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Post date: Mar 21, 2018 3:35:25 AM
The John James Newsletter 218
2 March 2018
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Military-funded technology has been harnessed by a global plutocracy to sway elections in ways that people can’t even see, don’t even realise is happening to them, such as exploiting nationalism to manipulate people at the margins. To have so much data in the hands of international plutocrats to do with it what they will is absolutely chilling
Tamshin Shaw
Britain today is increasingly looking like a “managed” democracy. Paid for by a US billionaire. Using military-style technology. Delivered by Facebook. And enabled by us. This goes far beyond party politics. It’s the first step into a brave, new, increasingly undemocratic world
Carole Cadwalladr
Google was only founded in 1998 and Facebook didn’t appear until 2004. Everything their founders have done and the world they’ve remade, has been done in the blink of an eye
Jonathan Albright
Democracy has degenerated into a battle between vested interests so politicians are too busy keeping themselves in power by oiling enough of the squeakiest wheels to worry about showing leadership
Ross Gittins
In 2018, there have already been 61 hours ABOVE freezing at Cape Morris Jesup, Greenland. The previous record was 16 hours before the end of April in 2011
Robert Rarohde
Expected population growth in next 50 years to be 2.4b: of these half will be added in Africa, 0.9b in Asia and only 0.2b in the rest of the world
UN
If you make something more efficient and that efficiency translates into a cheaper service, the technology will colonise the economy so that improving efficiency will not reduce consumption and therefore won’t reduce CO2 emissions. We have the same problem with most sustainable options. It seems there is little choice but to return to a medieval standard of living.
The Curse of Energy Efficiency
The more ‘efficient’ our technology, the more resources we consume in a downward spiral of catastrophe. Thanks to efficiency an airline ticket is one of the most environmentally damaging goods money can buy. The transition from incandescent to LED lights won’t result in any lasting savings as more efficient lighting resulted in more light consumption and therefore higher overall energy spending; efficiencies in cooling technologies encouraged more air conditioning and refrigeration everywhere; although it takes about three times less energy to make a ton of paper than it did in 1965, we photocopy one billion documents with a 22% growth rate; each unit generated by non-fossil-fuel sources displaced less than one-tenth of a unit of fossil-fuel-generated electricity.
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2018/02/26/Energy-Efficiency-Curse/
How Climate Change Interacts With the Polar Vortex
The entire region of the Arctic above the 80 degree North Latitude line has been 8.64 degrees Celsius warmer than normal for all of 2018 thus far. This is an extraordinary departure for a region that plays a critical role in how the Earth’s climate system functions. When the Jet Stream winds slow, they tend to meander — forming large ridges and deep troughs. The elongated ridges and troughs eventually break like waves — pushing against the circulation of the Polar Vortex.
Scientists alarmed by 'crazy' temperature rises
Record warmth in the Arctic is unprecedented. The north pole gets no sunlight until March, but an influx of warm air has pushed temperatures in Siberia up by as much as 35C above historical averages this month. Greenland has already experienced 61 hours above freezing in 2018 - more than three times as many hours as in any previous year. The question now is whether this signals a weakening or collapse of the polar vortex, the circle of strong winds that keep the Arctic cold by deflecting other air masses. The vortex depends on the temperature difference between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, but that gap is shrinking because the pole is warming faster than anywhere on Earth. While average temperatures have increased by about 1C, the warming at the pole – closer to 3C – is melting the ice mass.
New study sharpens focus on Antarctic ice loss
Accelerating ice losses from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and reveal surprisingly steady rates of flow from its much larger neighbor to the east.
https://sealevel.nasa.gov/news/110/new-study-sharpens-focus-on-antarctic-ice-loss
Stronger storms mean new 'category six' scale may be needed
Traditional scale used goes only to five but strength and intensity of storms is increasing, stimulating creating a category six to reflect the increasing severity of tropical cyclones in the wake of warming sea temperatures and climate change.Scientifically, six would be a better description of the strength of 320km/h storms, and it would also better communicate the well-established finding now that climate change is making the strongest storms even stronger,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/22/category-six-storms-cyclones
Climate change will push European cities towards breaking point
Uurgent need to adapt urban areas to cope with floods, droughts and heatwaves. The research highlights the urgent need to design and adapt our cities to cope with these future conditions.They found the British Isles have some of the worst overall flood projections, with the high scenario predicting half of UK cities could see at least a 50% increase on peak river flows.
