i don't mean to alarm you, but

[click image]

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Uhm... Bill Ryan brought this up over a year ago... called it "The Anglo-Saxon Mission"... and do you suppose this is the Chinese catching that cold?

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Just emailed him the link, in case he has a way to find out....

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Freaked me right out in a big-ass hurry, that's for sure. Just as I have successfully reminded myself that what we're going through, at this point, is no worse than the people downwind of Chernobyl had to live with, now I can flip over a scary and very serious and mysterious outbreak of an AIDS-like illness in China.

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Looking around, it seems the Epoch Times reports this once a year or so, but also found THIS snippet that does not seem to be getting it from the same source.

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love, 99
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what is wrong with this picture? — UPDATING

[click image]

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Hmmm?

U.S. President is warning Libyan leader that his forces must stop attacking innocent civilians or face military action.

If you can't answer this question instantly, I'm torn between ordering you away from my blog forever and begging you to live here.... [from 11am today]

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NOON-THIRTY UPDATE:

The French air force destroyed Libyan tanks and armored vehicles on Saturday, the first shots fired in a U.N.-mandated military intervention to protect civilians from attacks by Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

A French defense ministry official said "a number of tanks and armored vehicles" were destroyed in the region of Benghazi, with initial action focusing on stopping Gaddafi's forces from advancing on the rebels' eastern stronghold.

"Rebels"... pfeh....

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1:15 PM PDT UPDATE:

American warplanes, ships and submarines prepared to launch a furious assault on Libya's limited air defenses Saturday, clearing the way for European and other planes to enforce a no-fly zone designed to ground Moammar Gadahfi's air force and cripple his ability to inflict further violence on rebels, U.S. officials said.

"Rebels"... pfeh... talismanic words....

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Just a word about the multifarious other pushbutton revolutions in progress: People are being slaughtered and no UN mandates, no French and American airstrikes... pig shit smeared across the globe. Right now.

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7:05 PM PDT UPDATE:

The U.S. and European nations pounded Moammar Gadhafi's forces and air defenses with cruise missiles and airstrikes Saturday, launching the broadest international military effort since the Iraq war in support of an uprising that had seemed on the verge of defeat. Libyan state TV claimed 48 people had been killed in the attacks....

Fuck.

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MIDNIGHT PDT OH SHIT UPDATE:

Moscow regrets the attack from a range of European countries on Libya which is being conducted "with reference to the hastily adopted UN Security Council resolution," official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich said on Saturday....

China regrets the multinational military strike launched against Libya, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

"China has noticed the latest development in Libya and regrets the military strike against Libya," Jiang Yu said, adding that China did not agree with resorting to force in international relations.

Part of me hopes this turns into a serious disagreement, but, of course, that's suicidal....

For the record, this might be the source of the downed plane in the "rebel" city that we were assuming was Gaddafi's and setting this whole attack in motion. MIGHT be. Sarkozy's trying to get France behind him again... baaaad poll numbers... but then... the French are NOT as gung ho behind their president's military adventurism as Americans are... hey... can I say "used to be" yet?

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love, 99
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i told you so

[click image]

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Now Wikileaks has provided the proof. You might want to contemplate the implications of this for a few moments. Among other things, it makes Judy Wood and Joseph Farrell seem a lot less out there on the matter of 9/11.

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love, 99
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confucius say invasion far too strenuous

[click image]

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You must be getting the point of my gripe about people being only about making a buck off "problem-solving" these days. Well this is more of that. It occurs to me also that this very capitalizing on existential threats is a huge part of the flashing of unease images on our cell walls thing. I heavily recommend you do more than just glance at this piece.

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love, 99
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besides, i don't think you realize how vital china is to your way of life

[click image]

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And, here, they can be seen plainly to be making it more difficult to live without them rather than less. Adolf NWO Einstein has backed himself into a corner here, but while you're whining about the tiered service from your ISP and a general clampdown on our access to anything on the tubes, China is very nearly the only place where any of our electronics are made. If people take it into their heads that our money is useless, which has been the case for many decades, but the perception is seriously imperiled now, we're going to be watching the rest of the world getting iPads while we are staring at our basements full of dead and discarded computers, wondering if we can scrounge enough parts to put one working one together.

I really hope there are free thinkers out there who are planning an escape for us, one not so vulnerable to control by capitalism and by governments, or we may have to learn how to interact with people F2F [face-to-face] again, no?

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love, 99
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see, i don't think china is okay with unifying the koreas

[click image]

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I just think they were saying that to our diplomats to fend off pressure to do anything about North Korea, while keeping us relaxed about our relations. Now we're down doing war games with Japan. That can't be making them very happy either.

China's foreign ministry has said that military threats could not resolve continuing tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The statement by Jiang Yu, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, comes after Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, criticised China on Thursday for enabling its ally North Korea's "reckless behaviour".

Jiang Yu told news conference that she questioned what Mullen had done for "peace and stability in the region," calling his remarks on China's support for North Korea an "accusation".

