Life as an Artificial Lifeform

Ok I have my feelers out for a while to see how long the ruling elite can surpress the boiling feeling of the masses and for the last months I was amazed at how great the distraction with bailouts and carcompany dramas has worked to put the focus away from the real underlying problem that is the system itself. In a way I was quite happy because the longer its dragged out while still correcting itself somehow the more chance there is that the transition to any kind of new system might be a smooth one. The worst possible scenario that I can see is a sudden world wide collapse as this will be mayhem.
Now then came Greece with its street protests which were quelled but then flared up again and still do not seem under control - yet these were still not portraing the message of system change as for the mass media the "culprit" of the problem was easely found in the corrupt politicians. Yet some reports from there were already a bit discouraging - like neo nazis helping the government retain control (and if you look at the riot photos you see "police" without uniform beating protestors.) Still the media was very very successful to quell any and all underlying system critique and did everything in their might to make it a local problem - which after all might have been not the worst thing for the world.
But I do sense a great great dissatisfaction among the netizens and its growing and people - normal people with family and older and not radical - are definately starting to wonder if those riots in greece are just the beginning and are starting to feel they should take their feet to the streets en masse. What had been comments I rarely came across over the last years - mostly on ultra leftist website with a know anarchist undertone is slowly but surely spreading out like a fungus to the mainstream. The more people loose their job their home their future the more people wake up from the dystopian capitalistic dream of endless resources and energy and toys and distraction and find themself in a reality that is much more gruesome then they ever expected. These are people who lived in comfort for most of their live being completely disengaged from the real problems of the world and suddenly find themself in the same situation as the somali pirate - trying to survive after being robbed of land and humility by multimillion dollar companies trying to make the fastest buck and passing it on to the superrich.
Over the last couple of days this dissatisfaction is rising quickly and what has been a little match that was reignited only by a few carers has already become a campfire that is slowly spilling its deadly flames over the boundary here and there.
I am deeply worried that this might become an uncontrollable and - most sadly - violent wildfire that might spread around the whole world not very distant in the future. I think they still "hope" that the new president of the center of the capitalistic universe might be able to pull out a miracle but judging from the people he choosed to help him pulling off that miracle I would say there will be more "politics as usual" then anything else - there might be some short sighted painkillers but when they wear off it will be even worse then before. There is no time for bickering and discussion and making compromises - if the system will gradually change to a more sustainable future the departure from bussiness as usual will have to be drastic - it will still be much less drastic then what would happen if those people with the last bit of hope loose their spirit alltogether - in a sense everyday passing will accelerate the feeling and the voices do grow louder - slowly but if you have your feelers out you might start to sense that this is happening - I do and I am trembling with fear of a world in total mayhem - yet I do not see much ways out of it other then somebody somewhere with enough power wake the fuck up - kill big companies alltogether get back into organic small farming - on a big scale, push clean energy - even putting to rest all and each coal, oil and gas production that is not needed to pull us out of the mess (meaning everything that is not essential to survival and to make the switch to sustainable clean environmental friendly energy). I am afraid - very afraid.

the comment that tipped me over the top with my fear:

Thank God we still have guns in America,
because Americans may unfortunately need them to take their county back, and statments like this energy shipping company owner made are just more evidence that it may be sooner rather than later.

Of course he is right and there must be real deep change coming - I was really hoping that the other side wakes up before the general consensus is that it will never wake up and grab the next best weapon of choice and start civil war - not between nations but on economic lines.

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Bank Implode O Meter has some serious "fun" these days as everything they ever predicted is happening exactly as they predicted. Its by now a safe bet to look at the website and see what financial woes coming next. First of all the bailouts ain´t working other then to maintain the status quo just a tiny bit longer. First 700 billion now another 7 trillion and all it does it throwing it to the monsters.

Just as Mish long ago predicted this behemoth will not survive with it’s current high risk, over leveraged business model, the model which took it from the biggest bank on the planet to one on the brink, on life support. Which means that leveraged reckless speculation can build bad assets faster than all the bailouts put together can bail it out which means that and any new fangled, derived short term credit crack fix will transfer the patient from intensive care to the morgue, which means that it would better to shoot the patient yourself than prescribe any those measures that served to put the bank in its condition.

More crank is a waste of time and money, but in the sociopathy of the elites driving the train wreck it is exactly what will be prescribed.

Who is footing the bill? American taxpayers and the frenzy can´t go on much longer because at one point the USofA will be bankrupt and there won´t be anyone bailing them out.
Thats just Citygroup but there is now word on the street that Prime mortgages - you know those mortgages that had been token up by people who could actually afford a mortgage - are now going bust - the subprime market was just a tiny tiny percentage point of all mortgages the biggest chunk is the prime mortgages and its just a matter of time until that market completely collapses - then everything we have seen at the moment will look like a joke. Oh and credit card companies are starting to get worried too. The thing is that you can bailout banks as long as you want - if the people feeding the bank or take up credit are not able to feed the banks anymore because they have not even enough to feed themself then it might be that you put the money into the wrong site of the equation.

