To begin with, I'm still not entirely certain of what works and what doesn't with regards to the free stuff at Stratfor.

I hope this works ... you might have to fool around with something.

I've created a link from the photo below to Stratfor's latest article regarding Inspire Magazine, the al Qaeda english language jihadist magazine.

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times, "There's a magazine out there for everybody".

As I have also said before, I subscribe to Stratfor.

I don't even know what it costs anymore, mostly because I'm afraid to.

Still, as far as I'm concerned, Stratfor is the single best site in the world for a "news junkie".

The “Open Source Jihad” section contained a photograph of the U.S. Capitol building with a Christmas tree in the foreground on the first page.  

The “What to Expect in Jihad” section featured a graphic of a sticky note with a to-do listreading: buy handguns, make a bomb in mom’s kitchen, blow up Times Square and “pull off Mumbai near Whitehouse ‘till martyrdom.”  

This section also had a graphic of an envelope marked with the word “Anthrax.”

The photograph of the U.S. Capitol, followed by a reference to an armed assault directed against soft targets near the White House (and the anthrax envelope), will certainly raise some eyebrows in Washington — especially since the Open Source Jihad section of the second edition of Inspire had a photo of the Chicago skyline, and the subsequent plot involving explosive devices hidden in printer cartridges were in packages sent to Chicago.

Don't bother running out, I already checked Barnes and Noble ..... no luck.

Must've gone like hotcakes.

There it is.

My youngest just whipped it up out there in the garage ....... kidding.

Ok, before we begin, we are cheerfully conceding that we have no idea what anyone is talking about here, and that this one seemingly might be a little tough to explain even if we did.

To begin, from Wikipedia.

Cold fusion refers to a proposed nuclear fusion process of unknown mechanism offered to explain a group of disputed experimental results first reported by electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons. 

It is sometimes termed "Low Energy Nuclear Reaction" (LENR) to avoid the negative connotations associated with the original name.

Those negative connotations are the result of the fact that Fleischmann and Pons never published and their results were never duplicated.

Wikipedia continues.

The field originates with reports of an experiment by Martin Fleischmann, then one of the world's leading electrochemists, and Stanley Pons in March 1989 where they reported anomalous heat production ("excess heat") of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes. They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts ...

 The media reported that nuclear fusion was happening inside the electrolysis cells, and these reports raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy. Hopes fell when replication failures were weighed in view of several reasons cold fusion is not likely to occur, the discovery of possible sources of experimental error, and finally the discovery that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected nuclear reaction byproducts. By late 1989, most scientists considered cold fusion claims dead, and cold fusion subsequently gained a reputation as pathological science.

With regards to that publishing issue, and subsequent inability to reproduce the experiment, excuses/explanations, take your pick, were subsequently offered.

Now ..... flash forward to January, 2011.

From Pure Energy Systems.

 Eng. Andrea A. Rossi and Professor Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna (one of the oldest universities in the world), have announced to the world that they have a cold fusion device capable of producing more than 10 kilowatts of heat power, while only consuming a fraction of that. On January 14, 2011, they gave the Worlds' first public demonstration of a nickel-hydrogen fusion reactor capable of producing a few kilowatts of thermal energy. At its peak, it is capable of generating 15,000 watts with just 400 watts input required. In a following test the same output was achieved but with only 80 watts of continual input.

They don't always use the term "cold fusion" do describe the process, but often refer to it as an amplifier or catalyzer process.

Focardi states:

"Experimentally, we obtained copper; and we believe that its appearance is due to the fusion of atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen, the ingredients that feed our reactor. Since hydrogen and nickel 'weigh' with less, copper must have released a lot of energy, since 'nothing is created or destroyed.' Indeed, the 'Missing Mass' has been transformed into energy, which we have measured: it is in the order of a few kilowatts, two hundred times the energy that was the beginning of the reaction." 

They also claim to be going into production, with the first units expected to ship by the second half of October of this year, with mass production commencing by the end of 2011. The first units will be used to build a one megawatt plant in Greece. This one megawatt plant will power a factory that will produce 300,000 ten-kilowatt units a year.

This would become the world's first commercially-ready "cold fusion" device. Licensees are mentioned, with contracts in the USA and in Europe. Mass production should escalate in 2-3 years. Presently, Rossi says they are manufacturing a 1 megawatt plant composed of 125 modules. These modules should begin shipping by the end of October. On January 31st, 2011, Rossi wrote: "The cost to produce the catalyzer is 1 cent per MWh generated; the life expectancy is 20 years; the cost impact is between 1 and 1.5 cents per MWh."

