The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
7 incredible ways the Pentagon mismanages its massive budget
It's worse than you ever imagined.
LIST ONLY
1) The Pentagon cooks the books
2) Those “plugs” add up to a lot of money
3) It doesn't comply with mandatory audits
4) It has too many old and incopmpatible accounts and business management systems
5) It has too many supplies and no idea how to manage them
6) It can't keep track of its contracts
7) It has wasted billions of dollars trying to fix its billion-dollar waste problems
Strategic Climate Activism: Resist – and build a cooperative, democratic economy
The climate crisis is far more than an environmental issue. Adequately ramping up efforts to address it will require prioritizing a climate-justice movement which taps the potent activism of struggling peoples for whom social change is and has always been a matter of survival. In addition to resisting destructive forces, this approach will involve wholesale development of economic democracy, including “cooperatives and worker-owned businesses, community-development financial institutions, community land trusts, local agriculture and community-owned renewable energy, as well as efforts to reconceive corporations and redefine economic growth”. Such actions unjust corporate dominance, build local community resilience to deal with climate shocks, and nurture grassroots power to transform systems that urgently need transforming.
Dear friends,
The summary above will hopefully whet your appetite for the remarkable articles below. The main one which I have included in full, promotes with compelling logic the need to merge the climate movement with the economic democracy movement. “From Occupy to Climate Justice” was written by Wen Stephenson a few weeks ago. Stephenson also wrote the powerful article featured in my recent post Climate Journalism, Climate Passion, Climate Conscience and Action.
I also highly recommend two other articles to deepen our understanding of what Stephenson is talking about.
Huh?
Zim Shipping: New Evidence suggests Six Months Foreknowledge of the September 11th Attack
Keith Maart
Veterans Today, 21 February 2014
Zim American-Israeli Shipping (“Zim”) was the predecessor company of the present Zim Integrated Shipping Services and was 49 percent owned by the Israeli government on 9/11. In 2004, the Israeli government sold their interest to the Israeli Ofer Brothers Group, which then became the sole owner of the company.1 On 9/11, Zim’s headquarters’ was in Haifa, Israel, and it had worldwide regional offices in Hong Kong, Hamburg, Germany, and Manhattan, New York/Norfolk, Virginia.2
At the time of the 9/11 attacks Zim was one of two Israeli companies with lease contracts at the WTC. The other Israeli tenant, Clear Forest, had a small office of 18 employees on the 47th floor of WTC 1 (the North Tower). According to the Jerusalem Post, Clear Forest had only four or five employees at the WTC on 9/11 and all escaped uninjured.3 Although there were some variances in the WTC 1 tenant rosters between various media organizations, the majority showed that Zim occupied all of the 16th floor (WTC floor space approximated 50,000 square feet), 10,000 square feet of the 17th floor, and some space of the 29th floor of WTC 1.4 Zim had about 250 employees at the WTC before its move-out, which would require somewhere in the vicinity of 50,000 to 60,000 square feet of office space.5
Amazingly fortunate for Zim, the company moved out of the WTC around Sept. 4, 2001 and into a newly built office building in Norfolk, Va., even though they had a significant remaining lease obligation at the WTC.6 In fact, Zim picked this lucky move-out date about six months before they actually moved. An April 3, 2001 article in the Virginian-Pilot stated, “Zim expects to open the new (Norfolk) building by Sept. 4 and will eventually employ 235 people.”7 Coincidently, pilot hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Shehhi were inexplicably in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area in February and April 2001 at the time Zim was apparently in the search and planning process for their Norfolk building.8 Although Zim is reported to have had about 10 of its purported 20 remaining employees at the WTC on 9/11, none were killed or injured.9 However, other media reports stated that Zim had 35 sales and marketing people and additional computer personnel remaining at the WTC on 9/11, indicating Zim had a small percentage of its remaining staff at the WTC on 9/11.10
Full Story with 101 Footnotes Below the Line.
America has been in decay for decades (since the mid seventies).
It's a problem that has consumed a large portion of my thinking for nearly a decade.
I've read the analysis. Listened to the debates.
Very little of it resonated.
That was a bit depressing. Without any insight into the real problem, all we could do is accept inevitable failure and eventual collapse.
Fortunately, at that moment, I was able to find the clarity I needed to answer this question (due to the support of a great friend).
It was in front of me all of the time and I just didn't see it for what it was.
It was this simple idea.
Lots of Banker Suicides – or Bankers Suicided – Lately
There has been a rash of articles coming out of the alternative Web press in the last 2-3 weeks about the untimely deaths of bankers, financiers, financial journalists and Wall Street types that smell, in most cases, very fishy, and the number and frequency of these deaths, whatever their cause, whether by suicide (the usual explanation offered by authorities) or murder seems rather high. This article below gives details on what seems to be a number of the individuals who died, though there are more not mentioned:
Last week, two of the senior ArnoldIT professionals delivered a one hour lecture to a select group of executives. The topic was related to our work in locating high-value information using open source content sources.
Shortly after our presentation I read “Google Was Willing to Beat Facebook’s $19B Offer for WhatsApp.” Quite a windfall for WhatsApp.
The thought that struck me was the way the deal illuminated a comment made by an investment banker attending out lecture last week. The former consultant told me:
We focus on innovation. We are looking in high tech sectors.
The statement is a bit of misdirection. The investment firm wants to find companies, inject cash, and then do a deal like the WhatsApp anomaly. The user of the word “innovation” is an audible pause. Like the person who uses “so” or “um” in conversation, the individual talking about innovation is not interested in innovation.
