing, then:

STOP YOUR ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES. By July 4th, 2013.

You know what you're doing is wrong... so stop. Own up to it. Admit without worry, without fear of reprisal. The American people are actually very forgiving. If you can't own up to the truth, at least STOP what you're doing. Call in sick. Take a vacation day. Do nothing.

When was the last time you felt good about what you were doing? Now's the time.

We all want to believe that someone somewhere will do the right thing when it's necessary. We TRUST that they will. Indeed, we know they will.

So, do the right thing. You know what that is. Build back the trust. Work with those who are trying to do the right thing. And...

Please STOP your illegal activities by July 4th, 2013. 

Make that the day you start fresh.

The bow has broken. The cradle has fallen. But that doesn't mean it can't be fixed.

*1984* is Not an Instruction Manual for the Future

More Allegorical Scenes From Da-da's Mind-Roasting Summer

Yeah, right. Factually, Da-da's mind-roasting summer is looking more like...

...this. A little help.

The One Where Da-da Messes Up the High-End Car Market

This image works for everything.

Da-da doesn't exactly live in Beverly Hills, but more and more he's seeing 20-somethings driving luxury cars all over the place. It's not difficult to see why. Car manufacturers are being increasingly disingenuous to sell at any cost, suckering kids with seductive music-video commercials and ads, "helping" young adults into buying or leasing cars they can only afford by way of EZ Monthly Payments -- over an 11 year car loan. A car mortgage!

11 years. To pay off a car. You're gonna lose half its value just driving it off the lot, unless you're foolish enough to lease it. But that's just the beginning. College grads and pre-grads, before you go out and abuse that clean new credit to purchase a BMW or Mercedes or Land Rover or whatever, there's something car manufacturers haven't told you.

Sure, these might be amazing luxury vehicles, and the prices (and silly taglines and marketing) and "maintenance included" spiffs equally amazing, but besides the extra interest you'll pay on that 11-year loan (or lease money tossed into a bank hole), just wait till you have to pay $2200 for brakes in 15,000 miles, or $1200 for tires, or $3000 for a new clutch, not to mention higher taxes and vehicle tags (tag price/registration is based on car cost).

Ok, this one might be worth it.

Leased vehicles -- even ones from the future -- also require the most expensive level of car insurance because... it's not your car. You just rent it from the bank. They want their property looked after. And when the lease is over, they get their property back and you have nothing to show for your "investment." (FYI, cars are generally bad investments.)

Basically, banks win. You lose. Anyone who tells you any different is selling something.

That '81 Honda (THAT GETS 34 MPG) is starting to look pretty good right now, huh? Of course it isn't. But buying what you can afford, buying something with CASH... well, it might not be an awesome luxury vehicle, but it gets you from here to there, and it's paid for. Paid-for is a wonderful feeling. It doesn't happen very often in our "modern" world. And those cool young people with the cool luxury vehicles... well, some are just lucky, but Da-da's guessing most of them are bankster victims, victims of 50 years of automotive manipulation.

Indebtedness is not cool. Excess is not cool. Greed is not cool. Manipulating, debasing, ripping off billions of your fellow human beings while sipping $200 glasses of wine atop the power pyramid is not cool.

Then again, some might like being taken advantage of, as well as their heirs and their heirs, ripped off in perpetuity, generation after generation.

A pity the U.S. is so short-sighted when it comes to public transportation. It's easy to see why so little of it exists: like public education, there's no MONEY in it.

Bikes are looking pretty good to Da-da these days. As are other countries.

Da-da's new ride is here. Yup: it's a bike.

Scenes From Da-da's Mind-Roasting Summer

HELLO, summer with insane small children! GOODBYE sanity!

The Awesome Simulacra of Mystical Statistical Correlation and Inexplicable Insistence

So. This happened a little while ago. Look familiar?

Now does it look familiar? You know what this means, right?

Should be fairly obvious.

Machu Picchu is a prehistoric culture-blog stat chart. In stone.

Happy Dada Day

Thank you, Grant Snider.

