The Noble Lie

Yesterday, the world lost Howard Zinn, author and historian. He passed away at age 87.

• Boston Globe - Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo, dies at 87
• Howardzinn.org

Lady Columbia leads the American pioneers, driving the animals and Indians into the wild

I think this story only ran in the UK. A news search of Obama and "Native American" returned only the reactions of people to some racist horse-shit Harry Reid said. Obama is a savvy internationalist, but he has so far ignored our Indian nations, just as the succession of white presidents before him did. Popular hero Andrew Jackson is especially reviled among historically-literate natives for his monstrous acts of ethnic cleansing.

Here's the story: UK Guardian - Obama's Indian Problem

The US president has pledged to improve the lives of Native Americans. But he faces huge challenges, such as those on Pine Ridge Indian reservation where unemployment is more than 80%, the average wage is £4,400 – and life expectancy is 50

Native Americans suffer

• 33% of people below the poverty line (general population: 10-13%)
• 1.5 times the suicide rate of the general population
• 70% alcohol/substance abuse rates (general population: 11-30%)
• 40% unemployment rates (Pine Ridge, mentioned in the article, has an 80% unemployment rate)
• Ongoing government oppression
• Eugenics practices, forcible sterilization (Many victims of this practice are still alive)
• History of persecution and massacres by settlers, even here in Humboldt County

They were also the last ethnic group to get their voting francishe, in 1948.

CNN: 7.0 quake hits Haiti; 'Serious loss of life' expected

A few days after our little shake-up, which caused minor damage, a 7.0 earthquake hit ten miles out of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, a city of 2.5 to 3 million people. From everything I have seen so far, it is a tragedy of a massive scale. Too sad for words.

What is our planet up to? Two large earthquakes in a few days, in different parts of the world.

UPDATE: powerful links and (graphic) photos from Haiti, found by/courtesy of Bill at HighBoldtage, follow him for more coverage, I'm sure.

• 7.0 Earthquake Hits Haiti
• Twitter Feed from Port au Prince Haiti
• Earthquake Disaster in Haiti - Pictures from Radio Tele Ginen
• Daniel Morel Haitian Earthquake Photo Feed

• Times-Standard - Earthquake rocks Eureka, damage widespread
• Baltimore Sun - photo gallery of earthquake damage
• Mashable.com - Eureka Earthquake: Twitter Pictures Tell the Story

"Power is out at the Times-Standard, and reports Saturday evening were filed from the parking lot on a single laptop, illiminated by headlamps from employee vehicles."

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/QuakeAddons/NC71338066.html

Published on January 10, 2010 @ 01:13:57 GMT

Version 0: This report supersedes any earlier probability reports about this event.

STRONG AFTERSHOCKS (Magnitude 5 and larger) -

At this time (immediately after the mainshock) the probability of a strong and possibly damaging aftershock IN THE NEXT 7 DAYS is approximately 78 PERCENT

EARTHQUAKES LARGER THAN THE MAINSHOCK -

Most likely, the recent mainshock will be the largest in the sequence. However, there is a small chance (APPROXIMATELY 5 TO 10 PERCENT) of an earthquake equal to or larger than this mainshock in the next 7 days.

WEAK AFTERSHOCKS (Magnitude 3 to 5) -

In addition, approximately 70 to 20 SMALL AFTERSHOCKS are expected in the same 7-DAY PERIOD and may be felt locally.

This probability report is based on the statistics of aftershocks typical for California. This is not an exact prediction, but only a rough guide to expected aftershock activity. This probability report may be revised as more information becomes available.

We're the top story on Google News (at least on mine):

According to Associated Press: USGS geophysicist Richard Buckmaster says the quake was felt as far south as Capitola, and as far north as Tiller, Ore.

The quake was a long, rolling bastard that seemed to get stronger as it went. The Herald thread I linked earlier has many comments coming in (though most people's power is still out), and I'm sure Twitter is hopping, too. Bill @ HighBoldtage has summarized some of the damage this quake has caused.

There have apparently been numerous 4.X aftershocks, but we haven't felt any... Until just now (6:22pm Pacific).

I tip my hat to the HAM radio operators and the emergency response folks working hard tonight.

We just experienced a gnarly quake here in Humboldt County, CA. It made the house shake and knocked a few things over.

I think this is it. I look forward to the full scoop on Humboldt's premier earthquake blogger (among other topics), HighBoldtage. We're listening on our scanners, you can listen along on Radio Reference (thanks for the link Bill). A conversation thread has started on Humboldt's most popular blog, the Humboldt Herald. It looks like Ferndale got hit the hardest, just like in 1992. Poor Ferndale. Polly is watching the reports roll in on the USGS website: this quake was felt in Petaluma, Stockton, San Francisco...