Oh and by the way a nice documentary where does the money come from"? Do you know it? I didn´t.

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You know you can sense a kind of cheering in the media for more and bigger bailouts and rarely do you hear voices of concern in the deceasing matter. If you look deep and have read my previous article on why the media might need its own bailout its quite clear that they might not need their own bailout - a bailout of other failing industries is enough to sustain this failing industry as well. Here is a chart to think about if you want to trust the mass media with any information on any bailout - and let me say the US is just an example the list is pretty much the same (just switch us car makers and banks with local car makers and banks). So here is the list of the top advertisers of the american mass media market. There should be a light going on in your head - if not you might be living in a cave.

Hmm 21 billion of advertisment revenues - the top 20 - and all thats in it is cars and banks. Empty words like "too big to fail" and "5 million jobs" and "end of world" take on a whole new meaning if you look at it from the perspective of the media industry. They might be just talking about them self instead of the banks and the cars.

From the excellent media death watch blog newscorpse.

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Seldom has there been a day with so many headlines about laws and lawcases and policy submissions and calls for boykott that all have to do with our Big Brother and Freedom of Culture. Just a short overview for you:

Danish Internet Provider has to cut off its customers from Pirate Bay Bit Torrent Tracker
(heise.de)

The german Bundesrat (the federal assembly) has ruled AGAINST the new law that would allow video surveilliance in homes without court order and putting spy software on anybody also without court order - that is after the Bundestag (state assembly) has ruled in favor of the law. If until Christmas the law is not passed it will have failed - a BIG BIG hurray for civil liberties - lets see what our evil minister for interior Mr. Schäuble will cook up to force it through until then. (heise.de)

Some internet providers in Germany are not adhering to the one year old "Vorratsdatenspeicherung" (data retention) law in germany despite the threat of hefty fines - guess it might be cheaper for them to pay the fines then to invest in the massive infrastructure that would be needed to make the data rentention possible - or maybe they do value their customers wishes in the end. This puts a lot of pressure on Mr. Schäuble to react - especially since there will be a final ruling on the legality of such law from the "Bundesgerichtshof" (federal court of justice) - the first round of the ruling already hinted that the law might be in breach with the german constitution. Manifest of Internet Providers Calling for Boykott of the law.

The Free Software Foundation has called for 35 days against DRM boykott - the first day marks an issue close to my heart - Apple. They are calling out Steve wonder Jobs on his statement claiming he does not like DRM and then only shortly after removing DRM from music he introduces drastic messearues on its prestigious macbook line that basically cripple the functionality of said computers just to include DRM. I fully support the boykott and will not buy a new Apple computer until that issue is resolved (good thing my current lappy and standalone machine are plenty good for a while). That means I will rock the current lappy again until it falls apart but its unacceptable for Apple to make such a move and I would really really like to see them bleed badly. I am very glad the issue has not died the media short attention span death yet. (Defective By Design 35 days against DRM)

Interesting developments for sure.

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Its week of fALks favorites reapearing. My favorite mathematician - yes I have such a thing - is Benoit Mandelbrot since the day he coined the butterfly effect and made me play endlessly with mandelbrot "Apfelmänchen" on my Commodore Amiga 2000 endlessly applying new formula alterations and watching the 12 MHz 7,09 MHz processor due its duty (yes it was slow). Said man is the mentor of Nicholas Taleb - an author whos book "The Black Swan" I almost got once but then didn´t and since then regret not having read said book as it was forecasting the current and all future financial collapses. Good thing for boingboing for linking an interview with the two men explaining in a bit too little but good enough detail why the current crisis is so scary - yes maybe the sack of rice falling over in China had to do with it in the end. Oh yes the greatest mathematician of modern times says that its quite possible that we are in a worse position then in the Great Depression.

Some info from Wikipedia about the book (linked above):

Why do people tend to neglect rare events? Partly because humans underestimate their ignorance in most situations—the effect of unexpected events is far more significant than people often imagine. Taleb argues that the proposition "we know" is in many cases an illusion—the human mind tends to think it knows, but it does not always have a solid basis for this delusion of "I know".

Taleb also questions the authority of experts. The "truth" behind science is limited to certain areas and methods, and in many areas having an academic degree and presenting oneself as a scientist is irrelevant. Indeed, authority can stifle empirical experience which, so many times, has proven to have a sounder base for accuracy.

Extreme events do happen and have a big effect. Examples abound, including September 11th. The Internet with its various effects was scarcely anticipated, and it is a development that has had a significant effect. The effects of extreme events are even higher due to the fact that they are unexpected.

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The comic is expected to sell tens of thousands of copies in its first weeks on sale, but is up against stiff competition: anti-capitalist books are the hottest sellers in capitalist Japan at the moment, and it will take something extraordinary to beat the sales of Hideki Mitani’s “Greedy Capitalism and the Self Destructiveness of Wall Street.”

Kapitalism is going away and to speed its departure the Japanese have drawn "Das Kapital" as a manga book to be sold 10.000 times to japanese comic lovers and capitalism haters. Funny dat hope they put it online at one point. I love mangas and I would have nothing against this very book to be in a more digestable form.