And then from New Energy and Fuel

Now just to raise the stakes the application discloses that at the time of presentment the inventive apparatus, installed on October 16, 2007, is “at present perfectly operating 24 hours per day, and provides an amount of heat sufficient to heat the factory of the Company EON of via Carlo Ragazzi 18, at Bondeno Province of Ferrara, Italy.”

To quote my dear old friend Mr. Genari, who replied as follows in response to a completely different set of questions,

"Ima don' know, Ya know?

But we are considering looking into a license.

From Dutchsinse.com which we're beginning to really like a lot, even though we're not real sure about most of it.

If you're the impatient type, like we are, scroll forward to 1:00, or if you're the extremely impatient type, like we are, scroll forward to about 1:28.

Because Capitalism provides you with the opportunity to go out there and buy the crap you want.

For example ... from CNN Money

Sales of luxury doomsday bunkers up 1,000%

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A devastating earthquake strikes Japan. A massive tsunami kills thousands. Fears of a nuclear meltdown run rampant. Bloodshed and violence escalate in Libya.

And U.S. companies selling doomsday bunkers are seeing sales skyrocket anywhere from 20% to 1,000%.

Northwest Shelter Systems, which offers shelters ranging in price from $200,000 to $20 million, has seen sales surge 70% since the uprisings in the Middle East, with the Japanese earthquake only spurring further interest. In hard numbers, that's 12 shelters already booked when the company normally sells four shelters per year.

"Sales have gone through the roof, to the point where we are having trouble keeping up," said Northwest Shelter Systems owner Kevin Thompson.

UndergroundBombShelter.com, which sells portable shelters, bomb shelters and underground bunkers, has seen inquiries soar 400% since the Japanese earthquake. So far sales of its $9,500 nuclear biological chemical shelter tents are at an all-time high -- with four sold in California last week, compared to about one a month normally.

Hardened Structures said inquiries have shot up about 20% since the earthquake -- particularly for its apocalyptic 2012 shelters, radiation-protection tents, and nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) air filters.

Whether you need it or not.

As opposed to the crap some government guy thinks you ought to have.

GM sells just 281 Chevy Volts in February, Nissan only moves 67 Leafs

Peruse Chevrolet's February sales release, and you'll notice one number that's blatantly missing: how many Chevy Volts were sold. The number – a very modest 281 – is available in the company's detailed data (PDF), but it apparently isn't something that GM wants to highlight. Keeping the number quiet is understandable, since it's lower than the 321 that Chevy sold in January.

Nissan doesn't have anything to brag about here, either (and it avoided any mention of the Leaf sales in its press release). Why? Well, back in January, the company sold 87 Leafs. In February? Just 67.  Where does that leave us?

Well, here's the big scorecard for all U.S. sales of these vehicles thus far:

Volt: 928

Leaf: 173

As always, click the photos for each piece in it's entirety.

“Then there are the vast majority of academics all over the world. They are apologists for the prevailing system. They are paid to support it. They take the king’s shilling, and they do the king’s bidding. Some of these academics are paid directly by the state as faculty members in tax-funded, state-licensed, accredited universities. Others are paid indirectly as faculty members in private universities that are protected from competition by means of accreditation systems that are backed up by laws against unaccredited institutions that use the word ‘university.’

“Every accredited university is part of a cartel. This is why universities are not price competitive. This is why they can afford to grant tenure — a practice unknown in the private sector.

“There is an army of academic critics of Mises’ argument that the free market should be trusted to provide economic planning, and that people backed up by other people carrying guns and badges should not be trusted. In this army are thousands of state-trained and state-accredited economists, who assert that they believe in the free market.

When push comes to shove, they don’t.

“In the entire academic profession, all over the world, there is not a single textbook in economics that says that central banking is conceptually and operationally a cartel-enforcement institution for privately owned large banks: an anti-free market institution. There never has been such a textbook. Every economics textbook separates the chapter on cartels from the chapter on central banks. Neither chapter refers the reader to the other chapter.

“This is not random. This is a crucial part of the arrangement between the national government and the bankers’ cartel in every nation. The academic cartel joins with the bankers’ cartel to screen out any suggestion in a textbook that either of these state-licensed cartels is in fact a cartel. ‘You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. You promote the right of my agents to carry guns and badges, and I’ll promote yours.’"

Gary North PhD, Whiskey and Gunpowder 3/18/2011”

Ken Ring at PredictWeather.com who claims over 5000 subscribers including farmers, corporations and government agencies, uses in his own words, "trends and cycles of Moon orbits to predict the weather", scored some notoriety lately for having tweeted a Valentine's Day prediction for a Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake between February 15 and 25.

Damn that was a convoluted sentence.

