There are five major sunspot clusters on the Sun right now, with 1389 ready to burst with M Class flares. A recent CME blast hit the Earth, but it was slow, so it largely dissipated before it hit. The solar wind is a medium 362 km/sec and some minor auroras occurred and the proton count is up to 4.2 protons per cubic centimeter, which is quite high. Earth is being mysteriously peppered with meteorites from the asteroid Vesta right now. By the way, Vesta is the location of the largest mountain in the solar system. Why Earth gets so many fragments from this mountain is still a mystery, but keep a lookout.
Oh yeah. A large metallic ball fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency.
The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres (43 inches) was found near a village in the north of the country some 750 kilometres (480 miles) from the capital Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik.
Locals had heard several small explosions a few days beforehand, he said.
With a diameter of 35 centimetres (14 inches), the ball has a rough surface and appears to consist of "two halves welded together".
It was made of a "metal alloy known to man" and weighed six kilogrammes (13 pounds), said Ludik.
It was found 18 metres from its landing spot, a hole 33 centimetres deep and 3.8 meters wide.
Several such balls have dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past twenty years, authorities found in an Internet search.
The sphere was discovered mid-November, but authorities first did tests before announcing the find.
Police deputy inspector general Vilho Hifindaka concluded the sphere did not pose any danger.
"It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first," he said.
Unless someone launched this into low orbit on a helium balloon without a chute, we have no idea how this thing made a sonic boom and landed on the surface without a dent.
Blackbirds Die Mysteriously again on new Year’s Eve
Thousands of dead blackbirds rained down on a town in central Arkansas last New Year's Eve after revelers set off fireworks that spooked them from their roost, and officials were reporting a similar occurrence Saturday as 2012 approached. It happened in Beebe, Arkansas. It happened on the same day in 2011, New Year’s Eve. Officials blame it again on fireworks, but even after the ban they kept falling. They don’t fall dead on July 4th. In fact they don’t fall dead any other day, except this day two years in a row.
The odds against this happening on the same day a year apart in the same town are enormous. There is a common cause. I invite your calls to help me find out.
MF Global Executive who lost $1.2 Billion is Financial Advisor to EPA
During two days of recent congressional hearings into how as much as $1.2 billion disappeared from MF Global customer accounts, the chief operating officer of the imploding investment firm responded again and again that he did not know.
Yet as the House and Senate interrogated Bradley I. Abelow and other top executives at MF Global Holdings Ltd., lawmakers did not mention Mr. Abelow’s role as a financial adviser for the Environmental Protection Agency, which as of Tuesday listed him as the chairman of its financial advisory board.
Even as he finds himself the public face of a bankruptcy and admitted to lawmakers that he had no idea how client funds disappeared, Congress and the administration have voiced no public concern about Mr. Abelow’s role advising the $8.6 billion government agency on its finances.
“EPA relying on Wall Street for financial guidance is like the blind leading the blind,” said Jeff Ruch, president of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group based in Washington.
“In Abelow, you have a Wall Street executive who just presided over the disappearance of $1 billion in investor funds purporting to help guide federal infrastructure financing.”
The EPA did not respond to multiple messages concerning Mr. Abelow’s status with the board, though the EPA’s website still reports that he is its chairman and notes his job at MF Global.
When first questioned about Mr. Abelow’s ties to the EPA in early November, just after MF Global declared bankruptcy, EPA officials issued a short statement saying only that he was appointed as chairman of the board on March 10, 2010, and that he is not paid for his position.
Officials declined to say whether they were reviewing his continued service for the board.
An MF Global spokeswoman told The Washington Times shortly after the bankruptcy filing that Mr. Abelow was reviewing all of his outside commitments and obligations.
The EPA’s financial advisory board was chartered in 1989 to “provide advice and analysis to EPA’s administrator on paying for the growing costs of environmental protection,” according to the EPA’s website. The agency says members include “prominent experts from all levels of government, including elected officials, the finance and banking communities, business and industry and national organizations.”
It’s unclear how Mr. Abelow landed the chairmanship of the EPA financial panel, a position he noted in his biography on the MF Global website, which has since been removed.
He has ties to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson through former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Each served at different times as the governor’s chief of staff. When Mr. Corzine lost his bid for re-election and later joined MF Global, Mr. Abelow followed.
During his testimony to the House, Mr. Abelow said his total compensation at MF Global was a guaranteed $3 million. He joined the firm in September 2010 as chief operating officer, then was named president in March.
At appearances before House and Senate committees, Mr. Abelow expressed sorrow for the company’s more than 2,500 employees who are facing unemployment and investors who have been unable to recoup their funds.
“As the president and chief operating officer of MF Global, I am deeply sorry for the hardship they have all endured,” Mr. Abelow told the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on Dec. 13.
World War Green
Since the 112th Congress began, House Republicans have talked tough about EPA overregulation. They’ve held a multitude of hearings. They’ve passed a number of bills to rein in EPA regulatory excesses, from the TRAIN Act imposing cost-benefit analysis on the agency to the REINS Act requiring congressional approval of regulatory actions costing more than $100 million to votes blocking the EPA from overregulating coal-fired power plants, industrial boilers and farm dust.
They’ve even sliced a modest amount off the EPA’s operating budget.
But none of these measures have stopped or slowed down the eco-fundamentalist EPA from its campaign to destroy the fossil fuel industry and gain control over the entire American economy.