The UK Times has more juice to the story

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Sometimes you stumble over articles where you need to rub your eyes slap your hand against your head take a couple of deep deep breath and try to wave the little birdie coming out of your screen goodbye. Today was such a day again. The newly appointed London mayor - the first conservative London mayor since generations - has said that media companies should stop "underestimating" young people and stop "target" them with "cheap" hiphop and instead educate them to "higher" art like classical music and operas.
No I am absolutely not kidding. He wants to spent money so parents can send their kids to learn classical instruments.
Now - nothing against funding of letting people learn classical instruments - but who the fuck does he think to suggest hiphop or any other youth culture is "cheap art" and why does he think he can define what "high culture" is?

In a report outlining his strategy, his chief of arts and culture strategy, Munira Mirza, argues that too much emphasis has been placed on making events "user-friendly".

ugh? make parties user unfriendly so nobody goes to them anymore? See classical concert halls are empty for a fucking reason and that is that young people are BORED TO DEATH hearing songs that have been written 200 years ago and have not evolved since then. It might be an artform where rich kids are pressed into and then can behave as if they are something special - but the innovation in musical art comes from the street the dark warehouses the garages all over the world not some on multimillion dollar live support hanging concert houses that are playing Beethoven the 9th for the 2 millions' time. You rich conservative mummies you need to get out more - especially when you are the mayor of a city that used to be trendsetting when it comes to music.

Give Young People High Culture Not HipHop - Johnson. The Guardian

Picture from the Muppets Wiki

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Two incidents - very unlike one another - intermingled at their core idea. Citizens discontent spoken out loud and clear one heard one damned - one embraced one ignored one solved one clashing.

One for the right to work in China one for the right to party in Germany.

Unlikely role reversed? Or propaganda failing to work?

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There is again a superb analysis from gjohnsit of the "current" economic crisis over on DailyKos. Its staggering. Lets start with the charts left - thats the Baltic Dry Index. An index like the Dow Jones or Dax that is based on the money it costs to ship raw materials over sea. Its been in existence since 1744. That index has collapsed completely (98%) over the last two month. Compared to indices which hold mostly bank stocks this one has real implication in the real world.

The price of the daily rental of a Capesize bulk carrier has collapsed from $234,000 to $5,611. I'm no expert on shipping, but I bet that the cost of fuel, insurance, maintenance, and crew salaries on a ship that large is about $5,600 a day. If there is no profit from moving these ships, then goods will not move.

Thats right. Remember me talking about the tooth of the clockword wheels coming of? Global trade is likely the first big chunk thats flying down the pit as with prices like these ships don´t make a profit which means they have no reason to operate which means you don´t have goods shipping around, which means total collapse of the current "global" economy.

How will this counteracted? BARTERING. Yes you heard it right. The thing we are talking about in our podcast since over a year - that we are heading into a bartering moneyless society - its freaking already happening - on a much bigger scale then I ever thought possible:

Thailand on Monday said it planned to barter rice for oil with Iran in the clearest example to date of how the triple financial, fuel and food crisis is reshaping global trade as countries struggle with high commodity prices and a lack of credit.

Right right! Thailand barters with Iran - rice for oil. That is a transaction without money changing hands. You know the thing everyone we ever talked to about made them laughed at us, ridiculed it or tried to debate it. Yes its happening on a grand scale. Now will it trickle down the scale to reach normal people? Interesting times for sure.

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They did it. What? THEY FUCKING DID IT! They passed the fucking law that allows them to install cameras in my room, and install viruses on my computer without a court order! Who? THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT. You know the stupid CDU and SPD with 14 people voicing concern but voting for it anyway. WHAT? Yes! You know first they told us socialism is a bad thing - it kills babies and all. And yes they where right - it might not have killed babies but it killed freedom for a lot of people, encaged them with force spied on people and occasionally killed people wanting to break free. But you know what? What? Former East Germany had a budget deficit of a mere 150 Mio. German Marks - thats a deficit of 75 Mio. Euros - our current oh so effective capitalistic germany has a budget deficit which's number is so high that I don´t know how many zeros that are. So now that we are in such dire financial crisis all of the sudden there come these socialistic ideas from the drawers - you know buy out banks and make them state controlled, buy out car companies and make them state controlled, buy out music industries and make them state controlled - you know socialism at its best - nothing to say against that I guess - it must have worked better then they tried to imprint into our small little gray goo. Yet there is no need to also copy the bad things - you know take our freedom away, lock us up, put us under supervision of our neighbors and friends, close the borders spy kill fuck with our life. Nevertheless they do exactly that - copy the whole thing over - bring it to the 21st century and make it all a bit worse. This is going to take a real bad ending if people on all walks of life don´t WAKE THE FUCK UP.