Be reminded here of the devastating magnitude 6.3 earthquake the hit Christchurch February 21, 2011.

In an article at his site titled The Ethics of Warning, in which Mr. Ring defends himself and his predictions from charges of fear mongering and pseudo science, he writes the following:

Earthquakes correlate with kingtides - they are a function of the kingtide in the land deep under the ground.

The whole 2/3 of the planet that is beneath the Earth's surface has a moving egg-shaped bulge that, as the earth daily rotates, is always pointing to the moon, just as when a magnet is moved above a plate of iron filings and the area under the magnet is always more responsive.

The perigee (day that the moon is closest to earth each month) is in control of the timing of the kingtide. Sometimes new moon accompanies perigee (as on 4 Sept 2010), sometmes full moon (22 Feb 2011), so kingtide occurs around these dates as well. 

Before new year kingtide days were new moon-related. From February onwards full moon has accompanied perigee, so kingtides were full moon-related.

It does not mean all full moons (or new moons) bring the biggest earthquakes.

Perigee (closest approach to the Earth) is also a factor.

I can find no other use of the phrase kingtide anywhere (I know you believe me when I say that I looked) that correlates in any way to Mr. Rings.

He predicts an second earthquake March 20, 2011 in Christchurch based on the astronomy of that day, namely the "Supermoon" on March 19, and the Jupiter, Saturn opposition which is exact on March 28, 2011, but is within a few degrees from mid March until mid April 2011.

Click on the below sketch of the Jupiter, Saturn opposition for a radically different way to look at both the world and the universe around you.

Remembering as always ..... head ..... swivel.

Our friend Richard Nolle at Astropro is picking up some press from the mainstream lately

The following is from an article at Accuweather.com.

As always, click the photo to link up the entire piece.  

Extreme Super (Full) Moon to Cause Chaos?

Mar 1, 2011; 7:54 AM ET

Coming up later this month (March 19 to be exact) the moon will make its closest approach to Earth (called lunar perigee) in 18 years. A new or full moon at 90% or greater of its closest perigee to Earth has been named a "SuperMoon" by astrologer Richard Nolle. This term has been recently picked up by astronomers. An extreme "SuperMoon" is when the moon is full or new as well as at its 100% greater mean perigee (closest) distance to earth. By this definition, last month's full moon, this month's and next month's will all be extreme "SuperMoons".

Please visit Richard's website by clicking here.

I have read several "new age" forecasts that go something like this: "Extreme SuperMoon this month (March 2011) will bring strong earthquakes and storms and/or unusual climate patterns." Google the term 'extreme SuperMoon March 2011' and see for yourself what comes up. The validity of these types of forecasts can be debated ad nauseum.

There were SuperMoons in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005. These years had their share of extreme weather and other natural events. Is the Super Moon and these natural occurences a coincidence? Some would say yes; some would say no. I'm not here to pick sides and say I'm a believer or non-believer in subjects like this, but as a scientist I know enough to ask questions and try to find answers.

We obviously know that there are scientific laws that say the moon affects the Earth (i.e. tides). There are also less proven theories that propose that the moon affects the Earth in other ways (i.e. abnormal behavior during a full moon). Can the Super (full) Moon contribute to extreme weather and other natural phenomenon?

Here are Richard's thoughts on March's "SuperMoon" activity from his February 28, 2011 post.

Click on the map for the entire post.

Markets, geopolitics and history aside, you can’t get there from here if you don’t get out of Mother Nature’s way.

First and foremost, that means being mindful of the March 19 full moon 28° 48' Virgo.

It’s arguably the year’s most extreme SuperMoon, for a couple of reasons: it’s the closest SuperMoon of the year, occurring within an hour of lunar perigee (the Moon’s closest approach to Earth): the Moon will look huge when it rises at sunset.

And being so close to the vernal equinox, this SuperMoon occurs within hours of the moment the full moon crosses the celestial equator from north to south, just as the Sun crosses in the opposite direction. That makes this a major geophysical stress window, centered on the actual alignment date but in effect from the 16th through the 22nd.

Of course you can expect the usual: a surge in extreme tides along the coasts, a rash of moderate-to-severe seismic activity (including magnitude 5+ earthquakes, tsunami and volcanic eruptions), and most especially in this case a dramatic spike in powerful storms with heavy precipitation, damaging winds and extreme electrical activity.

Floods are a big part of the picture in this case, although some of these will be dry electrical storms that spark fast-spreading wildfires.

As always, keep your head on a swivel.

From the Telegraph UK.

As always, click on the photo to link up to the entire piece. 

Goggles banned at school swimming lessons

Children have been banned from wearing goggles during school swimming lessons for fears they could hurt themselves.

