Friday, March 21, 2014

March 21st, 2014 10:00 AM Public Workshop at the Legislative Council Bureau, Las Vegas, NV - For the amendment of Regulations intended for Hydraulic Fracturing


...there was a public meeting this morning in downtown Vegas regarding the permitting of 'fracking' in Nevada ... for what it's worth, I gave my two cents... 
...at the meeting and in a follow-up message...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Date: March 22nd, 2014

To: Richard Perry, Administrator, Division of Minerals, www.minerals.state.nv.us/
c/o: Valerie Kneefel, Vkneefel@govmail.state.nv.us

From: Bernard & Bernadette Arias, Henderson, NV, bjarias@gmail.com
 
Re: March 21st, 2014 10:00 AM Public Workshop at the Legislative Council Bureau, Las Vegas, NV - For the amendment of Regulations intended for Hydraulic Fracturing
 
Message:
As I mentioned in my comments to the panel at the fracking meeting yesterday morning.. and I cannot emphasize strongly enough... we must IMMEDIATELY begin to dramatically remove ourselves from the extensive burning of all fossil fuels. Especially in the extensive spread of Hydraulic Fracturing (aka Fracking)...continued efforts in support of this illogical and harmful technology is beyond comprehension.
 
We have precious little time remaining, provided it is not too late already, to prevent ultimate
catastrophe... the complete annihilation of most all life on the planet, caused by an overheating climate.
If this sounds harsh in the extreme.. it is meant to be, for in no uncertain terms, should we continue on our present path, we will shockingly soon witness the unimaginable. In what might be as little as 20 to 30 years, most all of our society will irreversibly become seriously negatively impacted.
 
It is always determined that should you really want to know what is happening, all you need do is
'follow-the-money.' Do it, and it will lead you to the untold billions in profits the energy companies are earning, and their unflinching support of the status quo.
It is estimated currently there is $22 TRILLION dollars worth of fossil fuel reserves in-the-ground (a phenomenal motivator shared among each of these companies) and for which all these mega-corporations will fight tooth-and-nail, spending untold billions to protect.

Nevada has a unique opportunity to be a leader in starting the turnaround process by saying NO to the powerful energy interests. With precious little time and water remaining, and even less going into a very unstable future.. it would be sheer insanity to waste hundreds of millions, even billions of gallons of such a precious resource. Once mixed and contaminated with numerous harmful/ deadly chemicals, it would be lost for eons.

In addition, contrary to the false optimism of all the energy spokespersons, there must and will be continued and numerous 'accidents' (look at the numerous documented reports readily available).. some critical.. potentially we could very readily loose our groundwater sources, not even the loss of one should be considered an acceptable tradeoff.
 
This is one of the most damaging technological processes mankind has ever developed. 
Its widespread long-term use will ultimately prove without a doubt to be harmful beyond imagination... a Pandora's Box that with hindsight we will wish we had never opened.
You need go no farther than Fukishima, with all the 'safeguards' and constant industry assurances, we are well on our way to contaminating all the Pacific, and from there it will not be long before we will have lost all the oceans.

When are we to learn that doing things for profit only, is leading us down paths to
unimaginably ruinous consequences.

Listen to your conscience, separate ideas and thoughts apart from the powerful monied interests, understand and appreciate what all the people speaking at the meeting were saying.. were there any in favor of the fracking process not linked somehow to the fossil fuel industry?
Do the necessary research (as we keep doing), free from special-interest influences.
 
We the people are all incensed and terrified at the way our government is forsaking us for the influence of 'special-interests.'
You are 'our' representatives, and are supposed to be acting on behalf of all the people, not just those who are now commanding your ear and your actions through monied force and political/ lobbying strong-arming.
 
Do the right thing.. DO NOT permit fracturing in Nevada!!