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Financial Times Germany reports in their really detailed "financial crisis live ticker" of today:

Die amerikanische Energy Information Administration EIA hat ihre Produktionserwartungen für die Opec-Staaten nach unten korrigiert: Im vierten Quartal rechnet die Behörde nur noch mit einem täglichen Öl-Output von 31,93 Mio. Barrel nach zuvor 32,44 Mio. Barrel. 2009 werden die Opec-Staaten demnach durchschnittlich 31,13 Mio. Barrel Öl am Tag fördern. Zuvor war die EIA für das kommende Jahr von 31,59 Mio. Barrel ausgegangen. Die Nicht-Opec-Staaten sollen 2009 49,2 Mio. Barrel produzieren nach zuvor 49,51 Mio. Barrel. Für die Sorte West Texas Intermediate erwartet die EIA 2009 einen durchschnittlichen Fasspreis von 63,50 $.

For anyone not speaking german this is the official Oil watchdog agency of the USofA that says that we are beyond peak oil now with heavily declining oil output for the first time ever next year. Opec countries will reduce oil output from 31,93 Mio Barrel after this year producing 32,44 Mio. Barrel - non Opec countries go from 49,51 Mio. to 49,2 Mio. Barrel. The reduction does not seem much but remember - Peak oil means a bell curved shape and the top of the slope is almost straight until the abyss comes closer. Interesting is that the agency dropped their estimate for next year from 31,59 to 31,13 for the Opec countries - knowing that the current vice president has some stake in that business I wonder if the numbers where made to look a bit better before the election. All that means is that even so demand is rising (yes demand is rising even so there is a financial crisis but the SUVs need to be refilled you know) there just is not enough oil redealy available and tapping "new" reserves is highly expensive, takes about 10-15 years to get an oilfield on the line and there is just not much new to tap anyway. The only stuff left is tarsands - have a look at pictures on google on how pretty that is. So no matter what we are going to get with the financial crisis - be assured that we hear something about oil not being enough for even a short time horizon.

PS: On a side note - the Financial Times ticker linked above has been running for quite a while now (about 4-5 month I think) - this is likely to become a historic document to see how a system collapses in slomotion - I wish they would have a better RSS feed for it so that you can do remix things with it.

Posted by fALk at 19:43 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So this is the day when there is the decision if the human capitalistic world will either die fast or slow. The day when the americans will for once not disappoint, or when the machines rise and take matters into their shadowy masters hands. Its just the day the world has been waiting for the last eight years, they day when everything might change or nothing. dailykos.com has an election prediction game going on for those that want to win a MacBook - I was inclined to take part, after closing about 10.000 people took part in the gamble. Here is my ridiculous prediction:

57 Democratic Senate seats
41 Republican Senate seats
260 Democratic House seats
175 Republican House seats
384 Obama Electoral Votes
154 McCain Electoral Votes
55.4 Obama Popular Vote Percentage
43.3 McCain Popular Vote Percentage

I think this election will be a blowout - if it isn´t its because their are dirty tricks - but since the margins in the trackers are so overwhelmingly Obama across the line even in states that have never voted for a democrat in over 20 years and the voter turnout machine of Obama seems to be on a scale never seen before too I would think that the republicans are not so inclined to alter the vote considerably as this would quite certainly mean civil war and I tend to believe that even a lot of Republicans won´t want that as that would nullify their assets over night - and money is all they think of when they go into an election. So I predict this blowout scenario above. I call Florida and Ohio for Obama and I don´t give McCain the slightest chance that he takes Pennsylvania (that is were the fraud would happen if it happens by the way). I give Obama another 1-2 states because of the cellphone problem of most polls (polls including cellphone users tend to poll be 2% higher for Obama) and because of his ground forces organization.
I am a bit sad that South Dakota is not as close as North Dakota - that would have been my favorite pickup for a Democrat.
But in the end there is not much change going to happen in the US of A with either presidential candidate. With McCain the fall would go really fast, Obama might be able to prolong the fall for another 1-2 years, but with the massive debt currently in the country, the two biggest car companies failing and with the whole country on the credit syringe anybodies hand trying to run the country are tight - except if this person attempts to switch to another political system - which no mainstream US candidate will ever try.
We will continue a tradition tonight watching the polls coming in and discussion politics, current and future ones - and todays topic is more a future political system then the current US election. If you know me or mogreens and want to have a fruitful talk come over to mogreens house tonight after 21 CET.

