Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul - “We are Preparing for Massive Civil War,” Says DHS Informant

In a riveting interview on TruNews Radio, Wednesday, private investigator Doug Hagmann said high-level, reliable sources told him the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing for “massive civil war” in America.

“Folks, we’re getting ready for one massive economic collapse,” Hagmann told TruNews host Rick Wiles. 

“We have problems . . . The federal government is preparing for civil uprising,” he added, “so every time you hear about troop movements, every time you hear about movements of military equipment, the militarization of the police, the buying of the ammunition, all of this is . . . they (DHS) are preparing for a massive uprising.”

Hagmann goes on to say that his sources tell him the concerns of the DHS stem from a collapse of the U.S. dollar and the hyperinflation a collapse in the value of the world’s primary reserve currency implies to a nation of 311 million Americans, who, for the significant portion of the population, is armed.

Read More:

http://www.beaconequity.com/we-are-preparing-for-massive-civil-war-says-dhs-informant-2012-05-03/#ixzz1uJaSflhX

Forty-Nine Coal Plants Acknowledge Groundwater Contamination

At least 49 power plants have acknowledged groundwater contamination at levels that exceed federal or state standards, according to data submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Water and obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). At least 28 of those have come to light only recently, including five in West Virginia, three in Iowa, North Carolina, and Texas, and two each in Colorado and South Carolina (see analysis).

Plants reported exceeding federal or state groundwater standards for at least multiple pollutants that are subject to Safe Drinking Water Act or federal Health Advisory standards, including:

• Arsenic (a potent carcinogen) at no fewer than 22 plants
• Manganese (a metal that can damage the nervous system in high concentrations) at 22
• Boron (a pollutant that can cause damage to the stomach, intestines, liver, kidney and brain when ingested in large amounts) at 12
• Selenium (a toxic pollutant that causes adverse health effects at high exposures) at 13
• Cadmium (a toxic pollutant that can damage the kidneys, lungs, and bones) at 10

Read More:

http://ecowatch.org/2012/forty-nine-coal-plants-acknowledge-groundwater-contamination/

Julia Whitty - Big Changes in Ocean Salinity Intensifying Water Cycle

A paper [1] in Science today finds rapidly changing ocean salinities as a result of a warming atmosphere have intensified the global water cycle (evaporation and precipitation) by an incredible 4 percent between 1950 and 2000. That's twice the rate predicted by models. 

These same models have long forecast that dry areas of Earth will become drier and wet areas wetter in a warming climate—an intensification of the water cycle driven mostly by the capacity of warmer air to hold and redistribute more moisture in the form of water vapor.

But the rate of intensification of the global water cycle is happening far faster than imagined: at about 8 percent per degree Celsius of ocean warming since 1950.

At this rate, the authors calculate:

• The global water cycle will intensify by a whopping 16 percent in a 2°C warmer world
• The global water cycle will intensify by a frightening 24 percent in a 3°C warmer world

Read More:

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/04/warming-climate-driving-huge-salinity-and-water-cycle-changes-ocean

Study finds warming speeding up rainfall cycle

An Australian study of ocean salinity over the past 50 years has revealed a "fingerprint" showing that climate change has accelerated the rainfall cycle, according to a researcher.

The study published in the journal Science and conducted by Australian and US scientists looked at ocean data from 1950 to 2000 and found that salinity levels had changed in oceans around the world over that time.

Co-author Susan Wijffels said the figures were revealing because ocean salinity was indicative of changes in the water cycle of rainfall and evaporation.

"What the results are saying is we have an ocean fingerprint, a very clear fingerprint, that the earth's water cycle has already spun up," she told AFP.

"What we see in the observations of how the salinity field has changed already over the last 50 years, (is) our hydrological cycle has already intensified significantly."

Wijffels said the pattern was amplifying over time and it could be inferred that the same dynamics were also happening over land.

"What it really means is that the atmosphere can actually shuttle more water from the areas that are drying out to the areas that have lots of rain faster," she said.

"And essentially it means that the wet areas are going to get wetter and the dry areas are going to get drier."

Read More:

http://news.yahoo.com/study-finds-warming-speeding-rainfall-cycle-060240114.html

William K. Black - 'The Only Winning Move Is Not to Play'—The Insanity of the Regulatory Race to the Bottom

The plot of the movie WarGames (1983) involves a slacker hacker (played by Matthew Broderick) who starts playing the game “Global Thermonuclear War” with Joshua, a Department of Defense (DoD) supercomputer that has been given partial control by DoD of our nuclear forces.  The game prompts Joshua, who has been programmed to win games, to trick DoD into authorizing Joshua to launch an attack on the Soviet Union so that Joshua can win the game.  The hacker and the professor that programmed Joshua realize that the only way to prevent Joshua from attacking is to teach “him” that no one can “win” global thermonuclear war.  The insanity is that the people who created the game “Global Thermonuclear War” thought it could be won.  Joshua races through thousands of scenarios and ends his plan to win the “Global Thermonuclear War” game by attacking the Soviet Union when he realizes that “the only winning move is not to play.”