Respectfully submitted,
Bernard & Bernadette Arias
Henderson, NV

 

“The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.”
~ William James


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Climate Disruption Dispatches, With Dahr Jamail

 ~~~ AVOIDANCE OF THESE ISSUES DOESN'T MAKE THEM GO AWAY ~~~



There are some startling numbers here in this article, and one thing we know for sure is that all of them are accelerating at a completely astounding pace...

  • sixty-three percent of all human-generated carbon emissions have been produced in the last 25 years
  • there is a 40-year time lag between global emissions (our actions) and climate impacts.. we haven't even begun to experience the worst of our emissions, and won't, until at least 2054
  • the UN Environment Program predicted up to a 5 degree Celsius increase by 2050... a shocking piece of information, because a 3.5 degree Celsius increase would render the planet uninhabitable for humans
  • humans have never lived on a planet with temperatures 3.5 degrees Celsius above baseline, and many scientists believe it would be impossible to do so 
  • 55 million years ago, a 5-degree Celsius increase in global temperatures occurred in only 13 years, and a scientific report published last year revealed in the near-term, Earth's climate will change 10 times faster than at any other moment in the last 65 million years
  • science already shows we are currently experiencing change 200 to 300 times faster than any of the previous major extinction events

Have we already reached a point where.. we as a species are now teetering on the threshold of our very extinction...



 ~~~ AVOIDANCE OF THE ISSUES DOESN'T MAKE THEM GO AWAY ~~~

"You might not be interested in climate change... 
but climate change is interested in you."





Follow  truth-out.org (sign up for emails) 

Follow Climate Progress   

Follow Climate Change  

Follow UN Climate Talks  

Follow AVAAZ
  

I very much envy those that are going to be around in 2050...
but yet again I feel extremely fortunate having been born when I was...

Saturday, March 15, 2014

The Thorium Dream - Watch Free Documentary Online


... "1 gram of thorium is more energy dense than 7,396 gallons of
gasoline... this means that 8 grams of the substance could power a
thorium turbine motor vehicle for a century
."


 http://energyfromthorium.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/New-Landing-Slide-8r.jpg


Thorium is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils; it is three times more abundant than tin in the Earth's crust and is about as common as lead.
.




.. so why are we captives of the fossil fuel (oil, coal, etc.) mega-corporations...
$$$$ 200+ trillion dollars is a mighty powerful motivator.. 

(est. value of 'in-the-ground' fossil fuel reserves)


Tuesday, February 18, 2014

What goes in and out of Hydraulic Fracturing .. is it worth it?


Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas inside.
 

  • Each gas well requires an average of 400 tanker trucks to carry water and supplies to and from the site.
  •  It takes 1-8 million gallons of water to complete each fracturing job. 
  •  Approximately 40,000 gallons of chemicals are used per fracturing.
  • The water brought in is mixed with sand and chemicals to create fracking fluid.  
  • Up to 600 chemicals are used in fracking fluid, including known carcinogens and toxins such as... uranium...mercury...ethylene-glycol...radium...methanol...hydrochloric acid...and formaldehyde.
  • The fracking fluid is then pressure injected into the ground through a drilled pipeline.

The Math:  

  • 500,000 active gas wells in the US x 8 million gallons of water per fracking x 18 times a well can be fracked...
  • = 72 trillion gallons of water and 360 billion gallons of chemicals needed to run our current gas wells.

The mixture reaches the end of the well where the high pressure causes the nearby shale rock to crack, creating fissures where natural gas flows into the well.

Contamination

  • During this process, methane gas and toxic chemicals leach out from the system and contaminate nearby groundwater.
  • Methane concentrations are 17 times higher in drinking-water wells near fracturing sites than in normal wells.

Drinking Water

  • Contaminated well water is used for drinking water for nearby cities and towns.
  • There have been over 1,000 documented cases of water contamination next to areas of gas drilling as well as cases of sensory, respiratory, and neurological damage due to ingested contaminated water.

Left Behind

  • Only 30-50% of the fracturing fluid is recovered, the rest of the toxic fluid is left in the ground and is not biodegradable.
  • The waste fluid that is collected above ground is left in open air pits to evaporate, releasing harmful VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) into the atmosphere, creating contaminated air, acid rain, and ground level ozone.

In the end, hydraulic fracking produces approximately 300,000 barrels of natural gas a day, but at the price of numerous environmental, safety, and health hazards.

... think it is worth it? 

 

(courtesy of GaslandTheMovie.com)



Help support the FRAC Act (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act) which would require the energy industry to disclose all chemicals used in fracturing fluid as well as repeal fracking's exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act. 



Monday, November 18, 2013

For any that might believe..

.. most social programs ('handouts') are just government giveaways, and are part, if not most all of our problems... when in fact, inequality and injustice are the real issues facing our world today...

.. here's just a few (of MANY) recent articles to read and consider... (be sure and watch 'The Crash of 2016")...