I've heard we're trying to get it together to have Japan and South Korea coördinate activities. I'm very skeptical about this, but Farrell was just mentioning about the "tremendous change" taking place in Japan over the past year and a half, my insights into their thing against Korea are antiquated, so maybe there's less resistance to that than I thought at first, but, basically, it's pretty clear that the United States—I'm trying to break my habit of referring to that entity as "we" or "us" or "our" because whatever it is, it ain't that!—is being plenty pushy with our bankster-run military.

There were some squawks from certain quadrants a few weeks ago that this, no kidding, is all headed directly toward WWIII, but they seem to have piped down now that they have the accounting from the Fed to flip over and the whole world has Assange to flip over. Genghis Ponzi Yoo, I hear, is off on a campaign to stump for his capitulation on taxes and large numbers of people are dissing him hard at last. Point of bringing this up is simply to point out, once again, in case you need to hear it again:

HE'S NOT IN CHARGE. EXPERT FASCISTS ARE.

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Just as an aside, I think the value of seeing this list outweighs by far any danger in the BOGUS GWOT.

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love, 99
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if at first you don't succeed, drum louder

[click image]

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Sheesh.

I'm pretty sure China ain't letting North Korea make another move... no matter WHAT the provocation because if they force China to have to take South Korea, there ain't gonna be no North Korea left standing... or South. Fwoosh, seventy-five million people vapor. Immediately. I am living testimony that things ain't the same as they were in 1953... OR in 2009.*

Nope. Far better they keep choking us to death financially than let us start WWIII.

Everybody in their right mind knows that we might start it, but we aren't going to finish it. Nobody prosecuting this action intends any such a thing as a country, a people, coming out on top. At best, the Chinese and the Russians could go on to crow about stopping the Great American Menace, get fat and sing about killing fascists....**

* Al Jazeera, and others, are making much of this cable, implying it actually means China is happy to let Korea reunify, and that would seem lucid, on its face, but most Westerners have no idea that nothing about China, or Asia for that matter, should be taken at face value. They are never direct when indirect works so much better. And you should worry when they effusively praise your virtues. North Korea staying a focus for U.S. troops stationed in South Korea suits China extremely well. They won't give that up easily. Maybe they would assess any possible advantage to letting it go in the short term if they are assured we cannot sustain any menace there, but, well, I do not think they are in a mood to put up with our perfidies much longer. There's nothing left to gain from it.

** I could be completely naive and China's gangsters are as anxious to shave a few billion off the global population as our gangsters are, but... well, I don't think they want to do it that way. It appears to me they prefer birth control to wholesale slaughter. Damn odd how those totalitarians end up being more humane than us democrats, ain't it?

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Oh. Well. Now. THIS IS PSYCHEDELIC. The chances of "a strong ROK-Japan relationship" ever developing are NIL. Nothing in all Japan is reviled more thoroughly than a Korean. Legendary for their racism, in general, NONE of it is as severe as it is toward Koreans. Even someone unfortunate enough to be half-Korean and never having set foot in either Korea—even in a Zen monastery, where things like racism are outright NOT DONE—catches it mercilessly from the Japanese. OMG!

No wonder our diplomats are such idiots! If they're getting this kind of treatment day-in and day-out, they cannot help but stay completely out of touch with reality.

I mean, no, really, this business about never being direct or genuine—at least not with mere acquaintances or in political situations—and I even suspect half the time not really with each other either—has driven me nuts from people all my life. Asians and Middle Easterners find me entertaining as hell. I hate it about them, but I know it comes from millennia of cultural conditioning and so have had to learn to endure it where I don't have the ability to get in there and sock them in the teeth over it. My decades of studying the ancients has helped immeasurably, but, dudes, please, believe me when I tell you, This Is Psychedelic.

Babes in the woods, our diplomats to the Chinese.

They won't ever know what hit them.

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It occurs to me, unbelievable as it might seem, that while I know about the SCO, never invited and not allowed even to audit meetings, maybe our diplomats don't know about it... or didn't when these cables flew out of their offices.

Maybe now that Russia and China aren't using the dollar on each other anymore they're starting to get the picture.

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HUNNERTS OF WIKILEAKS MIRRORS....

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love, 99
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yes, i know about the sco

[click image]

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I found some glasses just in time to note that only a couple hunnert of the hunnerts of thousands of cables are up at Wikileaks so far. So I guess I don't have to worry about sinking just yet.

I press on to some of my usual haunts and notice Max asking if anyone knows about the SCO. Well, yes, yes, actually, I do and have kept half an eye on it for the past couple years. It seems, despite my intermittent mention of it, though, many do not. Back of hand to forehead: Why do I bother? Anyway, his link for this was apocalyptically slow, so I decided to just post the whole thing for you here in case it's the page staggering under the weight of Max Keiser and going to vex everyone trying to take his point for the next few hours/days.

China, Russia, Iran Dumping Dollar For Gold
Posted on Pakalert on November 26, 2010

Something is going on that your government does not want you to know about. Very few journalists have written about it and little or nothing has appeared in the mainstream media. The story could be one of major stories of our time.