Is That YOUR Kid's Portal?

Have a GOOD LOOK at the portal your kid opened, mister. Have to you SEEN so many unicorns and bunnies in your life?

Comedy and Tragedy on Da-da's Main Stage

Some artist's idea of Homer. If you rubbed his nose, he told you a story.

Prologue
 
Hello, and welcome to rambling long-form Post #1464! Great to be here. Onward.

Few of you know -- how could you? -- that Da-da was unlucky enough to endure benefit from an extensive education in not only Science and Technology, but also the Classics and Humanities, History in general -- and about a zillion other subjects. Such books always seemed to be inside Da-da's cage.

Believe it or not, this curriculum mirrors what's happening today, but with less wigs and robes and more unprotected sex, and also shows you how long it took Da-da to get out of college; however, in terms of blood and cruelty, we seem to have exceeded our ancient counterparts, we just hide it better. 

Misinterpretation of the Ancient Greek Chorus brought you: OPERA! If you're into that kinda thing.

The Players

Ah, Classics and Humanities: they makes the average hominid's eyes turn to opaque glass. But wait! Bright shiny thing!

The Humanities are, "The Best-of the Human Race," if that's possible, which includes: Art, Literature, Philosophy, World Religion, History, Theater History, Archaeology, Languages, etc. Wait... Theater History? Yup. Waitforit.

The Classics explore the earliest complete writings from Ancient Greece and Rome, on through their re-discovery and interpretation from the Middle Ages to The Renaissance to doric fast food joints all over North Hollywood, encompassing a bunch of other epochs that are making your eyes glaze over again.

Best of all were, The NAKED MAGICIANS.

Impromptu Dinner Guests at Chez Da-da Mean...

...TWO non-stick shovels used SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Scenes From Da-da's Mind-Roasting Summer

School's out. Follow the signs.

One More Piece of Information and You May Change Your Mind...

...about the long-term efficacy of Polyjuice Potion.

American History You Probably Never Learned #101: Follow the Money

Here's a juicy sideways connection. Da-da's oldest son, Nagurski, is currently reading a kid's book about all the U.S. Presidents, and it spells out a puzzling fact of history that's always bugged Da-da: every President killed -- and there were a lot -- was killed because of money and banking. It's an integral part of U.S. history, as you'll see below. Note Da-da's assorted notes on The Titanic, halfway down, as well as others [in brackets]. 

This timeline shows the pattern of American Presidents being assassinated after challenging central bankers and their monopoly on money, and the Federal Reserve’s artificial creation of booms and busts that causes people to lose their jobs, homes, and retirements, while the bankers further consolidate wealth and control.

1694 – Bank of England Established
First Central Bank established in the UK. Served as model for most modern central banks.

1744- Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Founder of the Rothschild Banking Empire, is Born in Frankfurt, Germany
Mayer Amschel Rothschild extended his banking empire across Europe by carefully placing his five sons in key positions. They set up banks in Frankfurt, Vienna, London, Naples, and Paris.  By the mid 1800’s they dominated the banking industry, lending to governments around the world and people such as the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, and Cecil Rhodes.

1757- Colonial Scrip Issued in US
Debt free, fiat currency was printed in the public interest. As Benjamin Franklin said,
“In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called colonial scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay no one.”

1776 – American Independence

1791 – Congress Creates the First US Bank – A Private Company, Partly Owned by Foreigners – to Handle the Financial Needs of the New Central Government
Previously, the 13 states had their own banks, currencies and financial institutions.

[Da-da insert: 1812 -- Rothschild makes a killing buying and selling bonds associated with The War of 1812 via advanced knowledge (one whole day) of the outcome of Wellington's battle with Napoleon, boosting his existing wealth by 6300%.]

1816 – The Privately Owned Second Bank of the US was Chartered – It Served as the Main Depository for Government Revenue, Making it a Highly Profitable Bank

1832 – Andrew Jackson Campaigns Against the 2^nd Bank of the US and Vetoes Bank Charter Renewal
Andrew Jackson was  skeptical of the central banking system and believed it gave too few men too much power and caused inflation. He was also a proponent of gold and silver and an outspoken opponent of the 2^nd National Bank. The Charter expired in 1836.