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Since I get my last wisdom teeth pulled in about 20 minutes I thought I share the last bit of wisdom in me - no actually I am in a gloomy doomy mood and want to spread that around - no in fact I think topic is too important to be pulled out with my wisdom teeth - anyway...
I have talked to a lot of people about the "financial crisis" in the last weeks and to everyone I talked to it seemed a bit distant to affect them personally (with the few exceptions of the persons who are in the doom camp already). They all had to endure my preaching - if one bit of the capitalistic market comes to a proper grind the whole system collapses. Why do I think that? Look at the world out there. This whole system is like a house of cards, carefully stacked on top of each other of the last 100 years. One layer of cards made the next layer possible and then the next and the next. The bottom layer is comprised of the oil chain and the food chain, next one is housing, then transport, then consumer goods, then luxury goods (its much more fine grained but you get the idea). Now the thing with house of cards is that any part can topple the whole deck - even those on top - but the ones underneath definitely topple everything. Another analogy I am using is clockworks. If just one of the tiny teeth (ha you thought I would get around the post without mentioning teeth again he ;) is being pulled out the result is that the whole clockwork consisting of millions of teeth is coming to a halt. So same with modern day capitalism with a global supply and demand scheme. One part of the whole system stands still the rest will follow very very soon. Now the thing with the "financial crisis" is that at first it doesn´t look like it will affect you personally (not unless a savings bank is bankrupt and people flock to the ATMs to get their nonexistent money out - its all virtual - there is no money because it has all been lend out and then some). I have been watching with open eyes because I believed that pulling that much money from under the market out there must have an affect somewhere in the "real" market (not the virtual "we trade empty numbers" money market) rather sooner then later. Well it seems that food is actually the one thing that might be affected first.
Yes food the thing everyone needs for living. Why? Because our food system at the moment depends on proper fertilization and since everyone just wanted to make profit in the last years they ignored any natural fertilization cycle (crop rotation for example) and instead poisened the field by overloading it with industrial NPK (Nitrogen Phosphorous, Potassium) fertilization techniques. To switch a field from that to a natural cycle takes about 5 years minimum. Now why is that important? NPK fertilizers are freakishly expensive (big part of it is made from natural gas f.e.) and since the banks are extremely nervous they do not give the farmers any loans to get fertilizers - which had been the norm up till this year. No fertilizers mean that on bad fields you can loose up to 70% of your crop. Thats 70% less food on the market - that means skyrocking prices in the supermarket that means a lot of people will be hungry - what this means I don´t want to think about.
This is one scenario of how the system might collapse - one that is already in the making (means its already happening to some extend). There are more paths to doom but happily also some paths out so not all is lost. Then again looking at the world politics I have not that much hope for a instant enlightening of the ruling caste.

Millions will starve (on dailykos.com)

Recent rains have improved seeding conditions, allowing farmers to begin planting soybeans in parts of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Farmers now face another problem, the lack of fertilizer. Even farmers with access to credit have not received their fertilizer due to a distribution delay. A Cuiaba newspaper reports that one producer who normally plants about 15,000 acres of soybeans will plant 10,000 this year because he did not receive enough fertilizer

...

With food and energy prices soaring around the world, a constant supply of high-quality, affordable food is no longer guaranteed, the officials are warning Britons. That could mean an era of scarcity like Britain's 1940-54 food rationing, during the war and its aftermath

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I must have missed this but these guys are doing a cool thing. They take video audio and text streems of the presidential debates while they are happening and remixing them live on stage in a "news commentator" like setting - only that they are just talking with pictures. Without music its bound to be not so energetic as the ReVolution08 movie from Coldcut a couple of days ago - but their approach is at least as relevant. Its like a live audiovisual commentary that puts the spotlight of the event to subtleties that you wouldn´t see if you just saw the TV version. And what I also love about them is that they stress the live character of their event not even attempting to make a recorded version available - some things are just better live I guess.

Here is their trailer:

ReConstitution 2008 - Live Presidential Debates Remix by Sosolimited from Sosolimited on Vimeo.

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I looked over it when it appeared on mogreens blog, but then clicked on the play link and was blown away. This must rank as one of the best mash up videos of all times. And its more - this has the possibility to be played live. If you are a vj and you are using samples - take notice of this video. Its would be Live Cinema at its best: Message, Story Line, Style, Energy. Did I say it fucking rocks?

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    A couple of fake adverts for the Diebold Voting machines that are to rig the presidential election in one week. I love them all. I have no idea where they came from - just found them on some forums somewhere on the web someday.

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The fundamentals of capitalism are breaking down
former labour MP in England this morning on BBC worldwide.

The US government is as of this evening in official panic mode. Not that they will admit to it, just watch for their statements later tonight. The gravity of the issue is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that the politicians' staff members were ordered out of the meeting. That staff, of course, ironically (or should we say cynically) form the one and only barrier between their leaders and utter ignorance on what is happening.

At the Automatic Earth, two principles have always been unshakable and unmoveable.

The second is that this will lead to the mother-fcuker of all deflations. The only possible outcome left in its wake will be individual and societal debt burdens so high that the Great Depression and the wars it engendered will seem and feel like a sun-drenched dreamy all-the-icecream-you-can-eat kindergarten birthday bash in Disneyland.

from the highly respected financial blog "Automatic Earth" the blog that has been spot on with every prediction of the financial market since two years.

Official prediction is btw that Citibank/Citigroup is next - that would be the first bank where you then can see lines of people demanding their money - but no we are not in a financial crises at all - all is totally fine, you know its just a ripple and we are already on the upturn and the worst has been over since 12 month - you got to love politicians their distorted reality and the mass media amplifying and sucking in some poor sucker into their bubbled up view on the world - the elite is so out of touch that they do not even see their own house falling. If I would have time I would love to dig out all the comments from big Financial Institution, Politicians and MassMedia that said in the last 3 month that we are over the worst and the future looks rosy - I guess I would find hundrets of those, meanwhile there are tons and tons of bloggers activists etc that have been saying all along that this gets even more messy - you know ordinary people without business law politics study - people with common sense. Anyway back to work.