Western powers have tried to destroy gold as a backing for currencies for many years. Presently the major media won’t touch the story and that is understandable.

Something we have been writing about for years is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization known as SCO. Few have been listening and few have been interested in what their mission is and what they have been up to.

Some of the members are large oil producers and some, like China, are large oil users. Some have very large US dollar surpluses. As well, some are large commodity and gold and silver buyers. In fact, members are in a great part responsible for driving these prices higher. It is debatable, but we believe there is a conscious effort to accumulate gold and silver, dump dollars and to back their currencies with gold.

China and Russia are both large gold producers and for a number of years have been buying up domestic gold and silver production, so that it never reaches the market and does not affect prices. If anything the absence of sales tends to push the markets higher. As a matter of fact Russia and India are visible buyers. Even Iran with its oil surplus recently announced that they had purchased 340 tons of gold. Their recent gold purchases are very significant as affiliate members, which have access to the present and ultimate direction of the group. You might say buying gold has been a protective effort to shield members and close observers from the problems generated by dollar policies. They are accumulating gold, as many have been worldwide, for the past ten years, but particularly over the past few years.

This buying, for protection, has served to thwart the efforts of US policymakers, the Treasury, other central banks in Europe and the Fed, from being able to continue the blatant suppression of both gold and silver prices. The malefactors, except for forays into derivatives and futures, which are transitory, have lost control and suppression of gold and silver prices, and it is only a matter of time before all visages of any control will be visible. Since 1988, in August when Present Reagan signed the Executive Order creating, “the President’s Group on Financial Markets” and the subsidiaries that have grown out of that policy, that the Treasury won many if not most of the battles. The SCO in part changed that and now they and the public are winning the war for a fair and free gold and silver market. The current class action lawsuits, including RICO, are a testament to the market manipulation in silver, which is finally coming to an end. HSBC and JPMorgan Chase, the latter that is the major owner of the Fed, are going to be finally prohibited from rigging these markets. Their officers all belong in jail, but elitists never go to jail; they pay fines, and keep right on robbing the public.

Other SCO members and observers are accumulating gold as well, be it in smaller amounts. We might add that other nations observing Russia and China and their gold purchases are buying as well. These participants must believe that there could be a return to sound money; otherwise they wouldn’t be gold buyers. Buying gold is certainly preferable to holding US dollars, which have consistently fallen in value versus other currencies over the past ten years. Then again all currencies have fallen versus gold over that period, some 19.6% annually. It is nice to see nations are finally waking up to the reality that fiat currencies will all over time deteriorate versus gold. The temptation is enormous to deficit spend.

The most interesting aspect of the SCO is that they do not strive for political agreement such as the European Union. They are interested in economic stability and development and security. There is no overall binding laws. Nations retain their sovereignty, which is the exact opposite of what the elitists in the US and Europe desire, and that is world government. The SCO has provided great flexibility something that is non-existent in elitist controlled countries. Another interesting facet is that the SCO probably represents half of the world’ population, far more than the US and Europe. As these nations accumulate gold so does some of their citizens, which puts strong upward pressures on gold prices on a continuing basis.

In addition some of these nations, such as China, are spending dollars by buying natural resources and other things in other nations in an attempt to relieve themselves of excess dollars earned in trade. Both Russia and China fully realize that the US dollar is in serious trouble and has been for a number of years due to fiscal debt and the unbridled creation of money and credit by the Federal Reserve. They well know the dollar is in serious trouble and what the outcome will probably be.

As the economies of the US and Europe become more deeply mired in problems the economies of SCO nations more and more resemble the free economies of old that were very successful. You might say they have found their way back to basics and sound money. As the dollar comes under further downward pressure more nations will probably join the SCO to escape the clutches of European and American imperialism and bureaucracy, which for some years has been onerous and unsuccessful. What we see is a natural path by nations to extricate themselves from the control of Wall Street and the City of London, which have dominated the world for so long. All these facts considered we believe gold will find its way substantially higher with the participation of these nations, a factor the West never figured on. These ten nations are sucking excess gold out of the market every day and that will continue indefinitely.

These SCO nations are well aware that the surge of hot dollars created by the Fed out of thin air are headed their way and with them inflation. Brazil was the first nation to attempt to stop this onslaught by imposing a 6% tariff on interest and dividend paying Brazilian securities, purchased with US dollars. Over the last two years between stimulus and the Fed $2.5 trillion has been injected into the US and world financial system. As a result commodity and gold and silver prices have exploded. This has caused the dollar to fall in value versus other currencies and gold. There is no question more and higher inflation is on the way, as the Fed gets into QE 2. You can also bet that QE2 will not be $600 billion, but more than $2 trillion. Inflation is already showing up in food, petroleum products, airline fares and in many other items that we use every day. As usual the government says there is little or no inflation. Even competent economists still use government’s bogus figures. What can they be thinking of? They know what is going on as well as we do. That means we are embarking on the highest inflation rates in US history. Thus far the undertow of deflation has been superseded by government banking and Fed aggregate creation. The Fed, in order to subdue deflation and such spending has to always overshoot the inflation they create, so that they can be sure that deflation cannot take hold. This money and credit is in the process of working its way through the economy, spreading inflation as it winds its way through.

