Archive for the ‘The Perfect Storm’ Category

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Hackers find plan to attack WikiLeaks

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

– Least anyone wonder, I fully support what Assange’s done.   Governments, and I mean the U.S. especially here, keep far too much secret.   Democracy should be as transparent as it can be consistant with security but most governments err far over that mark.

– So, I applaude Anonymous and their efforts to make the control and suppresdsion of information painful for those who participate in it. – dennis

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LONDON – The computer hackers’ collective Anonymous has uncovered a proposal by a consortium of private contractors to attack and discredit WikiLeaks.

Last week Anonymous volunteers broke into the servers of HB Gary Federal, a security company that sells investigative services to companies, and posted thousands of the firm’s emails on to the internet.

The attack was in revenge for claims by the company’s chief executive Aaron Barr that he had successfully infiltrated the shadowy cyber protest network and discovered details of its leadership and structure.

Hacktivists, journalists and bloggers have since pored over the emails and discovered what appears to be a proposal that was intended to be pitched to the Bank of America to sabotage WikiLeaks and discredit journalists who are sympathetic to the whistle-blowing website.

The PowerPoint presentation claims a trio of internet security companies – HB Gary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies – are already prepared to attack WikiLeaks which is rumoured to be getting ready to release a cache of potentially embarrassing information on the Bank of America.

– more… ➡

Posted in And Now for Something Completely Different, CyberChaos, Politics, Technical | No Comments »

Food – a growing and very dangerous problem

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

– The news is beginning to show ominous patterns on the subject of food.   Prices are rising, many countries and their populations are near the limit of what they can pay for food before serious food shortages and starvation ensue.   And, inevitably following such events will come political instability, mass migrations and increased violence and fundamentalism.   It is not a pretty picture.   And, it’s been on the approach for some time now.

Reflect on the collection of stories below.   – Dennis

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from history.com:

Sinaloa, the “Breadbasket of Mexico,” devotes over three quarters of its landmass to agricultural production. It is the country’s leading producer of rice and vegetables, and the second largest producer of wheat and beans. Fishing and livestock provide additional revenue, as does Mazatlán’s canning facility, the largest in Latin America…  Agriculture accounts for about 21 percent of the state’s economy.

from Investor Daily 2/11/11:

According to Sysco’s notice sent out this week:
“The early reports [from Sinaloa] are still coming in but most are showing losses of crops in the range of 80 to 100%. Even shade house product was hit by the extremely cold temps. It will take 7-10 days to have a clearer picture from growers and field supervisors, but these growing regions haven’t had cold like this in over half a century.”

China and Drought

China has announced $1 billion in funding to help farmers fight the country’s devastating droughts, according to The Guardian.

The country is facing its worst drought in 60 years right where it hurts the most, the wheat producing province of Shangdong.

China and Russia

The dramatic rise in the price of food commodities for some of the world’s most populous countries is hitting Russia and China hard, according to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.He points out in The Telegraph that the situation is getting worse for Russia and China, and that wheat is not the only worry.

The problem is not just the dramatic 70% rise in wheat prices due to the drought and fires around the Black Sea, but also massive Chinese imports of corn. Corn has increased in price by 40% since June due to that Chinese demand.

–  (Dennis) In addition to the above, which are just the items floating by in the news now, consider the following which I’ve commented/reported on previously:

Americans in Poverty

25 Countries on the brink

The coming Dangerous Year

One Harvest away from Chaos

Wheat Rust never sleeps

Britain and coming Food Shortages

Wheat Crop Time Bomb

Food Shortages and Civilization

–  (Dennis) There are many more similar articles out there.

– Take a look and see if you can find serious upbeat articles saying we have plenty of food capacity and that it’ll all be right in a few months or years as the world reorganizes and copes effeciently with this looming problem.

– Can’t find many?   I’m not surprised.

– Research thanks to Johnathan S. and Kael L. and others.

Posted in CrashBlogging, Food Shortages, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Study reveals rapid deforestation in Malaysia

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

New satellite imagery shows Malaysia is destroying forests more than three times faster than all of Asia combined, and its carbon-rich peat soils of the Sarawak coast are being stripped even faster, according to a study released yesterday.