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Waking up this morning not expecting big news as it was the weekend and all and then the first headline I read is that Merill Lynch is beeing sold? Holy freak. While I am not a bank person and only understand half of what is written about the economy I do understand that Merill Lynch is in the top five of american investment banks - if not even in the top three. While there was lots of noise about Lehman Bros failure there was not even a chirp about Merill Lynch going down. Lets recap - Bear Stearns, Meril Lynch, Fanny and Freddy, Lehman Brothers - that is a hell of a list of failure for just 6 month! And it seems the failure rate is accelerating because after Bear Stearns there where 2-3 month of silence then comes Fanny and Freddy and only a month later the Lehman Brother and only three four days later Meril Lynch (still can´t believe that). Someone on some other blog wrote "Wallstreet is sinking faster then the Titanic" and I tend to agree. Investment Banks and Creditors are already victims - next up are the savings banks - if only one of those big ones collapses you have the super GAU. Interesting times indeed.

A good site too watch the banks implode is the bank implode-o-meter

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I let him speak because he does a damn good job of explaining how dangerous american politics might become for the world...

Oh and I like the reference to a bad disney movie - I can just see the plot in front of me - hockey mom is captured - her seven kids (representing the seven sins of course) are freeing her with hockey sticks and the bad russian emporer gets a hockey puck onto his forehead (without any blood of course) - happy end.
It could be funny if it wouldn´t be so serious.

Posted by fALk at 7:46 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Amy Goodman is the host for Democracy Now! - a free independent Internet, Radio and TV news organization (12 years in existence). At the day she wanted to cover the protest against the Republican convention she and some senior producers were arrested by police with freaking baseball bats. Goodman one of the producers also arrested has been officially charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a “peace officer" (no joke!) - or officer "I bring peace with my baseball bat". (Democracy Now Article about the arrest here.)
America is officially a police state. There is no free press and the country is not free anymore - forget about a free election as well. Hail Reichspresident McCain and his creationist running mate cheerleader Palin.

Posted by fALk at 6:55 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You know you hear a lot about the recent war in Georgia and South Ossetia. A war that even has the potential to spin out of control with another cold war era dawning on us. Well you hear its all about ethnicity in the region and democracy and independence - well there is evidence to suggest that its about the same thing that killed 100.000 Iraqies and poses hardship and more war on Afghanistan - its oil - and further more its about the transport of oil. You can connect the dots when you look at the map to the left. You can clearly see the red Nabucco pipeline passing through so many trouble spots (and it even links to Theran - but thats another story I guess). Its the pipeline that US companies have planned for decades and that Europe is longing for to get away from Russian dependence. Its likely the pipeline that put another Region into turmoil and hardship. The thing is so - this time its not some poor undeveloped country that you can carpet bomb with high-tech fire and poisen their land so that there will never be resistance from there again - this time you have worthy enemy who has their own plans to plant some oil transporting tubes through the same region to expand their lock on the westeuropes energy demands.
The sooner there is true energy dependence in this world - that means clean energy for every inividual without anyone controlling the flow of it - the sooner this world sees a peaceful advancement of civilization.

map from the energy tribune

Posted by fALk at 17:34 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Growing up in eyesight of a wall that was insurmountable - the end of the world basically I have the deepest aversion to all things that cage you, trap you imprison you limit you to move through this world that is so mine then it is yours then it is theirs. Watching this video documentary made me feel sad and angry. "Tell the world to see" the Iraqi man says showing a lake of sewage in front of the wall where his house is. Only thugs, thieves and misguided people who's feelings have been amputated can allow such human monstrosity to happen. Yes the surge is surely working to turn this beautiful world into an imprisoned hell. I encourage everyone to watch all three parts of this documentary by the guy who was friend to salam pax the first iraqi blogger who has been on my short blogroll since the beginning. He deserves a huge amount of respect trying to report the truth from a place where any misstep any spoken word come out wrong can mean the end of his life. This is something you will not see on any mainstream media - because it is the truth they don´t want the happy western shoppers to see.

Part 1: City of Walls

Part 2: Killing fields

Part 3: Iraqis Lost Generation

Posted by fALk at 20:54 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It had to come at one point. When a huge company, media or anything else in a capitalistic system is dying it tries to bring down anything around it. So the TV lobby in germany is pushing hard for an extension to the "rundfunkstaatsvertrag" that would make any and all internet tv that has some kind of programming structure in it (read a website that just hosts programms on a webpage under the same name with a "similar kind of program") and more then a lousy 500 viewer (thats nothing really everyone can get 500 viewers in less then two month constant running anything) a pain in the butt to run because you would be considered a tv station with all its limitations and scrunity by regulators. Not that I see any way they would be able to enforce that but if you happen to have a hit and it generates publicity they are going to get you. It can´t be that you could dethrone mighty old dying TV you know then the ruling class would not have any leverage on the population and no way to brainwash them.
The freedom of the internet gets lots and lots of hits lately and if the people who love the webs don´t watch out we will have an overregulated castrated censored commercial push medium in the not so distant future - or some "rogue" state gets an atomic bomb and build huge server farms and then hosts all those freedom loving peoples web endeavors.