There is a super-hot sport over the North Pole. It has forced the normal frozen Arctic air to the south, creating this crisis. We should call this the Dragon from the north, not the Beast from the East. The media has not discussed the connection. This is the only so-far-ultimate consequence of warming the planet and the oceans.
the Unusually Warm Arctic Might Scare Your Pants Off
Cities in Europe, meanwhile, are getting hit with unusually cold temperatures and snowfall. That's days after the U.S. East Coast had record highs.
Siberian blast to SMASH Britain with 'coldest winter snap
Watch the video of icy weather moving into England
A Large Area of Open Water Forms North of Greenland During February
Warm winds blowing at up to gale force intensity from the south have assaulted the ice with high waves and above-freezing temperatures for about four days now. The ice edge north of Svalbard is being rapidly beaten back. Perhaps more disturbing, is the fact that the ice pack to the north of Greenland has also now withdrawn — opening up a huge polynya.
Onset Of Climate Tipping Points
The global effect of Arctic melting will create almost as much global warming as already produced by the total rise in atmospheric CO2. Once a temperature threshold is breached, abrupt events follow due to amplifying feedbacks, even within a few years, examples being (1) freeze events which followed temperature peaks during past interglacial peaks due to influx of cold ice-melt water into the north Atlantic Ocean; (2) the Dansgaard–Oeschger warming events during the last glacial period; (3) the Younger dryas stadial freeze and the Laurentian stadial freeze. In some instances it only took a temperature rise of about 1-2 degrees Celsius to trigger extensive ice melt, with a flow of cold melt water into the oceans that triggered abrupt transitions that could occur over a few decades and even few years.
https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/01/onset-climate-tipping-points/
When I went to watch this important video I met this sentence: "The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences". The only audience I could think of was the rich and the murderers. This is an example of YouTube being partial, and vital question which is included in later links.
JFK to 911 Everything Is A Rich Man's Trick
The who, how & why of the JFK assassination. Taken from an historical perspective starting around world war 1 leading to present day with the deep involvement of the International mafia in US politics from the time of Nixon to the present day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNM&bpctr=1519422754
The connections between mass shootings and psychiatric drugs
Pharmaceutical companies, which manufacture drug after drug for “mental disorders,” are doing everything they can to cover up the drugs’ connection to violence. They use their lawyers and PR people—and their influence over the press—to scrub the connection. And now, one typical, disturbing, official reaction to every new mass shooting is: build more community mental health facilities. Obama was prominent in this regard, after Sandy Hook in 2012. The implication? More drug prescriptions for more people; thus, more violent consequences.
https://nexusnewsfeed.com/article/jon-rappoport/mass-shootings-and-psychiatric-drugs-the-connection/
World's coral reefs face new peril from beneath within decades
As oceans turn more acidic, the corals themselves produce less of the calcium carbonate that forms their base. Instead of growing, the reef bases start to dissolve. At risk will be coral reef ecosystems that support tourism, fisheries and the many other human activitiesThe ocean's acidity has increased about 30 per cent since the start of the industrial revolution, as seas absorb about one-third of the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The Privatisation of US Foreign Policy
The unethical blurring of private interests and public business is a hallmark of Donald Trump’s presidency. That blurring has increasingly involved foreign policy. The possible effects on. foreign relations may be subtle and largely out of public view. But they arise every time, for example, that foreign governments wanting something from the United States bring their business to the hotel that Trump’s company runs a few blocks from the White House.
http://lobelog.com/the-privatization-of-u-s-foreign-policy/#more-43447
and
http://projects.wsj.com/waste-lands/
During the build-up to the Cold War, the U.S. government called upon hundreds of factories and research centres to help develop nuclear weapons and other forms of atomic energy. In at least 517 sites this left behind residual radioactive contamination requiring government cleanups, some of which are still going on.
http://projects.wsj.com/waste-lands/
Tax Forms Reveal Koch Brothers Spent Millions to Shape State Politics in 2017
The Koch political network has funneled money and organizing into state politics for some time, contributing to huge state legislative gains by Republicans over the last decade. Having cultivated a large number of state officials who share their beliefs, or feel indebted to them, the Kochs are able to heavily influence right-wing policy change, even at the federal level.
Venezuela has the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world, larger even than Saudi Arabia. Backed by oil instead of gold or jus faith, the Petro could become a world reserve currency, at par with the Chinese gold-backed Yuan, but much safer than the fiat currencies of the US-dollar, Euro, British Pound and Japanese Yen.