1833 – President Jackson Issues Executive Order to Stop Depositing Government Funds Into Bank of US
By September 1833, government funds were being deposited into state chartered banks.

Jan 30, 1835 – Jackson Escapes Assassination
Assassin misfired twice.

1833-1837 – Manufactured “boom” created by central bankers – money supply Increases 84%, Spurred by the 2^nd Bank of the US
The total money supply rose from $150 million to $267 million.[1]

1837-1843 – Terrible Depression
343 of the 850 banks in the US closed entirely as largest banks consolidated wealth and power.[2]

1861 – American Civil War

1862-1863 Lincoln Over Rules Debt-Based Money and Issues Greenbacks to Fund the War
Bankers would only lend the government money under certain conditions and at high interest rates, so Lincoln issued his own currency – “greenbacks” – through the US Treasury, and made them legal tender. His soldiers went on to win the war, followed by great economic expansion.
           
April 15, 1865 – Lincoln Assassinated

1881- President James Garfield, Staunch Proponent of “Honest Money” Backed by Gold and Silver, was Assassinated
Garfield opposed fiat currency (money that was not backed by any physical object) and was a strong advocate of a bi-metal monetary system. He had the second shortest Presidency in history.

[Da-da insert: March 4, 1901 -- William McKinley Assassinated.
McKinley was also a strong advocate of a bi-metal monetary system.]

1907- Banking Panic of 1907
The New York Stock Exchange dropped dramatically as everyone tried to get their money out of the banks at the same time across the nation. This banking panic spurred debate for banking reform. JP Morgan and others gathered to create an image of concern and stability in the face of the panic, which eventually led to the formation of the Federal Reserve. The founders of the Federal Reserve pretended like the bankers were opposed to the idea of its formation in order to mislead the public into believing that the Federal Reserve would help to regulate bankers when in fact it really gave even more power to private bankers, but in a less transparent way.

1908 – JP Morgan Associate and Rockefeller Relative Nelson Aldrich Heads New National Monetary Commission
Senate Republican leader, Nelson Aldrich, heads the new National Monetary Commission that was created to study the cause of the banking panic. Aldrich had close ties with J.P. Morgan and his daughter married John D. Rockefeller.

1910 – Bankers Meet Secretly on Jekyll Island to Draft Federal Reserve Banking Legislation
Over the course of a week, some of the nations most powerful bankers met secretly off the coast of Georgia, drafting a proposal for a private Central Banking system. Those in attendance included Nelson Aldrich, A.P. Andrew (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury), Paul Warburg (Kuhn, Loeb, & Co.), Frank Vanderlip (President of National City Bank of New York), Charles D. Norton (president of the Morgan-dominated First National Bank of New York), Henry Davidson (Senior Partner of JP Morgan Co.), and Benjamin Strong (representing JP Morgan).

[Da-da insert: April 15, 1912 -- Titanic Sinks, With All Central Bank Foes on Board
J.P. Morgan, who owned the Titanic, "just missed the boat" after promising to iron out the differences with all foes of the Federal Reserve during the voyage, who all just happened to be on board to meet with Morgan about this issue. The ship famously sank and of course had only enough lifeboats for the women and children. All of those financial figures who were against The Fed perished, some 600+. Now, since Morgan literally missed the boat, he went on to help create...]

Dec 23, 1913 – Federal Reserve Act Passed
Two days before Christmas, while many members of Congress were away on vacation, the Federal Reserve Act was passed, creating the Central banking system we have today. It was based on the Aldrich plan drafted on Jekyll Island and gave private bankers supreme authority over the economy. They are now able to create money out of nothing (and loan it out at interest), make decisions without government approval, and control the amount of money in circulation.

1913 – Income tax established -16^th Amendment Ratified
Taxes ensured that citizens would cover the payment of debt due to the Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, which was also created in 1913.The 16^th Amendment stated: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

[Da-da insert: Tax Day, April 15th -- the anniversary of the Titanic's sinking -- is later installed to secretly commemorate J.P. Morgan's Titanic scam.]