The only investors who are being afforded protection are those who have invested in gold and silver and commodities. That is less than 2% of the American population. We predicted in mid-May that QE2 and QE3 would take place for a combined $5 trillion over the next two fiscal years. In fact, the Fed was late in starting in June and as a result 4th quarter GDP growth will probably be 1% and the 1st quarter of 2011 will probably be in the minus column, as unemployment heads to 25% and extended benefits run out. We are not seeing growth; we are seeing forced feeding.

The Fed’s promises are not worth the paper they are written on. Ben Bernanke will print money until he cannot anymore and we have hyperinflation. That is because he has no other choice. He has no way out and he knows it won’t work. Tragically, this is where we are headed and there is no way to stop what the elitists have put deliberately in motion.

As long as quantitative easing is official Fed and Wall Street policy, gold is going to continue to rise with silver, and the stronger the case is that gold is the real world reserve currency. That means all currencies will eventually have to be backed by gold. We believe that elitists have accepted this fact and that was borne out recently by World Bank President, CFR, Trilateralist and Bilderberger Robert Zoellick. We can assure you that was no slip of the tongue. That was a cleverly planted trial balloon to get public reaction.

We do not see QE2 and QE3 as incompetence or bungling. It happens to be the only option available to the powers behind government. The same errors committed during the Great Depression of the 1930s are being repeated and economists, including Mr. Bernanake know they do not work. Yes, the Fed contracted money supply and when they let it loose again, it was too late for it to be in anyway effective. Next comes tariffs as an outgrowth of: currency wars; interest and dividend penalties on the inflow of hot, inflationary dollars and retaliatory tariffs as a result of losing 8.5 million jobs and 432,000 businesses over ten years to free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing. Smoot-Hawley tariffs and even dumb Fed moves were bad enough, but Hoover’s raising of taxes by 150% was a monumental piece of stupidity.

At the root of all this is that the Fed is supposed to be saving the US economic and financial structure. They are not doing that, they are saving the banking system and Wall Street instead and these are the miscreants that caused the problem in the first place. The result of this policy of zero interest rates and easy money is that few are saving.

There you have it, planned destruction. Is it any wonder the SCO members and observers are buying gold on every dip and will not stop doing so until they run out of dollars. Our only question is; what took them so long and why are they not buying more faster?

Welcome to the Dystopian Century.
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love, 99
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not unrelated

[click image]

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The piece at the image link was posted immediately after THIS ONE... and I'm telling you, they are not unrelated. I don't understand why people are so willing to just sit back and let our "leaders" get us into this shit. I just don't. Maybe just too many of us too inhibited to don the tinfoil suits to combat the pacification waves, but this is seriously not funny for us, man. It isn't like WWII, when nobody had weapons capable of inflicting damage here, but the sheep don't seem to be getting that idea.

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Tangential, but also probably not unrelated:

Japan spots Chinese vessels near disputed islands: report
2 hrs 30 mins ago

TOKYO (Reuters) – The Japanese coast guard has spotted two Chinese vessels attempting on Sunday to enter waters near islands in the East China Sea that are disputed by the two countries, Kyodo News reported.

Two Chinese fishing patrol ships were sighted around 7:45 a.m. on Sunday (6:45 p.m. EST on Saturday) repeatedly trying to enter waters 44 kilometers off a group of islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, Kyodo reported, citing the Japanese coast guard.

Relations between Asia's two biggest economies soured in September after Japan detained a Chinese skipper whose fishing boat collided with Japanese patrol vessels off the disputed islands, which are near potentially rich maritime gas reserves. He was later released.

Think about kissing someone or something.

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love, 99
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we better be kidding

[click image]

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Because they're not.

Expats recalled as North Korea prepares for war
By Shaun Walker in Moscow
Saturday, 27 November 2010

A mass exodus of North Korean workers from the Far East of Russia is under way, according to reports coming out of the region. As the two Koreas edged towards the brink of war this week, it appears that the workers in Russia have been called back to aid potential military operations.

Vladnews agency, based in Vladivostok, reported that North Korean workers had left the town of Nakhodka en masse shortly after the escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula earlier this week. "Traders have left the kiosks and markets, workers have abandoned building sites, and North Korean secret service employees working in the region have joined them and left," the agency reported.

Russia's migration service said that there were over 20,000 North Koreans in Russia at the beginning of 2010, of which the vast majority worked in construction. The workers are usually chaperoned by agents from Kim Jong-il's security services and have little contact with the world around them. Defectors have suggested that the labourers work 13-hour days and that most of their pay is sent back to the government in Pyongyang. Hundreds of workers have fled the harsh conditions and live in hiding in Russia, constantly in fear of being deported back to North Korea.