The JOBS Act is insane on many levels.  It creates an extraordinarily criminogenic environment in which securities fraud will become even more out of control.   One of the forms of insanity is the belief that one can “win” a regulatory “race to the bottom.”  The only winning move is not to play in a regulatory race to the bottom.  The primary rationale for the JOBS Act is the claim that we must win a regulatory race to the bottom with the City of London by adopting even weaker protections for investors from securities fraud than does the United Kingdom (UK).

Read More:

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/03/the-only-winning-move-is-not-to-play-the-insanity-of-the-regulatory-race-to-the-bottom.html

Tara Lohan - 5 Deadly Threats to Our Precious Drinking Water Supply

If you brushed your teeth this morning or flushed the toilet or had a cup of coffee, consider yourself lucky. Actually, if you turned on your tap and potable water freely came out, consider yourself truly blessed. Because so many of us in the United States are in this situation it can be easy to forget that nearly 900 million other people aren't so lucky. It can be easy to forget that globally we face a frightening water crisis. And it can be hard to notice that even here in the US there are dire threats to our water supply right now.

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/story/154648/5_deadly_threats_to_our_precious_drinking_water_supply

Ethan A. Huff - Water wars: Shortages may destroy entire nations, warns government report

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) recently released a report entitled Global Water Security that claims water supply issues around the globe will lead to economic instability, civil and international wars, and even the use of water as a weapon in the next several decades. In typical shock-and-awe fashion, the U.S. government paints a grim picture of so-called global warming, water shortages, and other water problems as the causes of major global destabilization, which it also says may be mitigated if certain steps are taken to offset them.

What are these steps, you may ask? As expected, getting the U.S. government involved in water supply issues around the globe is presented as a primary solution. This measure implies, of course, that U.S. models of water management, which include price-gouging the public in the name of water conservation, will also be implemented across the globe as those that run the U.S. government increasingly meddle in international affairs to serve their own interests.

Read More:

http://www.naturalnews.com/035370_water_wars_shortages_government.html

EPA Finds Water Safe to Drink Despite Explosive Levels of Methane and Other Toxins

In the middle of an investigation into water contamination caused by natural gas drilling, with only partial results from less than 20 percent of households being investigated, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 3 office issued a press release on March 15 implying that Dimock, Pa.’s water has been given a clean bill of health. In the same statement to the press, EPA admitted that several families still have arsenic and methane in their water, but the news headlines are already proclaiming that the water in Dimock is safe.

Independent testing has found that 11 Dimock families’ water is contaminated with explosive levels of methane, as well as heavy metals, radioactive material and fracking chemicals like ethylene glycol—commonly known as antifreeze. Would partial, preliminary test results convince you that Dimock’s water was safe for your children to drink?

This mismanagement of the crisis in Dimock is just one of a long list of failures to protect citizens from the hazards of gas drilling. And the circumstances of Region 3’s press release raise more questions than answers:

Read More:

http://ecowatch.org/2012/epa-finds-water-safe-to-drink-despite-explose-levels-of-methane-and-other-toxins/

Small clique of nations dominate global trading web of food and water

It's not easy, or economically feasible, to ship freshwater across the globe. But when scientists use food as a proxy for that water - taking into account how much crops are irrigated and livestock are fed - they can get a glimpse of the flow of freshwater between countries.

When one research group studied this "virtual water network," they found that the interconnectedness between countries has almost doubled over the last two decades - potentially lending some resiliency to the water trade. Still, a handful of nations control a majority of the freshwater flow, and some regions, including much of Africa, are left out of the trading loop.

"In general, we have more trade going on, and more and more countries are now connected," said Joel Carr, an ecohydrologist with the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and one of the authors of the new study. "But these increases in trade and connections are not equally spread among countries."

Food production is one of the primary uses of fresh water, and as countries grow in population, they need more food, and therefore more water, to support their residents. If they don't have the water to grow crops or raise livestock but have money to spend, countries can import food - essentially importing water. The virtual water network is a way to look at the global balance of this freshwater trade, Carr said.

Read More:

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Small_clique_of_nations_dominate_global_trading_web_of_food_and_water_999.html

Obama Set to Speed Up Approval of Tar Sands Pipeline

Although President Obama denied a permit for the main Keystone XL pipeline from Canada's tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico in January, it is expected that he will announce on Thursday on a visit to Cushing, Oklahoma, a plan to speed up the permit for the southern section of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry tar sands crude from Cushing to Port Arthur, Texas.

Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity said today, “Keystone XL may be a boon to Big Oil companies in the exporting business but those profits will come at a stiff price for our land, water, wildlife and climate.” “Building Keystone XL in pieces doesn’t make it any less dangerous.”

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/21-1