The report commissioned by the Netherlands-based Wetlands International says Malaysia is uprooting an average 2 percent of the rain forest a year on Sarawak, its largest state on the island of Borneo, or nearly 10 percent over the last five years. Most of it is being converted to palm oil plantations, it said.

The deforestation rate for all of Asia during the same period was 2.8 percent, it said.

In the last five years, 353,000 hectares (872,263 acres) of Malaysia’s peatlands were deforested, or one-third of the swamps which have stored carbon from decomposed plants for millions of years.

“We never knew exactly what was happening in Malaysia and Borneo,” said Wetlands spokesman Alex Kaat. “Now we see there is a huge expansion (of deforestation) with annual rates that are beyond imagination.”

– More… ➡

Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Capitalism & Corporations, Climate Change, CrashBlogging, Deforestation, Extinctions, Mental Irrationality, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Researchers say a storm is coming–the most intense solar maximum in fifty years.

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

– Let’s reflect back to an earlier post much along this same line:  ➡

– Food for thought, eh?  – dennis

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t’s official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet.

Like the quiet before a storm.

Recently researchers announced that a storm is coming–the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.

That was a solar maximum. The Space Age was just beginning: Sputnik was launched in Oct. 1957 and Explorer 1 (the first US satellite) in Jan. 1958. In 1958 you couldn’t tell that a solar storm was underway by looking at the bars on your cell phone; cell phones didn’t exist. Even so, people knew something big was happening when Northern Lights were sighted three times in Mexico. A similar maximum now would be noticed by its effect on cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many other modern technologies.

– More… ➡

– research thanks to Johnathan S.

Posted in Science, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Number of Americans living in poverty ‘increases by 4m’

Friday, January 28th, 2011

One in seven Americans was living in poverty in 2009 with the level of working-age poor the highest since the 1960s, the US Census Bureau says.

The number of people in poverty increased by nearly 4m – to 43.6m – between 2008 and 2009, officials said.

The bureau defines poverty as any family of four living on less than $21,954 a year.

Meanwhile, new figures showed home foreclosures in August hit the highest level since the mortgage crisis began.

Banks repossessed 95,364 properties in August, up 3% from July and an increase of 25% from August 2009, said RealtyTrac, a company which charts the national picture.

The official US poverty rate in 2009 rose to 14.3% from 13.2% in 2008. In 2009, 43.6 million Americans lived in poverty, up from 39.8 million the year before, the third consecutive increase, the bureau said.

– More… ➡

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Food Shortages, Human Rights, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Utah Army base locked to solve ‘serious concern’

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah military base that carries out tests to protect troops against biological attacks was locked down Wednesday to resolve a “serious concern,” officials said.

Base commander Col. William E. King said no one was in danger and the gates will reopen as quickly as it’s feasible.

His statement did not provide any details of the problem.

Base spokeswoman Bonnie Robinson told the The Associated Press early Thursday that officials hope to have the problem resolved shortly.

“We are working as quickly and as thoroughly as possible to resolve a serious concern within the Test Area,” King said.

“Measures like these (lock down of our gates) are not taken lightly. No one is in immediate danger but these steps are required,” he said.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that a lockdown began at 5:24 p.m. MST Wednesday, with no one allowed in or out of the base. There were about 1,200 to 1,400 people at Dugway at the time.

Military weapons are tested at Dugway, located about 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Its primary mission is defending troops against biological and chemical attacks.

– To the original… ➡

– Research thanks Jonathan S.

– Update 31 Jan 2011 … see: ➡


Posted in CrashBlogging, Pollution, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

US new home sales in 2010 mark record low

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Sales of newly built homes in the US hit their lowest level in 2010 since records began 47 years ago.

For the year there were only 321,000 sales across the US, down 14% from 2009 and the fifth year of decline, the Department of Commerce said.

Sales did mark a strong rise in December, rising 17% from the previous month on a seasonally adjusted basis.

However, separate data showed mortgage applications fell sharply in January as borrowing rates continue to rise.

Applications for mortgages to finance home purchases fell nearly 9% last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, hitting their lowest level since October.