"North Korea's government sends thousands of its citizens to Russia to earn money, most of which is funnelled through government accounts," says Simon Ostrovsky, a journalist who discovered secret North Korean logging camps in the northern Siberian taiga. "Workers are often sent to remote locations for years at a time to work long hours and get as little as three days off per year." Now it appears that some kind of centralised order has been given for the workers to return home.

Russia's Pacific port of Vladivostok is thousands of miles and seven time zones from Moscow, but only around 100 miles from the country's heavily controlled border with North Korea. In 1996, a diplomat from the South Korean consulate in the city was murdered with a poisoned pencil, in what was widely believed to be a hit carried out by the North's secret agents. There are even two North Korean restaurants in the city. It is not known how many of the workers in other Russian towns have been called back to their homeland this week, or whether the exodus is permanent or temporary.

I am appalled and ashamed. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind we started this.

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love, 99
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c'mon now, crank it all the way up to eleven and SING!

[click image]

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Do it. Do it now.

[Before you lose it.]

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I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER NOW!

[I am like so way really smart, man. My body wants to be awake right about the time all of you are wanting to go nigh-nigh, and just about the time yer swimming up outta yer dreams, I'm fading like cut wildflowers. BRILLIANT! I solve the deficit while whalin' on Gnarls Barkley, complete with dance moves, while yer yawning and trying to get yer toes in yer jammies. This so totally compensates for my unutterable klutzitude and coffee disasters while yer out doing yer thing. Eat yer hearts out!]

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Heh, heh, heh.... :o]

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WU-HU—WI-HA—WOOOPS!

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And the hits just keep on coming.... How many completely anomalous things in the sky before yer head explodes? Go back to the image link. Yes, yes, bless your soul, go back to the image link. Ya think you're in control?

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love, 99
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poetry

[click image]

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Poetry.

China to play role in General Motors IPO

DETROIT (AP) — Among the banks helping General Motors with its initial public stock offering next week are two identified by initials only: ICBC and CICC.

Americans uncomfortable with U.S. government ownership of General Motors may want to hear more: One of those banks is the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of China's four big central government banks. The other, China International Capital Corp., is a joint venture run primarily by Central Huijin Investment Ltd., an arm of the state, and Morgan Stanley.

This is the first time Chinese government banks have participated in a major U.S.-issued IPO, according to IPO tracking firm Dealogic. The banks are listed as co-managers in the offering, meaning they will sell a portion of the new shares.

Chinese automaker SAIC, GM's partner in China, is finalizing plans to buy a roughly 1 percent stake, worth about $500 million, in GM's IPO, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. SAIC is owned by the Shanghai city government.

Other foreign investors that are interested include several sovereign wealth funds located in the Middle East and Asia. The Journal says those funds, which manage the finances of royal families and some nations, could invest $1 billion in GM's IPO.

There could be political backlash for President Barack Obama, who has spent the past week in Asia addressing economic issues, like currency exchange differences between the U.S. and China. Obama has argued that China artificially deflates its currency, the yuan, in an attempt to make its exports cheaper.

Many Americans were unhappy when the U.S. bailed out GM, calling the company "Government Motors."

GM 's Nov. 18 stock offering will reduce the U.S. Treasury's stake in the company from 61 percent to 43 percent, and will help payback the more than $50 billion that taxpayers invested in GM to keep it from collapsing. More stock offerings will happen in the next year or so, letting the government fully divest from the automaker.

"It's a very political topic, but what Americans need to remember is that General Motors is an international company," says Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Automotive. "If we want to get our money back, we need to understand that they have to do business on a global basis."

The U.S. Treasury has been clear that international investors are welcome to invest in GM, and many outside the U.S. are considering taking stakes in the company.

"We expect that a large and diverse group of institutional investors will be offered an opportunity to participate, with no single investor or group of investors receiving a disproportionate share or unusual treatment," the Treasury said in a recent statement.

The U.S. has become a popular haven for Chinese investors, second only to Australia in attracting Chinese stock investments, says Derek Scissors, a research fellow at conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation. The first half of 2010 was a record year for China, Scissors says. China has sunk $45 billion into investments and engineering projects worldwide. About $1.6 billion of those investments came to the U.S.

In China, businesses operate with the funding and blessing of the government, says Tim Dunne, director of global automotive operations for J.D. Power and Associates. The government behaves like an interested shareholder, ensuring companies have competent management and ensuring the companies boost economic growth in their regions.

Many Chinese automakers are looking for a way into the U.S. market, he says. China is the largest car market in the world, but the U.S. is the most profitable, he says.

"The amount of money changing hands here is much greater," he says. The average selling price of a car in the U.S. is $27,500, compared with about $17,000 in China. "Multiply that over millions of vehicles, and it's quite a difference."

SAIC and GM already have a long-standing partnership in China -- GM could not sell cars in China without partnering with a local business -- and it's unclear what size stake SAIC may take in GM. The deal would need Chinese government approval.