 1914 – JP Morgan and Co. Profits from Financing both sides of War and Purchasing Weapons
 J.P. Morgan and Co. made a deal with the Bank of England to give them a monopoly on underwriting war bonds for the UK and France. They also invested in the suppliers of war equipment to Britain and France.

November 1914 – Federal Reserve Banks Open

1921-1929 – The “Roaring 20’s” – The Federal Reserve Floods the Economy with Cash and Credit
From 1921 to 1929 the Federal Reserve increased the money supply by $28 billion, almost a 62% increase over an eight-year period.[3] This artificially created another “boom”.

1929 – Federal Reserve Contracts the Money Supply
In 1929, the Federal Reserve began to pull money out of circulation as loans were paid back. They created a “bust” which was inevitable after issuing so much credit in the years before. The Federal Reserve’s actions triggered the banking crisis, which led to the Great Depression.

October 24, 1929 – “Black Thursday”, Stock Market Crash
The most devastating stock market crash in history. Billions of dollars in value were consolidated into the private banker’s hands at the expense of everyone else.

1930- Great Depression Begins

1929-1933- Federal Reserve Reduces Money Supply by 33%

June 4, 1963 – Kennedy Issued [His Last] Executive Order (11110) that Authorized the US Treasury to Issue Silver Certificates, Threatening the Federal Reserve’s Monopoly on Money
This government-issued currency would bypass the government's need to borrow from bankers at interest.

Nov. 22, 1963 - Kennedy Assassinated

December 1963 – Johnson Reverses Kennedy’s Banking Rule and Restores Power to the Federal Reserve With His [First] Executive Order

1999 – The Financial Services Modernization Act Allows Banks to Grow Even Larger
Many economists and politicians have recognized that this legislation played a key part in the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007.  It repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and allowed investment banks, commercial banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to merge. Citigroup was a major proponent of this particular bill (it had already merged with Travelers Insurance and needed to find a way to legally keep the corporation together). The government gave Citi officials the opportunity to review and approve drafts before the legislation was introduced and to modify it as they desired. Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary at the time, helped move the bill forward in early 1999.  He then stepped down from the Treasury position in July, joined CitiGroup in October, and the bill was passed in November.  The Center for Responsive Politics also found that members of Congress who supported the bill received twice as much money from the banking sector than those who opposed it.[4]

2000-2003 – The Federal Reserve Extends “Easy Credit”, Lowers the Federal Fund Rate from 6.5% to 1%[5] and Sets up Another Financial “Boom”

2004 – Investment Banks and the SEC Cut a Deal
On April 28, 2004, five of the biggest investment banks, including Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs (then run by Henry Paulson, who later became Secretary of the Treasury), met with members of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), urging them to allow voluntary regulation of themselves, so they could determine themselves how much money they could make up out of nothing to loan into circulation. This is known as the banks leverage ratio, or amount of assets to borrowing ratio. Up until 2004, the amount of debt the banks could take on was limited. However, in 2004, the SEC agreed to let banks regulate themselves and take on as much debt as they wanted, therefore unleashing billions of dollars for high-risk investment packages. Under this new voluntary regulation the Bear Stearns ratio, for example, jumped to 33 to 1.[6] Not long after, the economy collapsed and financial wealth and power was again further consolidated into the hands of the private bankers who run the Federal Reserve.

2004-2006 – Federal Reserve Sets Off New “Bust” by Making Loans and Adjustable Rate Mortgages More Expensive, Raising Fed Fund Rates to 5.25%[7], This contracts the market.

2007-2010 – Worst Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression
The financial crisis impacted people around the world – millions lost their homes, jobs, and retirement funds. Many of the smaller banks were absorbed by others, which allowed the biggest banks to further consolidate wealth and eliminate competition. In 2008, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. bought up both Washington Mutual (the biggest bank to “fail” in the history of the United States) and Bear Stearns (the fifth largest investment bank).

