The Money Masters

"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole... Their secret is that they have annexed from governments, monarchies, and republics the power to create the world's money..." - Prof. Carroll Quigley (renowned, late Georgetown historian, and author of Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time)

Below is a film produced by Patrick Carmack and directed by Bill Still called The Money Masters. The film is a 3 1/2 hour documentary that traces the origins of political power structures that significantly influence the global economy. This film traces modern political and financial power to its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money by a tight network of elite bankers and businessmen.

The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by powerful merchants - who emerged out of the prosperous middle ages – to fraudulently accumulate wealth.

Beginning with the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, increasingly devious forms of ‘economic slavery’ to privately-owned "central" banks have been created to control national and international economic systems.

As this film details, nation-state after nation-state has fallen prey to this cabal of international bankers:

PART 1



PART 2



The film also contends that by the end of World War I private central banks owned and controlled much of America's large media, paper and film outlets.

Toxic Alberta: Shell Breaks Environmental Agreements for Oil Sands Projects

Several news reported this month that Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its written agreements to significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution at its Alberta oil sands project sites.

Shell's suits-in-charge made numerous commitments for environmental assessments and carbon-reducing measures to the Oil Sands Environmental Coalition (OSEC) late in 2003. these "commitments" in large part helped inform the decision by the governments of Alberta and Canada to grant regulatory approval for Shell projects in 2004 and 2006.

Marlo Raynolds, Executive Director of the Pembina Institute had this to say: “Shell’s decision to break these binding agreements calls into question its claims of environmental leadership. Shell seems to believe it can break promises to Canadians with impunity.”

Meanwhile, Shell’s carbon pollution is expected from its Alberta projects will increase by an estimated 900,000 tonnes within two years - which is equivalent to adding 200,000 cars to the road in Canada.

“Shell’s betrayal of both stakeholders and the governments that approved these projects will undoubtedly reinforce the growing mistrust that Canadians have of the oil sands industry, especially on environmental matters”, said Simon Dyer, Oil Sands Program Director at the Pembina Institute.

In approving Shell’s projects, the Joint Review Panel struck by the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) and the Government of Canada explicitly noted that they would review Shell’s approval in the event that the company failed to fulfill commitments that had been presented as evidence. This month the Pembina Institute and Ecojustice filed an affidavit with the ERCB and the Government of Canada requesting that the approval of these projects be reconsidered through a new public hearing.

The Pembina Institute announced on April 8, 2009, that it has asked government to reconsider the approvals of two Shell oil sands projects:

It is doubtful that the conservative party officials in both these governments will do much to enforce Shell's commitment to environmental ethics, eager as they have been to cite "economic downturn" as a motive to ignore ecological abuses by corporate interests. We'll have to wait until the Liberal party takes power next election to see if government has any ability to preserve Canadian ecosystems.

For More Info See:

• Edmonton Journal
• Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency

Earth Day 2009

Today, as the world continues to slide towards an ecological 'tipping point', nearly a billion people will openly celebrate the 39th incarnation of Earth Day. First launched as an environmental awareness event in the United States in 1970, Earth Day (April 22) is often celebrated as the birth of the environmental movement.

The first Earth Day, spearheaded by Wisconsin Governor Gaylord Nelson and Harvard University student Denis Hayes, involved 20 million participants in teach-ins that addressed then decades of environmental pollution. The event inspired the US Congress to pass clean air and water acts, and establish the Environmental Protection Agency to research and monitor environmental issues and enforce environmental laws.

Mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting the status of environmental issues onto the world stage, Earth Day in 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Today, Earth Day has grown into a global tradition, with annual celebrations by more than a billion people in 180 nations around the world.

But celebrations are never enough. Without real change - to attitude, to infrastructure and culture - there is little doubt that we will soon be at the point of no return where ecosystems fail, human societies collapse, a new dark age of humanity will replace the current deeply pathological civilization.

What can i do to help change? What can you do? Seek out change at all costs.

Yet today, i will take time to celebrate Earth Day by opening my whole being and embrace the ever-present and unfolding adventure that is Life on this planet. The Earth is more than our home; it is a part of us as we are a part of it. And our greatest gift will always be the opportunity each day brings to finally 'come home' to our own deepest nature - Nature as such.

So, yes, i will celebrate being alive on this exquisite planet, on this day, and reaffirm my responsibility to Love this planet, and to continue to transform myself by deepening and widening my awareness of the power and fragility of this world. This much at the very least...