The Venezuelan “Petro” – Towards A New World Reserve Currency?
Imagine an international currency backed by energy? By a raw material that the entire world needs, not gold – which has hardly any productive use, but whose value is mostly speculative – not hot air like the US dollar. Not fiat money like the US-dollar and the Euro largely made by private banks without any economic substance whatsoever, and which are coercive. But a currency based on the very source for economic output – energy.
https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/24/venezuelan-petro-towards-new-world-reserve-currency/
Lower oil prices force saudis to widen their circle of friends
Saudi Arabia has long been the dominant force in oil, leaving the world at the mercy of its ambitions and interests. Now the kingdom must refresh its strategy to reflect a weaker hand — and in many ways, a different game. Lower oil prices force saudis to widen their circle of friends. Saudi Arabia has long been the dominant force in oil, leaving the world at the mercy of its ambitions and interests. Now the kingdom must refresh its strategy to reflect a weaker hand — and in many ways, a different game. Russia, smarting from Western sanctions and lower oil prices, is moving to embrace Saudi Arabia for energy deals despite their rivalry in Syria, where the two countries support competing sides. China, with its domestic oil production in steep decline, seeks a stable flow not just of Saudi oil but of Saudi investment in its growing petrochemical and refinery industries.
Grenfell Tower combustible cladding was never tested
The potential risk extends to 299 other high-rise buildings in England that use similar cladding and insulation, including at least nine hospitals, 160 social housing blocks, 31 student residences, 13 public buildings and 95 private residential blocks.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/27/gren-f27.html
Thousands of ticking time-bombs: combustible building cladding is everywhere in Australia
Countless buildings across Australia are clad in the same type of flammable material that fuelled the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze. And we have no idea what to do about it.
Next Stage Of Net Neutrality Conflict Begins
The paths we are on in the courts, Congress and the states are challenging, but every step this campaign takes builds the political power of the Internet equality movement. The Internet movement is never going to give up on its demand for net neutrality, as well as related issues of equal access to high quality broadband for all, no matter your level of wealth or income.
https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/25/next-stage-net-neutrality-conflict-begins/
The #Election2016 Micro-Propaganda Machine
There’s a vast network of dubious “news” sites. Most are simple in design, and many appear to be made from the same web templates. These sites have created an ecosystem of real-time propaganda: they include viral hoax engines that can instantly shape public opinion through mass “reaction” to serious political topics and news events. This network is triggered on-demand to spread false, hyper-biased, and politically-loaded information.
https://medium.com/@d1gi/the-election2016-micro-propaganda-machine-383449cc1fba
I VERY STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU READ THIS PIECE, LONG AS IT IS.
THIS IS THE WAY WE WILL BE CONVINCED TO ENSLAVE OURSELVES.
WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHO OUR REAL ENEMY IS.
WE ARE GIVING THEM THE TOOLS THAT THEY WILL USE AGAINST US.
Cambridge Analytica has used all the data we put into Google and Facebook to discover who is unsure, fearful and possibly a “persuadable” voters. With this treasure trove of data [which we have created], Cambridge Analytica could target specific people with images of immigrants “swamping” the country, people vulnerable to that message. The key is finding emotional triggers for each individual voter. Their Brexit strategy was to target people in the last days of the campaign and bombard a small number of people they identified as “persuadable” with more than a billion ads, the vast majority in the last few days.
The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked
A motivated US billionaire – Mercer and his chief ideologue, Bannon – helped to bring about the biggest constitutional change to Britain in a century. There are three strands to this story. How the foundations of an authoritarian surveillance state are being laid in the US. How British democracy was subverted through a covert, far-reaching plan of coordination enabled by a US billionaire. And how we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored. Whoever owns this data owns the future.
To anyone concerned about surveillance, Palantir is practically now a trigger word. The data-mining firm has contracts with governments all over the world – including GCHQ and the NSA. It’s owned by Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and major investor in Facebook, who became Silicon Valley’s first vocal supporter of Trump.
Facebook was the source of the psychological insights that enabled Cambridge Analytica to target individuals. It was also the mechanism that enabled them to be delivered on a large scale.
The company also (perfectly legally) bought consumer datasets – on everything from magazine subscriptions to airline travel – and uniquely it appended these with the psych data to voter files. It matched all this information to people’s addresses, their phone numbers and often their email addresses. “The goal is to capture every single aspect of every voter’s information environment, and with the personality data enabled Cambridge Analytica to craft individual messages.”
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