Chris Theodore, president of consulting firm Theodore & Associates, says SAIC's investment in GM is likely an attempt to strengthen its ties with the automaker. Theodore, who was part of a group that tried to take over Volvo before it was sold to China's Geely group, says SAIC isn't the kind of company that can branch out into U.S. sales. Most of its models use GM technology and are essentially GM cars.

"They rely on GM for a lot of their profitability," Theodore says.

Michael Maduell, president of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, a California-based group that watches sovereign wealth fund investments, says global investors are looking at the U.S. because they believe the overall market is undervalued. Other potential investors in GM include Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and Singapore's Temasek, which are both known for actively investing in companies, Maduell says.

Investors are "looking at emerging markets, like China and India, but all those assets are overvalued," Maduell says. "America still has a lot of fantastic investment opportunities in real estate and small- to mid-cap stocks."

No, really. Perfect.

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love, 99
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i don't want them representing me

[click image and stand back]

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I DON'T!

US diplomatic offensive tightens strategic encirclement of China
13 November 2010

Washington’s aggressive diplomatic campaign in Asia over the past two weeks has amounted, in the words of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to “a full court press” against China, with the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean emerging as potential future theatres of war.

President Barack Obama’s visits to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, and Clinton’s trips to Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia, sought to either strengthen existing alliances or create new partnerships for a US-led strategic encirclement of China.

Obama fervently courted India, China’s regional nuclear-armed rival. He urged New Delhi to become a “world power” and backed its bid to become a UN Security Council permanent member. Clinton twice reiterated that Washington could invoke the US-Japan Security Treaty to militarily support Japan against China in the conflict over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. Vietnam announced it was ready to hire out its strategic Cam Ranh Bay port in the South China Sea “to naval ships from all countries”—with Washington the most likely client. Canberra agreed to provide greater US access to its military facilities, especially those in northern Australia.

The American offensive aims to prevent China from controlling the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and key connecting waterways, such as the Strait of Malacca and the Sunda/Lombok straits of Indonesia. Since China depends on ships to transport one third of its oil consumption and 70 percent of its foreign trade, these sea lanes have become its “lifelines”. Some 60 percent of the ships passing through the Strait of Malacca every day are Chinese.

Since World War II, retaining the ability to cut off vital oil supply shipments to rival powers by controlling such “choke points” has been a key US naval strategy. This task looms ever larger for Washington today, with the accelerating decline of American economic power and the rapid rise of China, particularly in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. Since the China-Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) free-trade zone came into effect last January, Sino-ASEAN trade has increased by nearly 50 percent, whereas rising protectionism in the US is stalling any free trade agreement with Asian states.

Far from accepting a diminishing role, the US is determined to retain its dominant position in Asia through its residual military might. In an interview with the Australian newspaper on Monday, Clinton recalled that when Chinese officials first told Washington, earlier this year, that Beijing viewed the South China Sea as a core Chinese interest, “I immediately responded and said, ‘We don’t agree with that’.” What followed was Clinton’s aggressive announcement at the ASEAN meeting in July that Washington would intervene into disputes between China and ASEAN members, such as Vietnam and Philippines, over the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. China angrily responded by warning that “outsiders,” i.e., the US, should keep out of South China Sea affairs.

Clinton’s subsequent statement that the US had a “national interest” in “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea was even more provocative. More than 40,000 ships freely pass through the sea each year. The “freedom of navigation” that Washington demands is the freedom of American surveillance vessels and warships to sail the waters near the Chinese coast, and to collect intelligence on Chinese military operations, including the deployment of submarines, in the region. If China likewise were to send spy ships to international waters just off the coast of Hawaii or San Diego to monitor the US naval bases there, the American media and political establishment would respond with outrage over what would, legitimately, be interpreted as acts of provocation.

By establishing or strengthening military ties with Vietnam, India, Australia and Indonesia, the US is seeking to counter China’s “string of pearls” strategy. The aim of this strategy is to build port facilities in Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka for the deployment of Chinese warships into the Indian Ocean in order to protect the shipping lanes that carry oil and raw materials from the Middle East and Africa to China.

Herein lies the importance of Indonesia, which was the second stop on Obama’s trip. The US think tank Stratfor noted: “It [Indonesia] straddles the Strait of Malacca, a global shipping choke point, as well as the Sunda and Lombok straits, making it critical for sea-lanes between the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea and the Pacific, and Australia and China. These sea lanes supply China with critical raw materials; any power controlling this area accordingly has enormous leverage over Beijing.”

These considerations also apply to East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, which sit astride other vital sea lanes. There is concern in Washington that over the past decade, China has established economic and even military ties with Pacific island states, and the Obama administration is determined to reassert US “leadership” in the region.

Thus Clinton visited Papua New Guinea and discussed the Asia-Pacific region in her meetings with key officials in Australia and New Zealand.