So here we are in the last throes of the first session of the 112th Congress, and House Republicans have little to show except effort. As Winston Churchill said, “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.”
Fortunately, there is still time.
Among other legislation, Congress is looking to pass an appropriations bill this week, and then go home for the Christmas recess. A bill must pass, which means that Democrats must vote up or down on the bill, and President Obama must sign or veto it. No passes allowed - unless House Republicans allow it.
The House GOP has three options: First, they could allow Democrats to get off scot-free by passing an appropriations bill that does nothing but reduce EPA’s funding. As the Obama EPA has shrugged off earlier budget cuts, there is no reason to give congressional Democrats a free pass.
Next, the House GOP could skirt the issue by doing what it has in the past to avoid a showdown with Democrats - pass a continuing resolution to fund the federal government for another month or so, thereby putting off the battle until the 2012 election year. Sometimes procrastination is good political strategy, but not when the American economy is withering on the vine.
Finally, the House could accomplish what it has worked hard to do all year: Take a firm stand to rein in the job-killing EPA.
Beyond hampering economic recovery and growth, the EPA is actually for the first time in history threatening electricity reliability - so much so that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency responsible for electricity transmission and reliability - is concerned about this.
This is what happens when a regulatory body is chartered to use the courts to enforce itself. The EPA leadership, under the careful guidance of a militant lawyer/president, meticulously chooses cases it can prosecute and win. Then it uses the win as a precedent like the Corps of Engineers crossing a gaping chasm to build a suspension bridge to the other side; fascism. Whether it is the SS entering banks and museums to seize wealth for the Nazi war machine, or the Environmental Police Agency goose-stepping its way into the American dream, it is the same result. The president personally supports the industries his benefactor wants to succeed, and exterminates the ones that do not support the party like the pernicious pilot of good ship fascism.
The fight to rein in the EPA now will be ugly. It will most assuredly crowd the headlines and populate presidential propaganda during what promises to be the world’s first multi-billion dollar fight for the world’s most powerful office. The left-wing media, green groups, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Mr. Obama will falsely attack Republicans as picking polluters over asthmatic children. Their New York Times poll ratings will fall, and the public will square off on each side of the sports bar, one side with the green banner of the Bambiites, and the other with the Red, White, and Blue shirts of liberty. The Bambiites will recite the party line of ecological disaster, and the liberty side will sing This Land is My Land.
And the battles will stack bodies into walls built like Gettysburgian backstops to urge them on to victory in the names of those chopped down by the enemy. The Bambiites will charge in the name of clean air, and the liberty troops will charge in the name of jobs and energy and freedom and if the maestro of mayhem conducts his symphony just right, the final battle will be raging as the poll handles are being pulled to put him back in office for another four years. At least.
There is a way out of this. Clean the House. Vote against every incumbent in every race. Every single Congressman and one third of the Senators and the president will be fired. The people will have spoken. And if the people have the courage to revolt against the world’s most powerful propaganda machine, the new leaders can dissolve the Environmental Police Agency, and establish a multi-State agency that will allow non-petroleum sources of energy for transportation to be produced in America. The Petroleum-War party can be defeated without firing a single shot.
Occupy Charlotte Spokesman and Others arrested for flag burning
Four days ago, I met with leaders of the Occupy Charlotte group in NoDa. They spoke intelligently about their position. I invited them to come on tonight’s program and gave them my contact information. They failed to contact me. Now I know why. They may have been arrested two days ago at their camp in Charlotte.
Audio Report
The actual report is unclear, but what is clear is that someone burned a flag. The ones arrested did not deny they were the ones doing the burning. I invite anyone out there listening in Charlotte to weigh in on this. Call me. Text me a number and we will call you. I promise anonymity . You have my number.
People are speaking out about this. And they are not all Occuparty members. This a statement made before the Charlotte City Council a short while back. Steven Navarro did a great job fitting his words into the time allotted, and I don’t think he would mind if I shared his words with you. Listen carefully to the content, because this is history being written right now. You’re part of it. And if you are not, you should be.
Audio Report
He is right. The U.S. is broke Roman Empire style. He is right. The Federal Reserve is the greatest counterfeiter of all time. I have described this as Alchemy, and well it is. Little ones and zeroes converted into dollars out of the blackness of space. Talk about zero point money. That’s what we have. Zero point money being counted and spent by zero point banks. Even though banks provide no value whatsoever, they get to bleed the community dry while they build billions in new towers and make the taxpayer pay for any losses.
During my conversation with the Occuparty, they targeted the banks. They should add the insurance companies as well. It is a protection racket that cannot lose. The odds are calculated down to the Russians invading Florida wearing rubber gum boots. It has been figured out, evaluated, and has had a premium affixed to it. They cannot lose. The profits they make own everything. Everything. The banks, the airlines, the governments’ buildings, the oil. Everything. And you cannot refuse to pay them, because the laws are written that you must buy their product, and there is no competition. For every risk, there are fewer than six underwriters. Those six are at the headwaters of all cash in the world.
I was pleased to see the Occuparty sporting signs. The nicest sign I saw was fashioned in the Bank of America logo with its stylized American flag. The words were clear and in the famous Blue font, but they said Bend Over America. The only thing missing was the names of the actual people who are at the head of these organizations.