2010 – JP Morgan Chase Reports Record Profits
The bank made a record profit of $17.4 Billion in 2010. [8]

[timeline, notes and source]

Besides all the Presidents getting whacked, look at the above pattern of manufactured booms and busts. Bet you never saw that before. But there it is.

Basically, parents today have to ask the question: What kind of world do we want our children to inherit? Da-da doesn't know about you, but he has higher standards.

                                                                                                                                                  [img src: Robert Montgomery]

The Da-da Trench Test (UPDATED)

Da-da's actually quite sweet -- provided you apes take Hill 407 this time without tantrums.

After inspecting his sleeping troops and settling in to his cold k-ration beany weenies -- AGAIN -- after a terrible day in the kid-trenches (trench beany weenies are the highlight), Da-da ruminated on what it's really like to be A Man Called Da-da, with two sub-7YO mental patients -- or being a parent, in general. What's it really like?

It's like trench warfare, that's what. But with more hugs and vomit. And a stuffed unicorn in no-man's land. Don't believe Da-da? Then take this little parenting test:

The Da-da Trench Test

1. Do you feel exhausted from little or no sleep/being up all night, your fatigue the stuff of legend?
2. Are you perpetually rumpled, dirty, unclean, unshaven, unkempt, perhaps even STINKY -- in public -- and find that you simply don't care?
3. Have you started to resemble Chewbacca? Make Wookie noises?
4. Do you often find yourself wearing the same clothes over and over, day after day?
5. Do you find yourself scarfing cold or lukewarm, greasy food while standing up/walking/running?
6. Have you found that you actually not only LIKE beany weenies, but talk about it in public? 
7. Do you occasionally find yourself screaming?
8. Do you occasionally find yourself screaming the same thing over and over? And over?
9. Do you occasionally scream or pontificate about beany weenies?
10. Has your memory... um, is the... what was the question? 

If you answered YES to many of the above questions, CONGRATULATIONS: you're a parent. Or perhaps a teenager.

If you'd like the...

DELUXE DA-DA TRENCH TEST, TRY THIS

...it's on page 185.

Whose turn is it to take out the diaper pail? (WWI Sam Raimi courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Ramey.)

Sunday Evening is for...

Sunday evening is for wrestling with metaphor.

That Sunday Look of Parenthood

Da-da's ready to play Extreme Scrabble. Either that, or it was Burrito Night
for Bronko and Nagurski. Oh, good: Da-da got the Z.

Welcome to Monsanto's Plastic Home of the Future

Afraid of unstable molecules, toxic chemicals and unsafe levels of radiation in your food? Well, life will be ONE BIG PARTY once inside your very own Monsanto Personal Shield 3000! Get in one and you're instantly 100% GMO-free! Well, mostly. We're getting back to our roots -- and out of yours!

Secret Societies TODAY: "Bilderbergers Just Want to Be Friends"

Bilderbergers enjoy good rapport with local law enforcement.

This just in, from Secret Societies Today... 

HERTFORDSHIRE, June 7, 2013 /SSTNewswire/ -- The second day of Bilderberg meetings in Hertfordshire, UK, went well today, with only four dead and 17 missing. A spokesman for the Bilderberg Group stated that he found the townsfolk both tender and delightful, adding: 

"The lead pellet bon-bons and friendly constabulary made us feel especially safe and welcome." 

Invitees were especially excited about the upcoming 217th Annual Bilderberg Bonfire and BBQ festivities to be held Saturday at midnight. Those small children who received special invitations are to wear black robes and are to eat only fruit the day prior. 

A Cabal spokesman later commented, through a Dementor, that all should, "watch out," for, "fun activities for all," starting on Tuesday, June 11th -- aka, "6-11" to those at Secret Societies Today. He later added, without smiling: "You have been warned." 

Similar special events planned for last summer's London Olympics had been called off due to monetary misunderstandings with local politicians. The Cabal's past activities, planned for 9-11 and 3-11 celebrations, have become not only well-known, but truly unforgettable.

Bilderbergers just want to be friends.