More about the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag @ Heise Online.

Posted by fALk at 9:22 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In what accounts a very small victory for the netizens word comes that the vote for the Telekom Package II has been postponed til September the 2nd. And it seems the office holders in the EU parliament are starting to see the light on the issue and are siding with their voters (it seems - but nothing taking for granted around here). A lot of the "compromises" have been thrown out but there is still one backdoor left for the "three strikes out" rule that is the biggest concern in the package. Amendment Nr. 6 is talking about a "cooperation between the netproviders and the (mass) media industry" and if that passes this could still form the loophole that makes netproviders sniff all traffic and report it to the media industry who then demands cancelation of the internet service after found "guilty" three times. Now interestingly enough this would go without any government interference - no courts no oversight. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. Great thing is that the netizens have a couple more month to protest about this. Contact your local EU parliamentary representative and tell them how you feel about the Telekom Package II and the amendment in question.

Posted by fALk at 17:30 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You think things can´t get more weird or more bad, but my hatred for myspace has just found a new root cause. If you sign up on the Rupert Murdoch network under a wrong name - and all privacy advocates would probably say that you should do that to escape datamining by one of the biggest media companies in the world - then you can be charged with hacking because their terms of service agreement (you know the fine print nobody ever reads) is specifically prohibiting the use of fake names for sign up. Well you know why that is? Because they earn their money with datamining and also the government needs to have an overview whats happening right?
The fellow Lori Drew has been charged with a felony and faces up to 5 years in prison for hacking myspace by signing up under a wrong name. What about you? Have you signed up on myspace with your right name - stupid you... Better is not to sign up on myspace at all - but you know then you don´t get karma from people you never knew.

Via /.

Posted by fALk at 10:47 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ugh... We heard it all: France wanted to implement a rule that if you are caught downloading copyrighted material and got caught three times in a row they cancel your internet once and for all lifetime.
Now what most didn´t know is that France has sneaked this bill into the European parlament and it set to become an EU wide rule.
Whats best they are voting on it tomorrow just so we don´t have time to make a public outcry on it or might even stage demonstrations or the like.
Let me note that this is not about copyright infringment per se its about the right to use the internet. Given the less then clear copyright laws in this world its bound to happen to EVERYONE to infringe on somebodies copyright at one or three points in their life. And hey if you happen to be on this lists because you said something wrong it might be you who will be without the net for the rest of your life (or at least without your own connection).
Oh and the copyright industry doesn´t have to prove anything its a "3 accusations" and not a "3 convictions" rule! So somebody thinks your band is a threat to the pop culture and they want to inhibit you for the rest of your life they just claim three times in a row that you might have downloaded something and bingo - profit.

There is a wiki where you can find informations on how to take action to stop this bill. The page is in english and french and german and gives detailed instructions on what to do to stop this bill.

also there is a much better writup at laquadrature in english or on netzpolitik.org in german. The laquadrature wiki has now also a german translation of the summary and commentary of the bills and amendments in question.

netzpolitik.org also links to a website with a list and contact data of german MEPs called Abgeordnetenwatch.de.
There you can find the persons for your Bundesland and call them - write them - be nice tell them to read the bill in full, tell them your objections and in the end tell them that you are highly aware that they are up for reelection next year and you will have a close eye on their behavior in this regard.

If you have a blog PLEASE spread the word.. If not then call your MEPs office tomorrow latest.

You could be first - last or next affected by this bill and not have internet for the rest of your life.

Again its not about if you are infringing on some dubious copyright claim - its copyright law itself that is dubious and this law will give the government a tool to quell any dissent on the internet at will at any time without courts without truth - its a full out affront to the very foundations of a free society and with a free internet and stands against anything the internet is known for.

Posted by fALk at 11:53 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You know when a presidential candidates hates something and becomes president he will very probably do everything to ease his hate. This is no joke folks this is dead serious and expect a McCain presidency to do everything in their might to stop the bloggers.

Posted by fALk at 10:58 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Its seldom that I link to a blog called "The American Conservative" but the headline and the text made me worry and if a large conservative blog is writing the following you would think this is something not of a "conspiracy theory" right? If the person writing the blog post - Phil Giraldi - is a former CIA man you get more worried:

There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants.
…
The US demanded that Iran admit that it has been interfering in Iraq and also commit itself to taking steps to end the support of various militant groups.
…
The perceived Iranian intransigence coupled with the Lebanese situation convinced the White House that some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles.
…
The President will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations are made.

I leave it standing as it is. There are no other sources that I could find that write about this and I remain skeptical that the US would do such a foolish thing at this point in time but you never know with that insane government over there which has its back against the wall (financial crisis, oil at all time high, president has worst rating then ever, all local elections recently have gone squarely to the democrats). Hillary Clinton and John McCain both fully support a war in Iran with their vote for the Kyl-Lieberman bill that makes the al-Qod forces a "terrorist organization" and authorizes the president to go into combat against Iran.