We’re Not Broke — We’ve Been Robbed
Slashing government spending now is just going to make our nation poorer.
follow  Richard Kirsch... @_RichardKirsch

follow Thom Hartmann...  @Thom_Hartmann

Myths of Economic Statistics
follow Salvatore Babones... @sbabones

follow Andrea Germanos... @andreagermanos

 Rip-Off: High Out-of-Pocket Social Costs are a Stealth Tax on the Middle Class and the Poor
"... we pay four times as much for out-of-pocket “social costs” in the private sector – health care, retirement security, disability and unemployment insurance and the rest of the social safety net."
follow Joshua Holland ... @JoshuaHol


by Ben Strubel

 by Paul Buchheit

"The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America—and What We Can Do to Stop It"
by Thom Hartmann


... everyone should watch this Moyers-Giroux interview in it's entirety...
Zombie Politics and Casino Capitalism


 follow Henry Giroux
@HenryGiroux
henryagiroux.com
publicintellectualsproject.mcmaster.ca



 




Monday, October 28, 2013

... NO APOLOGIES.. JUST SOLID HARD ROCK.. WHO TO ADD?? ...


 ..HAVE A COUPLE BEERS OR GLASSES OF WINE (or both).. 
WATCH 'FULL SCREEN'  (tab on bottom right of video)...
AND BE SURE N LISTEN WITH A GOOD HEADSET...


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lacuna Coil - Spellbound

Steve Vai - Now We Run

Halestorm (Lzzy Hale) - I Miss The Misery

Evanescence - Going Under 

Within Temptation (Sharon den Adel) -
Shot In The Dark

Apocalyptica - S.O.S. (Anything But Love) 
ft Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil


 Poe - Hello

Paramore (Hayley Williams) - Decode 

The Commander-In-Chief - Instrumental nr. 1

Lacuna Coil - I Won't Tell You

Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds

Nightwish  -  Phantom Of The Opera

Flyleaf (Lacey Sturm) - All Around Me

Delain (Charlotte Wessels) - The Gathering

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit 

Seether - Remedy 

Alanis Morissette - You Oughta Know 

Guns.N.Roses - Sweet Child O'Mine 

Nickelback - Burn It To The Ground

Meytal Cohen - Toxicity 

Marilyn Manson - Tainted Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nO_P4BH4pA

The Details - Always, Always, Always, Never

Orianthi - Voodoo Child 

The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil

Monday, September 16, 2013

Two mysterious and elaborate crop circles appear in a week - just miles apart - Mirror Online

The pair are the latest in a long line of crop circle patterns to have appeared in the south-west of England this summer... (August 2013).     



Both these circles are the largest and most elaborate so far this summer 
and contain very interesting geometry.
 The first formation, believed to measure around 390 feet in diameter 
and first thought to have appeared on August 6. 






And just five days later, locals noticed a second, smaller crop circle measuring
120 feet in diameter.
The two formations were captured by Lucy Pringle, from Petersfield, Hants, who is a aerial photographer, researcher and world-wide lecturer on the phenomenon.   http://www.lucypringle.co.uk/     Follow Lucy Pringle  @CropCircleLucy

There are numerous crop formations from the past several decades shown on Lucy Pringle's website.. here's just a few from recent years that I've selected as personal 'favorites'... 

CROP CIRCLE FORMATIONS - Info & Links
  
  

Saturday, September 14, 2013

... just one reason why precious metals could turn out to be a very valuable 'insurance policy'

... there are quite a few links that have been added to this page since it was first posted, so be sure and check and see if you have viewed all of them... 
 

The 441 TRILLION Dollar Interest Rate Derivatives Time Bomb (and GROWING!!)

        By Michael Snyder, on June 24th, 2013

       


Do you want to know the primary reason why rapidly rising interest rates could take down the entire global financial system?  Most people might think that it would be because the U.S. government would have to pay much more interest on the national debt.  And yes, if the average rate of interest on U.S. government debt rose to just 6 percent (and it has actually been much higher in the past), the federal government would be paying out about a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt.  But that isn't it.  Nor does the primary reason have to do with the fact that rapidly rising interest rates would impose massive losses on bond investors.  At this point, it is being projected that if U.S. bond yields rise by an average of 3 percentage points, it will cause investors to lose a trillion dollars.   
Yes, that is a 1 with 12 zeroes after it ($1,000,000,000,000).  