The centrality of the South China Sea in Washington’s thinking was expressed by Robert Kaplan, who wrote recently in the Washington Post: “The geographical heart of America’s hard-power competition with China will be the South China Sea, through which passes a third of all commercial maritime traffic worldwide and half of the hydrocarbons destined for Japan, the Korean Peninsula and northeastern China. That sea grants Beijing access to the Indian Ocean via the Strait of Malacca, and thus to the entire arc of Islam, from East Africa to Southeast Asia.”

Kaplan is among those within US ruling circles who have criticised the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq for diverting the focus of the former Bush administration, and allowing China to expand its geopolitical influence throughout Asia. Kaplan’s basic ideas can be seen in the Obama administration’s “back in Asia” policy.

The anti-China coalition being assembled by the US directly conflicts with China’s quest to build a blue-water navy to protect its sea lanes and oil supplies. A bestseller published in China last year, China Sea Power by Zhang Wenmu, summed up Beijing’s view of the present great-power struggle for global hegemony. Zhang wrote: “All players are focusing at one aim, the control of the Indian Ocean.”

Beijing will not allow Washington to undermine the gains it has made in Asia. Just days after Clinton told Cambodia not to become “too dependent” on a single country—i.e., China—the Chinese government gave Cambodia $1.6 billion for infrastructure projects and announced a $590 million loan for the development of mobile phone services. Less than a day after Obama arrived in Jakarta, a Chinese delegation came with $6.6 billion in infrastructure projects. In the words of the New York Times, Beijing “laid down a not-so-subtle challenge to Mr. Obama: Show your Indonesian hosts the money”.

Driven by the deepening global economic crisis, the escalating rivalry between the US and China is yet another sign that the world capitalist system is hurtling towards a major catastrophe. Unless the international working class intervenes to overthrow the profit system and the outmoded system of rival nation-states, these great-power tensions must inevitably lead to a new world war.

John Chan

"Full court press" indeed. We're liable to get our full court pressed pretty damn good here any minute, my pretties. Yessir. Things are not looking good.

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love, 99
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you asked for it

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You got it.

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love, 99
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of course they are

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Play people for saps, promising one thing and doing another, and pretty soon they catch wise and do the same to you... and in this case it's a GOOD thing.

US says Chinese firms ignoring Iran sanctions
(AFP) – 15 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The United States believes some Chinese firms are helping Iran improve its missile technology and develop nuclear weapons and has asked Beijing to prevent such activity, The Washington Post reported.

Citing an unnamed senior US official, the newspaper said the request was conveyed during a visit to Beijing last month by a US delegation led by Robert Einhorn, the State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control.

Einhorn gave his Chinese counterparts a "significant list" of companies and banks that the United States thinks are violating UN sanctions against Iran without authorization from the Chinese government, the report said.

US intelligence believes that several Chinese companies have been providing restricted technology and materials to Iran's military programs while some Chinese banks were backing these deals, the paper noted.

Most of the deals concerned Iran's missile program, according to The Post.

A senior official from a Western intelligence agency said Chinese firms were also discovered selling high-quality carbon fiber to Iran to help it build better centrifuges, which are used in enriching uranium, the paper noted.

In 2008, for example, Iran obtained 108 pressure gauges, which are critical to the functioning of a centrifuge, from one Chinese company, The Post said.

The report said a year earlier, a small company in the Chinese port city of Dalian provided Iran with a range of sensitive materials, including graphite, tungsten copper, tungsten powder, high-strength aluminum alloys and high-strength steel, again for its nuclear program.

That firm allegedly received payment from Iran via US banks, the paper said.

"My government will investigate the issues raised by the US side," The Post quoted Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, as saying.

Duh.

You probably don't want to miss this either....
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love, 99
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and having abandoned diplomacy in every way but name

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It comes to this.

Perfect.

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love, 99
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these are not hysterics

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And, here's the report.

Going back through my China posts to find a particularly dazzling array of images of their defense upgrades, which I have not found yet, I found that an ALARMING number of links had gone dead. Googling the dead link would put me with other sources that had named the item, then googling the item name and looking for it at the original site numerous times put me back with the piece originally posted so I could upgrade the link.

This will be about sites changing their software, but it more often will be about them deliberately changing the link to make it salable to Lexis/Nexis for their database of everything ever written about anything anywhere. You can subscribe to this service if you are a millionaire or can charge clients for the use of it. Otherwise, you have to just bite it.

This does NOT work for certain really hot items that go suddenly blank while still in the middle of the crisis, as for instance happened to my not concealed outrage with the BP Blowout, but may be of use to you if you are a blogger or a chronicler of important things.

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new viceroy of iraq broadening her horizons

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Can't keep that yap shut for a minute.

China criticizes Clinton comments on island chains
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN (AP) – 17 hours ago

BEIJING — China's military on Friday criticized remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Washington had a strong interest in seeing territorial disputes in the South China Sea resolved peacefully.

Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng told reporters China opposes what he called the "internationalization" of the matter, a reflection of Beijing's long-held position that the disagreements were a matter for China and the other disputants to deal with alone.