Learn More About Earth Day and What You Can Do To Help: Here

Electric Cars or Bust?

When horrific climate-change warnings and scenarios elicit little but endless chatter from governments and entrenched special interests, the difference between talk and action represents an embarrassing gulf.

Meet Shai Agassi, who has stepped fearlessly into that gap. His approach to solving the puzzle of electric automobiles could spark nothing short of an automotive revolution. Forget about the hybrid auto -- Agassi says it's electric cars or bust if we want to impact emissions. He has designed a radical plan to help entire countries go completely oil-free by 2020.

Watch his TED Talk (18:06 mins) below:

Thai Protests

Yesterday in Thailand, anti-government "red shirt" protesters ended a three-week siege of the prime minister’s office, one day after at least two people were killed in large protests in Bangkok. The protesters decided to leave the government building after Thai troops surrounded them. Earlier, an army spokesman had said troops were ready to move against the protesters, who had been encamped around the prime minister’s office since March 26.

Soldiers armed with assault rifles fought running street battles with anti-government protesters in Bangkok last Monday as unrest spread through a wider swath of the city, and the chief of Thailand’s armed forces vowed to use “every means to end the chaos.”


A summit meeting of Asian nations was also abruptly ended last week after hundreds of the same protesters forced their way past security forces into a convention center where leaders were preparing to discuss the global economic crisis. Thai officials reported about half of the leaders at the meeting were evacuated by helicopter, including those of Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines, while many fled by boat.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the embattled Thai prime minister who has faced a week of large-scale street demonstrations, declared a state of emergency to secure the departure of leaders from Southeast Asia, China, South Korea and Japan. The emergency decree was lifted once the leaders had safely left Pattaya, a resort town about 90 miles southeast of Bangkok.

Thailand's former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, warned that violence will return to the streets of Bangkok if the authorities do take a hard line against protesters - composed mostly his supporters.

Neanderthal Variations

As the sequencing technology for DNA gets more accurate and efficient scientists are learning more and more about the various twists and turns in the evolutionary history of hominids.

For example, tomorrow researchers at the Universite de la Mediterranee in France will announce findings which indicate that there were at least three different subgroups of Neanderthals.

Neanderthals are a hominid species that lived between about 130,000 and 30,000 years ago. Although humans share a common ancestor species with the Neanderthals, our relatives began diverging about 700,000 years ago, with the two groups becomong permanently distinct 300,000 years later (source).

Neanderthals coexisted with humans for a while, and may even have interbred with us - although the strong differences in phenotypical features (eg., how they look) suggest to me that this is highly unlikely. However, Neanderthals became extinct about 30,000 years ago, leaving Homo sapiens as the last surviving Hominid species on the planet. And scientists are still debating the causes for their extinction, but various data indicate the combination of competition with humans for resources and rapid climate change.

Using computer simulations to analyze DNA sequence fragments from 12 Neanderthal fossils, researchers found that the species can be separated into three, or maybe four, distinct genetic groups. The evidence points to a subgroup of Neanderthals in Western Europe, another in Southern Europe near the Mediterranean, a third in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and possibly a fourth in Western Asia.

Although the authors of the paper outlining the findings admit that their categorization is based on limited data, since they only have fragments of mitochondrial DNA sequences from a small sample of individuals.

Silvana Condemi, one of several paleoanthropologists working on the project, reports:

"Because the Neanderthals lived in a very vast territory, and their evolution took place over a very long time, we wonder if there were sub-populations, or if it was a unique population... Other studies show differences between Neanderthals and modern humans. For the first time we are working just within Neanderthals and taking into account the diversity within that group... We give a confirmation that the Neanderthals are not one homogeneous group."

In future studies, the researchers have said they would like to compare their genetic data to what is known about physical distinctions among Neanderthals from different regions, as well as cultural differences, such as unique tool use among various populations.

The Death and Dying of Canadian Environmental Assessment Laws

Apparently the Conservative government of Canada thinks that environmental regulation is old hat. In a political move right out of the nightmares of Orwell, Stephen Harper and his gang of suits are now moving quickly to eliminate laws requiring environmental assessments on construction dams, pipelines, tar sands mines and nuclear reactors.

First, John Baird, the Minister of Transport, was given authority under the slime-ball budget legislation approved by a hijacked Parliament in March to evade environmental assessments of projects (such as dams and bridges) . Then Jim Prentice, Minister of Environment, announced new regulations-without any public or industry consultation-excluding 2000 "economic stimulus" projects per year from environmental assessment.