But that is not the number one danger posed by rapidly rising interest rates either.  Rather, the number one reason why rapidly rising interest rates could cause the entire global financial system to crash is because there are more than 441 TRILLION dollars worth of interest rate derivatives sitting out there.  This number comes directly from the Bank for International Settlements - the central bank of central banks.  

[In 2012 the total GWP (Gross World Product) was approximately 72 Trillion Dollars
... so more than 6 times GWP of the ENTIRE PLANET is now in derivatives!!]

In other words, more than $441,000,000,000,000 has been bet on the movement of interest rates. Normally these bets do not cause a major problem because rates tend to move very slowly and the system stays balanced.  But now rates are starting to skyrocket, and the sophisticated financial models used by derivatives traders do not account for this kind of movement.

So what does all of this mean?
It means that the global financial system is potentially heading for massive amounts of trouble if interest rates continue to soar.
Today, the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasury bonds rocketed up to 2.66% before settling back to 2.55%.  The chart posted below shows how dramatically the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has moved in recent days…


Right now, the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries is about 30 percent above its 50 day moving average. That is the most that it has been above its 50 day moving average in 50 years.
Like I mentioned above, we are moving into uncharted territory and this data doesn't really fit into the models used by derivatives traders. 
The yield on 5 year U.S. Treasuries has been moving even more dramatically…



Last week, the yield on 5 year U.S. Treasuries rose by an astounding 37 percent.  That was the largest increase in 50 years.
Once again, this is uncharted territory. If rates continue to shoot up, there are going to be some financial institutions out there that are going to start losing absolutely massive amounts of money on interest rate derivative contracts.

So exactly what is an interest rate derivative?
The following is how Investopedia defines interest rate derivatives...
A financial instrument based on an underlying financial security whose value is affected by changes in interest rates. Interest-rate derivatives are hedges used by institutional investors such as banks to combat the changes in market interest rates. Individual investors are more likely to use interest-rate derivatives as a speculative tool - they hope to profit from their guesses about which direction market interest rates will move.

They can be very complicated, but prefer to think of them in very simple terms.  Just imagine walking into a casino and placing a bet that the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries will hit 2.75% in July.  If it does reach that level, you win.  If it doesn't, you lose.  That is a very simplistic example, but I think that it is a helpful one.   
At the heart of it, the 441 TRILLION dollar derivatives market is just a bunch of people making bets about which way interest rates will go.

And normally the betting stays very balanced and our financial system is not threatened.  The people that run this betting use models that are far more sophisticated than anything that Las Vegas uses. But all models are based on human assumptions, and wild swings in interest rates could break their models and potentially start causing financial losses on a scale that our financial system has never seen before.
We are potentially talking about a financial collapse far worse than anything that we saw back in 2008. Remember, the U.S. national debt is just now approaching 17 trillion dollars.  So when you are talking about 441 trillion dollars you are talking about an amount of money that is almost unimaginable.

Meanwhile, China appears to be on the verge of another financial crisis as well.  The following is from a recent article by Graham Summers...
China is on the verge of a “Lehman” moment as its shadow banking system implodes. China had pumped roughly $1.6 trillion in new credit (that’s 21% of GDP) into its economy in the last two quarters… and China GDP growth is in fact slowing.
This is what a credit bubble bursting looks like: the pumping becomes more and more frantic with less and less returns.
And Chinese stocks just experienced their largest decline since 2009.  The second largest economy on earth is starting to have significant financial problems at the same time that our markets are starting to crumble. Not good.

And don't forget about Europe.  European stocks have had a very, very rough month so far...
The narrow EuroStoxx 50 index is now at its lowest in over seven months (-5.4% year-to-date and -12.5% from its highs in May) and the broader EuroStoxx 600 is also flailing lower. The European bank stocks pushed down to their lowest in almost 10 months and are now in bear market territory - down 22.5% from their highs. Spain and Italy are now testing their lowest level in 9 months.
So are the central banks of the world going to swoop in and rescue the financial markets from the brink of disaster? At this point it does not appear likely.

As I have written previously, the Bank for International Settlements is the central bank for central banks, and it has a tremendous amount of influence over central bank policy all over the planet.
The other day, the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, Jaime Caruana, gave a speech entitled "Making the most of borrowed time".  In that speech, he made it clear that the era of extraordinary central bank intervention was coming to an end.  