China claims the entire sea and its island chains as territorial waters over which it exercises complete sovereignty. Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines also claim some or all of the islands that lie amid vital shipping lanes and are believed to have large oil and natural gas reserves.

China has opposed a multilateral approach to the disputes, preferring to deal with each country on a bilateral basis.

"We are the against the internationalization of the South China Sea issue," Geng said at a rare news conference held at an engineering regiment's base on the western outskirts of Beijing.

However, he indicated that China would not interfere with the passage of foreign ships and planes through the area as long as they were in compliance with international law. China strongly opposes U.S. naval surveillance missions conducted in the South China Sea off its southern coast, calling them illegal.

Geng's mild tone appeared to indicate China does not wish to escalate the disagreement over Clinton's remarks, delivered last week at a regional security forum in Vietnam.

Clinton said the U.S. was concerned that conflicting claims on the Spratly and Paracel island chains interfere with maritime commerce, hamper access to international waters in the area, and undermine the U.N. law of the sea.

The United States, Clinton said, has a "national interest" in resolving the claims and opposes the use or threat of force by any claimant.

Although Washington says it does not take sides in the various territorial disputes, Clinton's remarks constituted a clarification of U.S. policy in the region that added to Chinese concerns over newly active U.S. diplomacy in Southeast Asia.

Although her comments appeared to take China by surprise, U.S. officials say Beijing first upped the ante by telling visiting Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg this spring the South China Sea was now considered one of the country's "core interests" alongside Taiwan and Tibet.

The spat is the latest in a series of disputes that have roiled bilateral relations in recent months, stoking nationalist sentiment in China and causing U.S. officials to reconsider their original low-key approach to human rights and other sensitive issues.

Beijing had expressed concerns about joint U.S.-South Korean war-games this week in the Yellow Sea off the northeastern Chinese coast, saying the participation of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington could be seen as a provocation by putting Beijing within striking range of U.S. F-18 warplanes.

The exercises were a response to North Korea's suspected sinking of a South Korean warship earlier this year, and Geng said China — Pyongyang's main ally — was concerned they could further raise tensions in the area.

He said Washington bore responsibility for repairing a rift in ties that prompted Beijing earlier to suspend exchanges with the U.S. military in anger over Washington's $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan and turn down a proposed visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Will they hogtie her for Chelsea's wedding?

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Maybe just keep her hogtied... and her compatriots... nobody, but nobody would miss them.

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I wonder if there are any connections between this, this and this? I can't help but think of this stuff as I body surf naked, shooting the foggy and slippery tubes.

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a hero

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I know one thing for sure:

Venezuela threatens oil cut to US
SUNDAY, JULY 25, 2010 | 23:51 MECCA TIME, 20:51 GMT

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, has threatened to cut off oil exports to the United States if US-allied Colombia launches a military attack against his country.

"If there was any armed aggression against Venezuela from Colombian territory or from anywhere else, promoted by the Yankee empire, we would suspend oil shipments to the United States even if we have to eat stones here," Chavez said on Sunday.

He added that he had cancelled a trip to Cuba because he had intelligence revealing that "the possibility of an armed aggression against Venezuelan territory from Colombia" was higher than it has been "in 100 years".

Chavez, a leftist and vocal critic of the United States, broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia last week over claims by the outgoing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a close US ally, that his country harbours Colombian rebels.

'Bogus show'

Uribe had said that top commanders of the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, have taken refuge in Venezuela and were launching attacks against Colombian troops.

The Colombian government had presented photos, videos and maps of what it said were Colombian rebel camps inside Venezuela to the Organisation of American States.

Chavez has dismissed the accusations as a bogus show intended to smear his government and has said that Uribe could be trying to lay the groundwork for an armed conflict with Venezuela.

The Colombian government denies seeking a conflict and says it went to OAS with its evidence about the rebels last week because Chavez's government had not taken steps to address the situation.

The United States threw its support behind its key ally Colombia, calling Chavez's decision to sever diplomatic relations and put border troops on alert "a petulant response" to Bogota's accusations.

You have to be the stupidest or the most courageous person around to be the president of any Latin American country. I'm going with dirt stupid for Uribe and most courageous for Chávez... a damn hero. Too bad we have one of the evil step-sisters posing as Cinderella for ours.

This does not bode well. It might be our next excuse for not attacking Iran. I don't care about the military drills in Korea. We're amassing ships in Costa Rica. They can be through the Panama Canal and on top of Venezuela in a heartbeat.

The Chinese have openly let it be known they see through us, and too many pinheads think war is the only thing that reverses the financial wreckage they purposefully wrecked. It KILLS millions and it makes TRILLIONS for trillionaires.

So. Wake up.

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i was wrong

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I finally found confirmation that Russia and China were working on the draft sanctions proposal with "us" for some weeks. Should have gone to Xinhua first.

Iran has notified the IAEA of its agreements with Brazil and Turkey

More detail....

And let's not leave out the Russians....
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