Minister Prentice also is planning to introduce a bill into Parliament removing all remaining requirements that environmental assessments be conducted. He would then have unfettered personal discretion to determine if any federal environmental assessment for a federally authorized project is to be conducted.

Less regulation, less public consultation, less oversight? That's the kind of governmentality that leads to abuse of powers, corruption and the kind of economic russian roulette which landed the Western world in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. It's quite simply disgusting.

National Youth Poetry Slam Finalists: "This Is For You"

Sharp, political, aware, passonate, absolutely fantastic:

Origins Symposium

From the Science Network:

The ASU Origins Symposium - April 3-6, 2009

The Origins Symposium will inaugurate the new Origins Initiative at ASU. In partnership with The Science Network, this unprecedented event will bring together 70 of the world's leading scientists and scholars, including 8 Nobel Laureates, and the world's pre-eminent scientific public intellectuals, for three days of panels directed at exploring important outstanding research questions, and will be capped by several remarkable associate activities, including a full day of public lectures and panels at the 3000 seat Gammage Auditorium on ASU's Tempe campus.

Watch the Webcasts: Here

Legal Rape in Afghanistan?

Seriously. In a desperate bid for votes the Karzai government in Afghanistan is proposing a law which makes it illegal for women to refuse their husbands sex. Basically the law makes it legal for husbands to rape their wives if they refuse to come across.

Now i’m trained in anthropology – the most culturally sensitive and relativistic discipline of all the social sciences – but i still gotta say: WHAT THE FUCK? i mean, i’m all for ethnic groups retaining their historical beliefs, but Afghanis - we are promised - are supposed to be moving toward a fully functioning democratic polity. Legislating such brutal social practices is not only foolish it is obviously morally bankrupt and completely at odds with basic human rights as supported within our (now) international community.

If the Afghan leadership thinks this is in anyway acceptable in the world we all inhabit together, they are seriously mistaken. International leaders should publicly condemn the Karzai government and begin to move towards severe sanctions. This is a very different world than they think it is, and as HUMANS we cannot allow historical guilt and an academically funded relativistic amorality to get in the way of the advancement of human rights throughout the world.

After Canadian Prime Minister Harper was cajoled by international outrage into making disparaging comments about the notion of such laws, Afghan Ambassador Omar Samad said the Afghan government is studying the law to determine its status, and pleaded for "patience and understanding".

Among the atrocious potions taken within the new legislation, the Afghan government wants to also make it illegal for a woman to leave the house without her husband's permission, and block women from being granted custody of their own children.

Samad said the law is intended to regulate family life only inside Afghanistan's Shia community (which makes up about 20 per cent of Afghanistan's 30 million people), and will not affect Afghan Sunnis.

Does that make it any more moral? NO. Fuck cultural relativism, fuck political correctness, and fuck any anthropologist who can rationalize these primitive (yes in the pejorative sense) notions of male dominance. It’s just not right.

Article 132 of the law says, and I quote, that a wife:

"is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires. As long as the husband is not travelling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night. Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."

The only response to this must be OUTRAGE.

Police Close Off London's Financial District

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Police cordoned off much of London's financial district today as thousands of protesters from an array of perspectives rallied ahead of the G20 economic summit. Officials estimated that at least 4,000 people have jammed into the area, with some chanting "Abolish Money" as they marched down the clogged streets. Climate change activists pitched tents and organized sit-ins in front of buildings and anti-war campaigners held separate rallies nearby.

A few of the protests turned violent — one band of demonstrators smashed windows of the Royal Bank of Scotland, scrawled the word "thieves" on the outside and stormed into the building. Photos from the protests show some demonstrators with bloodied faces from confrontations with the police. And at least 14 people were arrested in connection with the demonstrations.

Police have closed off all roads leading into the financial district and aren't allowing any more demonstrators to enter or leave the area. Marina Pepper, a British activist who helped organize the protest, told the CBC that clashes with police escalated after the area was cordoned off.

"Capitalism isn't in crisis — capitalism is the crisis," Pepper said. "The profits of a few people making lots of money is seen as more important than the needs of people all around the world."

Bankers were warned by authorities not to wear pinstripe suits on Wednesday and many opted for casual clothes or stayed home. But some financial workers taunted protesters from the upper level windows of buildings in the area and waved £10 notes at them.