The following is one short excerpt from that speech...
"Ours is a call for acting responsibly now to strengthen growth and avoid even costlier adjustment down the road. And it is a call for recognizing that returning to stability and prosperity is a shared responsibility. Monetary policy has done its part. Recovery now calls for a different policy mix – with more emphasis on strengthening economic flexibility and dynamism and stabilizing public finances."
Monetary policy has done its part? That sounds pretty firm.
And if you read the entire speech, you will see that Caruana makes it clear that he believes that it is time for the financial markets to stand on their own. But will they be able to?

As I wrote yesterday, the U.S. financial system is a massive Ponzi scheme that is on the verge of imploding.  Unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve has helped to prop it up for the last couple of years, and there is a lot of fear in the financial world about what is going to happen once that unprecedented intervention is gone.

So what happens next?
Well, nobody knows for sure, but one thing seems certain.  The last half of 2013 [and 2014] is shaping up to be very, very interesting.

 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

..only a very small percentage of the general population realizes the size and scope of the derivatives market.. 440 Trillion is more than likely on the very conservative side, as this Time article from March 2013 indicates...


"... leading bond portfolio managers and derivatives experts believe the market has continued to expand rapidly, without being especially visible. While there’s no way of knowing for sure, estimates of the face value of all derivatives outstanding tops a quadrillion (1,000 trillion) dollars, or more than 14 times the entire world’s annual GWP. By comparison, the total value of all the stocks trading on the New York Stock Exchange is roughly only $15 trillion."

 
And should you really want to get an increased understanding of just what the situation is with the major banks in this country... it has to start with the realization that a majority of derivatives originate from and are held by these gigantic 'to big to fail' MEGA-BANKS.


(.. don't not watch it!!)

5.10.2012
The debt crisis exploded in 2008, and its shock waves have lost none of their destructiveness.
It was derivatives schemes that emboldened American banks to offer unsecured mortgages, eventually blowing up the global market.

9.12.2013
Five Years after Market Crash, U.S. Economy Seen as ‘No More Secure’
... a majority of Americans (63%) say the nation’s economic system is no more secure today than it was before the 2008 market crash. Just a third (33%) think the system is more secure...


9.16.2013
A fine of up to $750 million may be levied against the JPMorgan investment bank for the events that led the firm to take outsized bets in complex derivatives trades that resulted in trading losses of more than $6 billion.

9.16.2013
Six Reasons Another Financial Crisis Is Inevitable
Five years after the fall of Lehman Brothers and the worst financial crisis since 1929, one thing seems certain: another meltdown of the financial system seems inevitable. Why? Because we still haven't fixed many of the problems that led to the last crisis. 

9.18.2013
The Looming Mass Destruction From Derivatives
... shadow banks, free of government regulation, are propped up by a hidden government guarantee in the form of safe harbor status under the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act pushed through by Wall Street... result is to create perverse incentives for the financial system to self-destruct.
  


9.26.2013
"None of these big banks really want compliance people causing traders and investment bankers to second-guess themselves too much because that gets in the way of making money. No one will say this, but it’s more effective to run the risk of noncompliance and pay a few fines, which is just a cost of doing business.”

10.09.2013
The Public Bank Solution: Transforming Our Broken System
PBI Newsletter, September/October 2013
Capitalism is nothing more than a set of rules, a set of rules that has been heavily lobbied to benefit the richest and most powerful. To purists capitalism is the laissez faire system of supply and demand with no interference from government. Well, when have we had that? Only in some libertarians’ wet dreams.


Who and what these banks are today is discussed at length in the following interviews with Bill Moyers... take the time to watch in their entirety these outstanding interviews... 
  

Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith on the Follies of Big Banks and Government

Sheila Bair on Keeping Banks Honest
 
Sheila Bair Takes on the Banks


Trapped in a Web of Debt and a Derivatives Time-Bomb with Ellen Brown 
(go to 7 & 15 min mark) 

 

Follow Sheila Bair   @SheilaBair2013

Follow Matt Taibbi   @mtaibbi

Follow Yves Smith  @yvessmith

Follow Bill Moyers  @BillMoyersHQ

Follow Bill Black  @WilliamKBlack

Follow Ellen Brown  @ellenhbrown 


 

'The Edge'... there is no honest way to explain it because the only ones who really know where it is...  are the ones who go over.