Pen-pushers have slapped the ban on the swimming aids amid "fears" a pair could "snap" onto a child's face too hard, injuring them.

I could go on and on and on and ........ for days.

Yankee fan, Djelloul M referenced the following, along with illegal fishing by European and Japanese interests in Somali waters yesterday during discussions at the Facebook page for this site.

Click on the photo for the PDF of the presentation Dr. Hussein made on this issue to the world's most useless public body, the United Nations (sometimes we editorialize) in 2010.

The illegal fishing thing can be found here.

About 6 paragraphs in, the author employs the phrase "fish laundering", I might have gone with "fish fence", but both are good.

THE EVIDENCE OF TOXIC AND RADIOACTIVE WASTES DUMPING IN SOMALIA

Written By. Bashir Mohamed Hussein, PhD

Although many developing countries, especially African countries, have been victim of the adverse effects of highly toxic wastes (HTW) originated from the developed countries, the case of Somalia is particularly preoccupying. The country has been subjected to extensive illegal dumping operations of toxic and radioactive wastes sincethe 1980s.

The HTW dumping operations that have taken place both along the coast and the hinterland have extremely adverse effects on health, livelihoods and the future prospect of sustainable development of the local population. Furthermore, along with other internationally-driven illegal economic and other strategic interests (e.g. the industrial-scale Illegal Unregulated and Unreported overfishing on the part of foreign companies), the issue of the toxic wastes dumping has contributed to the perpetuation and exacerbation of the deadly effects of the armed conflict which has been going on in Somalia for the last two decades. While Somalia itself has not yet an effective government, the international community has failed to tackle the toxic waste dumping issue and other closely related internationally-driven illegal activities in Somalia.

In thisrespect, lack of “sufficient evidence” of toxic waste dumping in Somalia is often advanced as an argument to justify the aforementioned inaction.

The purpose of this case study report is to contribute significantly to the available evidence of the long-running toxic waste dumping in Somalia and its negative impact on the enjoyment of the fundamental human rights of the affected population. Drawing on authoritative sources and careful analysis, the paper concludes that the toxic wastes dumping in Somalia is real and it has compromised (irreversibly) the human health, natural environment, food security and the long-term development prospects of the affected population. And, consequently, it has denied the victims the enjoyment of their fundamental human rights including the right to life, healthy environment and food security.

To reverse this tragic trend, the paper recommends a number of concrete measures including an urgent mission on the part of the Special Rapporteur on toxic wastes to Somalia, in-depth and extensive field research, the identification, isolation and reclamation of the polluted sites and full assessment of the nature and the scale of the polluting chemicals and other hazardous wastes. It also recommends the adoption of effective deterring measures against the toxic traffickers at international level.

So, here's my question, "Just what on this earth is the UN good for?

Providing employment for people too incompetent even for the CIA?"

In an effort to catch up, I think I'm just going to expand this post as I stumble over what I consider to be some of the the better expressed thoughts within the stuff I typically read, as I grind through a backed up month of newsletters, emails etc.

Thanks to Phil? and Nevada? who evidently decided to endure the process at Zero Hedge, signed up and have emailed tidbits.

Your emails are very helpful, thanks.

Ok then, we go.

I'm putting you on notice right here, some of these guys are pretty crabby.

“A government will stoop to any depth to ensure its own existence.

This includes lying, cynical propaganda, imprisoning people, raising taxes, sequestering private property including gold.

The Constitution was created by the Founding Fathers to protect the people from the government. No wonder so many politicians hate or willingly ignore the Constitution of the United States.

Let's not kid ourselves, there are a lot of very smart people living outside the US…the single smartest move my subscribers can make is to get out of dollars or dollar denominated assets...get out of dollars and into gold and silver.”

Richard Russell, Dow Theory Letters, 01-19-11

“If asked, the typical US soldier will tell you that he risks his life to protect his family and his home.

But the only war in which his home and his family were really under attack was the one launched by the US government against the southern states.

It wasn't Kaiser Wilhelm or Emperor Hirohito who burned Atlanta.

It was Abraham Lincoln.” (Actually, it was Sherman)

Bill Bonner, The Daily Reckoning, 01-19-11

"It is on everyone's mind that the Arab soul is broken by poverty, unemployment and general recession.

The Tunisian revolution is not far from us.

The Arab citizen has entered an unprecedented state of anger and frustration.

Arab populations face problems similar to those that led to the unrest in Tunisia -- surging prices, poverty and political systems that offer little or no outlet for dissent."

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, The Progress Report, 01-19-11  

Claus Voqt, MoneyAndMarkets, 01-19-11