The drop comes in response to a steady rise in long-term borrowing costs in the US in recent weeks, hitting 4.8% on 30-year mortgages in the last week.

‘Distressed’ sales

Despite the rise in the last month of the year, 2010 still recorded the lowest volume of sales in a December since 1966, according to thecommerce department’s data.

The year had begun well, with activity boosted by a homebuyers’ tax credit.

But sales levels plummeted in the summer following the April expiry of the credit, which economists claim merely encouraged buyers to bring forward purchases they would have made anyway.

– More… ➡

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

The 25 Countries Whose Governments Could Get Crushed By Food Price Inflation

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Food inflation is now a reality for much of the world. It contributed to the overthrow of the Tunisian government, has led to riots across the Middle East and North Africa, driven up costs in China and India, and may only be getting started.

Whether you blame a bad crop or bad monetary policy, food inflation is here.

Nomura produced a research report detailing the countries that would be crushed in a food crisis. One, Tunisia, has already seen its government overthrown.

Their description of a food crisis is a prolonged price spike. They calculate the states that have the most to lose by a formula including:

  • Nominal GDP per capita in USD at market exchange rates.
  • The share of food in total household consumption.
  • Net food exports as a percentage of GDP.

We’ve got the top 25 countries in danger here and the list, including a major financial center, may surprise you.

– To see the list of 25 counties click the arrow… ➡

Posted in Conflict, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Food Shortages, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

The year of living dangerously

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Rising commodity prices and extreme weather events threaten global stability

Get ready for a rocky year. From now on, rising prices, powerful storms, severe droughts and floods, and other unexpected events are likely to play havoc with the fabric of global society, producing chaos and political unrest. Start with a simple fact: the prices of basic food staples are already approaching or exceeding their 2008 peaks, that year when deadly riots erupted in dozens of countries around the world.

It’s not surprising then that food and energy experts are beginning to warn that 2011 could be the year of living dangerously — and so could 2012, 2013, and on into the future. Add to the soaring cost of the grains that keep so many impoverished people alive a comparable rise in oil prices — again nearing levels not seen since the peak months of 2008 — and you can already hear the first rumblings about the tenuous economic recovery being in danger of imminent collapse. Think of those rising energy prices as adding further fuel to global discontent.

Already, combined with staggering levels of youth unemployment and a deep mistrust of autocratic, repressive governments, food prices have sparked riots in Algeria and mass protests in Tunisia that, to the surprise of the world, ousted long-time dictator President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his corrupt extended family. And many of the social stresses evident in those two countries are present across the Middle East and elsewhere. No one can predict where the next explosion will occur, but with food prices still climbing and other economic pressures mounting, more upheavals appear inevitable. These may be the first resource revolts to catch our attention, but they won’t be the last.

– More… ➡

Posted in Conflict, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Food Shortages, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

China’s Hu Jintao: Currency system is ‘product of past’

Monday, January 24th, 2011

– Yes, this writing on the wall will be hard for folk in the U.S. to accept – that they are no longer the financial center of the world.   It’s coming.     If you watch the news flowing by, you will have seen a steady and increasing drum beat of calls to end the era of the U.S. dollar being the world’s reference currency.  And when that era ends, there are going to be big changes for the US, sad to say.  – Dennis

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Chinese President Hu Jintao has said the international currency system dominated by the US dollar is a “product of the past.

Mr Hu also said China was taking steps to replace it with the yuan, its own currency, but acknowledged that would be a “fairly long process”.

The remarks to two US newspapers come ahead of a state visit by the Chinese leader to Washington this week.

They reflect continuing tensions over currency issues between the two powers.

The remarks to the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal came in the form of written responses to questions. Mr Hu also reiterated criticism of a decision by the US Federal Reserve to inject $600bn into the economy, which some argue will weaken the dollar at the expense of other countries’ exports.

“The monetary policy of the United States has a major impact on global liquidity and capital flows and therefore, the liquidity of the US dollar should be kept at a reasonable and stable level,” President Hu said.

– More… ➡

Posted in Financial melt-down, General | No Comments »

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