The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Water Infrastructure Cost Report
Phi Beta Iota: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has never really “managed” anything. They blew off the “M” forever in the 1970's and became a budget chop shop unable to render intelligence with integrity to the Executive. At the same time, the Cabinet departments are focused on protecting budget share for their stakeholders (the recipients of the taxpayer's revenue, not the taxpayer's themselves), and neither they, nor the US Intelligence Community now costing us $80 billion a year, are capable of doing responsible analytics in the national interest. The lack of intelligence (decision-support) with (holistic) integrity across all organizations is the central challenge of our time.
See Also:
Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both
Sad as the comment might be, this makes sense. Every state should do doing similar planning. The next major collapse is scheduled for 2013-2014. The next step up would be regional (nine nations) planning boards for agriculture, energy, food, and water. This summer may be the last calm period for some time.
Wyoming House advances doomsday bill
Jeremy Pelzer
Star-Tribune, 24 February 2012
CHEYENNE — State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.
House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.
The task force would look at the feasibility of
Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Miller, R-Riverton, has said he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon. But with the national debt exceeding $15 trillion and protest movements growing around the country, Miller said Wyoming — which has a comparatively good economy and sound state finances — needs to make sure it’s protected should any unexpected emergency hit the U.S.
Several House members spoke in favor of the legislation, saying there was no harm in preparing for the worst.
“I don’t think there’s anyone in this room today what would come up here and say that this country is in good shape, that the world is stable and in good shape — because that is clearly not the case,” state Rep. Lorraine Quarberg, R-Thermopolis, said. “To put your head in the sand and think that nothing bad’s going to happen, and that we have no obligation to the citizens of the state of Wyoming to at least have the discussion, is not healthy.”
Wyoming’s Department of Homeland Security already has a statewide crisis management plan, but it doesn’t cover what the state should do in the event of an extreme nationwide political or economic collapse. In recent years, lawmakers in at least six states have introduced legislation to create a state currency, all unsuccessfully.
The task force would include state lawmakers, the director of the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security, the Wyoming attorney general and the Wyoming National Guard’s adjutant general, among others.
The bill must pass two more House votes before it would head to the Senate for consideration. The original bill appropriated $32,000 for the task force, though the Joint Appropriations Committee slashed that number in half earlier this week.
University of Wyoming political science professor Jim King said the potential for a complete unraveling of the U.S. government and economy is “astronomically remote” in the foreseeable future.
But King noted that the federal government set up a Continuity of Government Commission in 2002, of which former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson, R-Wyo., was co-chairman. However, King said he didn’t know of any states that had established a similar board.
Derrick Z. Jackson
Boston Globe, 11 October 2011
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.
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.’’
We are beginning to think about how much “virtual” water we export and how to reduce that greatly.
PNAS-article on The Water Footprint of Humanity
Feb 13 – Water used by the agricultural sector accounts for nearly 92% of annual global freshwater consumption, according to a study that quantifies and maps humanity's water footprint. The article appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). The water footprint (WF) is measure of the total volume of freshwater used to produce goods and services.
See Also:
Gulag Wealth Fund
In a recent and very interesting interview with author Cory Doctorow, he mentions Max Keiser’s “Gulag Wealth Fund”. Doctorow says:
“And there's this symbiotic relationship between criminalization or prohibition, and the people who benefit from enforcement, right? There's a rogue economist named Max Keiser who has a notional fund, just a fund on paper that you can buy into if you wanted to follow a stock. It's called the Gulag Wealth Fund, [and is comprised of] private prison companies, mercenaries, arms dealers, and so on. Basically, his theory is that if the Gulag Wealth index goes up, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And the Gulag Wealth index has been soaring.” (my emphasis)
Interview .. Gulag Wealth Fund
I wonder how long it will take before someone sets up an actual fund of this type and makes a lot of money?
Continue reading “Owl: Gulag Wealth Fund – Tracking Predatory Capitalism”
Water Industry, World Bank Pilot New Scheme To Drive Public Water Into Private Hands World
DAVOS-KLOSTERS, SWITZERLAND – This January 26th, the water industry will privately review its newest strategy for driving public water resources into private hands at the World Economic Forum. A partnership quietly launched in October with funding from the World Bank, Coca-Cola and Veolia will report on progress towards its stated mission to “transform the water sector” by establishing “new normative approaches to water governance” that put the private sector in the driver’s seat in water management.
Calling itself the Water Resources Group (WRG) and headed by Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathei, the corporation has already targeted the countries of Mexico, Jordan, India and South Africa to “shape and test governance processes” that would make water privatization more feasible and profitable. The fact that the Group has not invited publicity, and the Bank was unwilling to comment upon its launch, underscores how controversial its founders know the endeavor to be.
“The cognitive dissonance could not be clearer,” said Corporate Accountability International Executive Director Kelle Louaillier. “Amid a global water crisis, exacerbated by one failed privatization scheme after another, a development institution is aggressively advancing narrow industry interests to the detriment of poverty alleviation.”
Continue reading “Mini-Me: Global Water Theft Planned by World Bank”
