The last time oil went in this direction, it caused a slowing in the global economy that led to a global financial panic.
What's causing it? Peak oil, Chinese growth and lots of potential oil disruption. Pretty much the same factors that caused it last time.
The pipeline disruption is a little different this time.
Israel
The headline player is Iran due to its nuclear program. But Iran isn't actually disrupting the production system, they are merely making threats.
If you unwind this a bit, it's pretty clear that the countries actually sending shockwaves of fear through the markets are Israel and the US. However, of the partners in this relationship, Israel is in the drivers seat. They are calling the shots on the timing of an attack on Iran and they will take the world along for a ride.
IT WAS unthinkable 20 years ago that the Charles River would ever be clean enough to win the world’s leading environmental prize for river restoration. Back then, human feces lapped at the Museum of Science. It was a river with “belly-up fish and algal blooms making dogs sick,’’ recalled Arleen O’Donnell, former state department of environmental protection acting commissioner.
For recreational kayaker Roger Frymire, a paddle between the Museum of Science and the BU bridge 14 years ago was disgusting. “I passed under the Longfellow bridge and I started smelling something awful. I kept following the smell upriver until I went under the Mass. Ave. bridge. I traced the smell to a spot near the MIT crew house. There was a grate underwater that was bobbing up and down with turds.
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Today, the Charles is one of the nation’s cleanest urban rivers, and recently claimed the International River Foundation’s top award for river management, beating out more than 20 other countries. The award went to the Charles River Watershed Association, which was formed in 1965 to protect the river.
“The Charles in many ways is a wild river again,’’ said Bob Zimmerman, executive director of the CRWA. “If you had asked me in 1991 if that was possible, I would have said you were crazy.’’
Nomad aliens crowding the Milky Way may shake up our theories of planet formation
Our Milky Way galaxy may be teeming with rogue planets that ramble through space instead of being locked in orbit around a star, a new study suggests.
These “ nomad planets ” could be surprisingly common in our bustling galaxy, according to researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), a joint institute of Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The study predicts that there may be 100,000 times more of these wandering, homeless planets than stars in the Milky Way.
If this is the case, these intriguing cosmic bodies would belong to a whole new class of alien worlds, shaking up existing theories of planet formation. These free-flying planets may also raise new and tantalizing questions in the search for life beyond Earth.
“If any of these nomad planets are big enough to have a thick atmosphere, they could have trapped enough heat for bacterial life to exist,” study leader Louis Strigari said in a statement.
And while nomad planets cannot benefit from the heat given off from their parent stars, these worlds could generate heat from tectonic activity or internal radioactive decay, the researchers said.
My pal David Pescovitz at the Institute for the Future blogged recently about the IFTF “Multiverse of Exploration Map,” an overview of the six big stories of science that will play out over the next decade:
“Those stories are emerging from a new ecology of science shifting toward openness, collaboration, reuse, and increased citizen engagement in scientific research.” A followup post includes a video of Luigi Anzivino from The Exploratorium talking about the relationship of magic and neuroscience.
In the brief introduction to a review of the book, Very Special Intelligence, Dolphin noted that the successful tactical doctrine of using combined intelligence and combat troops in tightly organized teams was being seriously diluted by the U.S. IC (read CIA, DIA, NGA and NSA) who were moving to fold the intelligence elements involved into the bureaucratic mainstream and to automate the intelligence processes involved.
As I noted in an earlier article (The Triumph of Tactical Intelligence) U.S. Forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations (COIN) in both Iraq and Afghanistan have developed an innovative tactical concept, which Dolphin noted was based on research and development work done at the U. S. Naval Post Graduate School by a team under General Dell Daily. The essence of this concept is the High-value Target Teams (HTT) which integrates special operations forces fighters with military and civilian intelligence analysts into tightly organized teams in which immediate tactical intelligence is essential to identifying so called high value targets (usually individuals) and guiding war-fighters to their locations. This apparently was not a case of intelligence support being provided by folks sitting far from the action phoning in information, but of intelligence support being very much part of the operation itself with the war fighters. At a recent hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Special Operations Forces, Michael D. Lumpkin, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense said, “USSOCOM [U.S. Special Operations Command] and the CIA currently coordinate, share, exchange liaison officers and operate side by side in the conduct of DOD overt and clandestine operations and CIA’s covert operations.”
Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer, is the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Phi Beta Iota: This piece adds to our knowledge. This is the first time we have learned that the four alleged crashes were not investigated by NTSB. This is also the best and most concise overview of the major elements of the 9/11 narrative that are demonstrably false and/or severely distorted. Our bottom line: a sufficiency of evidence exists to demand a complete re-investigation of the matter, this time in the service of the public and with full public deliberation.
I’m in the process of federating with a large number of people across the globe to form a new kind of living systems organization, and lay down infrastructures that we intend will lead us towards a desired socioeconomic paradigm and human operation system. We’re pioneering practices in cultural design, systems intelligence, and coordinated creative action at scale.
It’s really, really hard.
It would seem that if one wants to engage in real transformation in the world, a shift has to take place, which is expressed through culture, but begins within.
Here’s an experiential exercise you can try, to simulate how I see it:
First, take your index finger, and point it away from you, and out into the world.
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This is what all of us are familiar with doing, in some way. It’s identifying all the problems out there that need fixing. And there are many, many things, aren’t there? If only people would listen, things would finally change.
This is life from the bleachers.
Now, slowly redirect your index finger to point towards yourself, and bring it in until it’s touching the center of your chest. Perhaps you say out loud, “I AM.”
This is life on the field.
This is what world builders are doing.
It can be seen happening across every corner of the planet, with millions of people beginning to play. We’re witnessing it through uprisings, Occupy, and communities everywhere becoming self-aware.
As people awaken to what we really want and what we care about, then compare that against our fragile and crumbling systems that no longer serve these values or intentions, we begin to make choices. We decide that we are not interested in propping up old paradigms that are not life-enhancing and abundance producing.