I truly hope everybody is okay. This is the kind of quake that does damage and can kill. All circuits are busy.

Earthquake Details

The Christian Science Monitor and others report that Sarah Palin will headline the first "Tea Party Convention," apparently the first attempt to canonize the "platform" of the teabaggers. With this, the first stage of the Tea Party cycle has completed and it will, with any luck, now begin to devour itself. The GOP will be excommunicating the last tea-heretics in time for the 2012 elections.

If there was anything genuine behind this pro-liberty movement, it was sold out long before Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin dug their well-manicured fingers into it. Either that, or the bastards have done a good job of creating a phony tea party movement that, via marketing, eclipsed and absorbed the real thing.

I watched the embryonic tea party protests with interest and curiosity -- and a healthy dose of what turned out to be well-merited skepticism. Unfortunately, "movements" usually don't move the marker very far, for just these reasons.

`Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. `I don't see any wine,' she remarked.
`There isn't any,' said the March Hare.
`Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.
`It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said the March Hare.
- Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

MSNBC reports that the Yale secret society Skull & Bones sold their trademark skull for $10-20k to an anonymous "European art collector." If they're doing some spring cleaning, how about returning Geronimo's remains to his family, grave-robbed by Prescott Bush?

This syncs nicely with another story found today worth mentioning -- China is pursuing some ambitious long-term cyber-warfare goals in their effort to battle western hegemony on the cheap. The same story mentions an unsuccessful diplomatic bid by the UK to commute the death sentence of a convicted British heroin smuggler in China. In the official statement following the execution, Chinese officials mentioned that China's resentment of foreign drug traffickers was based on "the bitter memory of history," a reference to the large-scale smuggling of opium into China by the Crown and the British East India Company, which ultimately led to the Opium Wars of the 19th century. Heroin is simply a refined form of opium.

The drug trade of centuries past, like today, flowed drugs into the common neighborhoods and flowed money into the coffers of blue-blooded elite. One of the big beneficiaries of opium smuggling was a man named Elihu Yale, the governor of the British East India Company whose name is now carried by one of this nation's most prestigious universities. His British East India Company was also largely responsible for supplying the slave trade of the late 17th century.

Samuel Russell made his fortune smuggling opium into China, and later went on to form the Russell Trust Association, also known as Skull & Bones.

[Correction: It was William Russell, Sam's brother, who apparently started the S&B.]

I was with a whore in Copenhagen
Drinking eight hundred dollars worth of
Champagne in kroner
She came from Rio
We were trying to save the world
We did not get what we wanted
She wanted money
She did not get what she wanted
I missed my wife
I did not get what I wanted
Death sat on my lap
Death sits on all our laps

- Violent Femmes, "Jesus of Rio"

A word about the United Nations global summit in Copenhagen. Global warming is a very controversial topic, and I don't really know how much of a real problem it is vs. a political control mechanism, but I know it is primed to be a very big political control mechanism. This climate summit is being held in the shadow of ClimateGate, the leaked emails from the UK Climate Research Unit indicating that they are doctoring their numbers to make the case for man-made climate change.

Toxic waste and pollution are issues that go hand in hand with carbon dioxide, and seem far more important to rein in and control than the carbon dioxide itself. But hey, what do I know.

I can tell you this much: sitting 14,000 diplomats in a big room for two weeks accomplishes nothing. Whatever is announced as a result of this summit, bang or whimper, was hashed out by diplomats and reviewed by innumerable lawyers long before this summit took place. This is just a little pomp and spectacle for the occasion.

Here are some stories related to the Copenhagen summit.

• Hindustan Times - 'Climate talks a dead end if Danish proposal put forward'
• BBC - Leaked draft text divides climate summit
• Copenhagen summit carbon footprint weighs in at 40,000 tons (Should have set an example and WebEx'd this one)
• Copenhagen whores benefit from global warming tax dollars (The 'whores' in question are not the politicians this time)
• Oil still fuels the green state of Denmark
• ClimateGate? What ClimateGate?
• Gordon Brown attacks 'flat-earth' climate change skeptics
• From the vaults: Creators of carbon credit scheme cashing in on it (Al Gore, Maurice Strong)
• From the vaults: Al Gore - The Other Oil Candidate (Gore's relationship to Occidental Petroleum and Vladimir Lenin's right-hand man, Armand Hammer)
• From the vaults: George Hunt - UNCED Earth Summit 1992 (Elites such as Edmond de Rothschild and Maurice Strong describe public as 'cannon fodder' on camera while discussing using environmental issues for political control)