Posted by fALk at 15:55 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The politcial commentator for "The Atlantic" Andrew Sullivan posts a comment one of his reader made to his blog. That comment is so on the spot and reflects the feelings of so many youth not only in the US but also elsewhere in the world that I would want to question: Are we heading to a generational war?

What The Old Farts Don't Get

A reader writes:
Your old farts really do miss the point completely, don't they? These younger people were convinced that political involvement was useless because the the system was so broken. They came of age anywhere from the second Clinton term (Lewinsky) through the disaster of the Bush years. They have no reason to believe that politics can work, or that it is possible to effect any large scale change, so they work locally or just opt out.
This is what Obama has tapped into. The reason all those thousands of young Dems registered for the first time and voted in a primary was because he made them believe honorable politics was possible. And if someone like Obama gets chewed up by the system because the forces arrayed against him are too strong -- just look at the sworn enemies who are teaming up to bring him down, united by nothing more than a vested interest in the status quo -- then they will conclude that the system is as broken as they thought it was.
The mistake is reading this as an Obama personality cult, in which case "grow up" would be appropriate. But the Obamaniacs I meet are nothing like that...
they don't sing his praises, they sing their own. They are intoxicated by the idea of a politics where things they thought were not possible become possible, and people talk to each other like adults. They don't think he's going to fix things, they think they are.
What the old farts might want to consider is that these young people who have no particular vested interest in the current system might be seeing the rot much more clearly than the fogeys who have been entangled in it for decades. And the mature folk might want to accept that the burden of proof is on them to show why such a viscerally disgusting political game is worth playing.
Opting out of that is not immaturity, it's intelligence.

Posted by fALk at 9:15 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

George Soros has published a book about the current financial crisis and explains in a lengthy interview what we all face in the coming year. Its a must read but everyone who has money or property at stake - because soon enough you won´t have any. He says how deep the general population is affected depends on how the government - especially the US government - acknowledges the grave danger.

Woodruff: So how long will this last?

Soros: Well, it depends on when the authorities wake up, because you need to reduce the number of foreclosures. You need to keep as many people as possible in their houses so that they don't come onto the market. You need to arrest the decline in house prices, but you also need to prevent human suffering and social disruption because it's going to be very, very severe. Certain communities are already hurting and it's going to get a lot worse. So action will have to be taken, but I don't think it's going to happen during this administration.

Woodruff: You write, "We are at the end of an era." When this current credit crisis ends, will the US still be, no doubt about it, the world superpower when it comes to the economy?

Soros: Not at all. This is now in question. And you now have entered a period of really considerable uncertainty and turmoil because of the general flight from currencies, which manifests itself in the commodities bubble that has developed. The price of gold hasn't yet gone as high as it might. So what comes out of this turmoil is very open to question. I think that you will have to somehow reconstruct the global financial architecture because you have recognized that, in effect, the economic weight has changed considerably among the different countries. China has become much more important and also India, and so on. What kind of system will evolve from this is, I think, a very open question.

Well for more indepth info read the interview at NYBooks.com

People tend to accuse me of only seeing the negative news - well I can not see any positive ones about financial markets or oil or our nature - so if you find any send them along and I post them - I am not a doom advocate I just say what I see and I only say it when I am sure that I have checked all logical options and I see a society in turmoil - a society that is rapidly changing without much of its population noticing it and I fear that the enduring culture shock afterwards might lead to more destruction which I do not advocate - I think humans a certainly capable of living peacefully in synch with their planet and I think we are smarter then the sum would seem - its just an information deficit - confronting people with real facts - not opinions - is going a long way towards a more beautiful living all around. So I actually welcome change if it can be used to make things better for ALL humans and nature - I just don´t see it happening when everyone is closing their eyes and heading straight to the jump only realizing too late that there is a parachute that could have enabled us a safe landing...

Posted by fALk at 8:17 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well you may say the poor american people are not for the war in Iraq they are all peacefull loving people and its just Bush and Co. that want to obliterate the planet for their own personal gains - well if you think like this you have just been proofed wrong. Hillary Clinton goes on message in an ad and in last minute interviews shortly before voters go their booth saying that "if Iran attacked Israel (even in defendence of the Palestinians) the US under her reign would obliterate them with nukes - something on the same lines as Mr. Bush and McCain and Rumsfeld and Cheney and and and...
Now this would have been a prime moment for the US electorate to get inside themself and figure out if that is such a good idea and decide that nuking a country is not good for the region of the middle east (outright full scale attack of all arabs against the US no matter of former loyalty), the world - an iminent split that could lead to a culture war with weapons all over the world and themself - as a recent study says that even a local small scall nuclear war with only 10 warheads would kill 80% of the ozone layer - means lots of americans with skin cancer.
Now in the wake of this the uneducated american electorate (yes I am elitist here) has chooses Billary Clinton overwhelmingly. For an outsider it seems there is no educated american electorate that is capable of thinking and big enough to convince their country that nuking another country is