Posts
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Global Ponzi meltdown/House of Cards ##
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Airline Death Spiral ##
Overall,
some 44 per cent of Europe's airports are making losses and the
industry's average rate of return on invested capital (ROIC)
is five per cent.
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Iraq ##
Obama
has demanded more ‘effective’ leadership and Iran looks set to
follow as Isis militants threaten Baghdad
Hurried
flight of Iraqi soldiers from battle is more understandable if
you consider that a lot of them are only on the roster to
pad their commanders' pockets.
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Fault lines/flashpoints/powder kegs/military/war drums ##
Military
forces will be using a lot more horses in the future. -- RF
"It
is downright harmful, because it creates a false sense of
security. Complete bullshit. We'll get in conflict with the
Germans, Russians and we'll think that everything is super,
because we gave the Americans a blow job. Losers. Complete
losers."
Rouhani
did not name any country, but officials and media in mainly Shiite
Iran have hinted that insurgents from the Islamic State in
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are being financially and militarily
supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
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Global unrest/mob rule/angry people/torches and pitchforks ##
Police
shot dead 13 attackers in China's restive Xinjiang region after
they rammed a car into a police station and detonated explosives,
the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday, in the latest
of a series of attacks to worry Beijing.
Louisiana
Gov. Bobby Jindal on Saturday night accused President Barack
Obama and other Democrats of waging wars against
religious liberty and education and said that a rebellion is
brewing in the U.S. with people ready for "a hostile
takeover" of the nation's capital.
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Energy/resources ##
Royal
Dutch Shell has blamed air strikes by the government in Kiev
against its own citizens in southern Ukraine as the reason it decided
to declare a halt to its shale oil projects in the
troubled region. In reality, the truth may be closer to the
fact that company is disappointed with the economic viability of
what it once thought was a large shale deposit and is
looking for a way out.
The
prospect of cheap natural gas prices fueling an industrial
renaissance in the United States is at odds with the needs
of gas producers, an energy economist said this week.
For
those who hadn't noticed, energy-savvy people have been saying this
from the outset. -- RF
Non-EU
nation Norway will only help the European Union with any supply
crisis caused by the Russia-Ukraine gas price dispute if it
makes commercial sense, officials told a meeting called in
Brussels on Friday to address energy security.
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Infrastructure scavenging ##
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Got food? ##
Heavy
rains across the northern U.S. Midwest this week flooded corn
and soybean fields, damaging crops, and raised river levels
which could slow some grain shipments by barge for the next two
weeks.
This
article is a pile of organic fertilizer. Industrialized agriculture,
owing to its reliance on ever-more-costly fossil fuels and on
poisonous chemicals, is hardly sustainable. And the argument that a
too-heavy load of nitrate means organic agriculture is unsustainable
is misleading. Organic or not, it means people are applying more
fertilizer than needed. For example, I would venture to say that
virtually all the nutrients flowing from the Mississippi River into
the Gulf of Mexico are from chemical fertilizers. So that is a
specious argument. Organic is the only way to go, because in the
future it will be all we've got. -- RF
Industrialized
agriculture has always been touted as highly efficient, but in terms
of energy input per calorie of food produced, nothing could be
farther from the truth. This is sustainable? -- RF
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Environment/health ##
An "out
of control" outbreak of Ebola in West Africa that’s being
called the deadliest ever is far from over and it’s likely to
get worse before it gets better, experts predict.
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Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##
Sixteen
news oganizations file motion to release video evidence of
forcible cell extractions, force-feedings of Guantanamo
prisoner
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Systemic breakdown/collapse/unsustainability ##
The
Status Quo is not sustainable. Here are some resources on the many
reasons why.
Breakdown
of the cold chain. The more energy costs rise, the more perishable
food will be unrefrigerated. -- RF
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Japan ##
This
video (in
Japanese) shows the farmers making their demands with bovine in tow.
-- RF
It
will be a money-loser, like shale gas. -- RF
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China ##
More
than 10,000 owners of Chinese steel trade firms are behind on
credit card payments with several billion yuan involved, and
banks in Ningde in southeastern China's Fujian province are
giving discounts to help debtors pay back what they
owe, Guangzhou's Time Weekly reports.
Shaken
by a fraud investigation into metal financing in the world's
seventh-busiest port, banks and trading houses have been
made painfully aware of the risks they face storing commodities
in China's sprawling warehouse sector.
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UK ##
Taxpayers
have already spent £90 million on 150 homes to clear the way for
the railway, a figure experts warn is just the “tip of
the iceberg”.
Cut,
baby, cut! -- RF
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US ##
Real
weekly earnings were $825 in 1973. Today they are $690.
This
is just so sad. I shall pray for the Clintons tonight. -- RF
Crooks
are stealing anything they can grab: fuel from wind machines, copper
from water pumps, crops and animal feed. Even tractors are
being stolen.
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