Jobs, Environment and Tunnels

Here's a great tunnel boring machine from Italy. It could help to bring jobs and hope for great projects, so the Geezer was right again, we need a credit system and Glass Stegall. Now we can improve the environment with projects.

The largest tunnel boring machine, named
Martina, went into operation yesterday in Italy. Martina is 130
meters long, and as tall as a five-story building. It has been
commissioned by the German firm Herrenknecht in order to proceed
quickly and safely in the construction of the new second leg of
the A1 highway between Bologna and Florence. The new highway,
called Variante di Valico, will run lower than the existing one
for about 65 km, through a series of tunnels and viaducts through
the Apennines, and will be used not as alternative, but as
addition to the old highway, which runs higher and is full of
curves.

Martina solves the problem of working safely through the
highly unstable terrain, which is partly soft and full of water.
It will be able to advance 15 meters per day, and workers will
operate it in an insulated and protected chamber. The expected
deadline for concluding the project is 2013.
Such technological advances are great, but there are too few
of them. Large infrastructure investments in Italy are not being
financed, and many projects have been announced, but are still on
paper, such as the Messina bridge, high-speed connections south
of Rome, etc.

No Fried Polar Bear My Greenies

Remember the polar bears that Al Gore said were
becoming extinct because of global warming? Well, now the federal
wildlife biologist, Charles Monnett, who published the article
that led to polar bears being classified in 2008 as an endangered
species, the first with its survival at risk due to global
warming, has been placed on administrative leave and is being
investigated for scientific misconduct. Investigators took
Monnett's computer hard drive, notebooks, and other unspecified
items from him, which have not been returned. Good news Greenies, you do not have to eat fried polar bear, and LaRouche Pac is right.

Monnett, an Anchorage-based scientist with the U.S. Bureau
of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or
BOEMRE, was told July 18 that he was being placed on leave,
pending results of an investigation into "integrity issues."
Monnett has not yet been informed by the Inspector General's
office of specific charges or questions related to the scientific
integrity of his work.

However, documents provided by Jeff Ruch, executive director
of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which is
defending Monnett, indicate questioning by investigators has
centered on observations of four dead polar bears floating in the
water after a storm, that Monnett and fellow researcher Jeffrey
Gleason made in 2004, while conducting an aerial survey of
bowhead whales. They detailed their observations in an article
published two years later in the journal Polar Biology;
presentations also were given at scientific gatherings.

In the article, the researchers said they were reporting, to
the best of their knowledge, the first observations of polar
bears floating dead offshore and presumed drowned while
apparently swimming long distances in open water. Polar bears are
considered strong swimmers, they wrote, but long-distance swims
may exact a greater metabolic toll than standing or walking on
ice in better weather.

They said their observations suggested the bears drowned in
rough seas and high winds and "suggest that drowning-related
deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed
trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods
continues."

The article and presentations drew national attention and
helped make the polar bear a poster child for the global warming
movement. Al Gore's mention of the polar bear in his fraudulent
documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," came up during
investigators' questioning of Gleason in January.

I'm a Groupon Greenie

There are so many great products that help the environment. You can have bug sprays, cleaners, and paints that are much safer for the environment. Why not also get a GroupOn discount with your greenie deal? Go for it, GroupOn.

Will Greenies Go for Glass-Steagall

Some of my friends in California are pressuring a well known Greenie Democrat named Cong. Beccera to go for Glass-Stegall, stop Wall St. bailout. They are following around this guy. Here is the story:;

We got there early and handed out literature to everyone who went in.
The problem with his constituency at most of these events though
is even though they tend to agree with what we are saying...they
think the second law of thermodynamics is a principle...and keep
their mouths shut. Some of them do have a deep concern about some
of the problems the district is facing because of the worsening
economic conditions, but they don't want to pressure him on
policy. His response to his constituency is to explain away any
moral responsibility on his part. Most of his town hall events I
would consider to be as though he were speaking to a
pre-school...as if no one knew he was lying out of his ass, while
he of course conceals the fear he has of his constituency. At
this town hall event we didn't get a question in...and the
organizers were not willing to speak out at this point. At this
event though one of our organizers went and asked him after what
his stance on Glass-Steagall was, whether he would endorse
it...he said he wouldn't and was unsure whether he would vote for
it when it came up for vote.
Finally we come to today's event...in which the congressman
again tried to shirk the real issue when it was brought up. He
was pressured by one of his constituencies on the trillions going
to a small grouping of individuals...he put it at 16 trillion to
a few individuals, an actual grouping; he had the names, too.
Bacerra again avoided the question and said he was unaware of the
individuals cited. He then proceeded on, talking about the cuts
that were being made, that his constituents were afraid
of...telling them how they were being screwed over...oh yeah, and
he defended the President for being in such a tough position.
Anyway, due to the aggravation that this organizer was having
with listening to this guy going on..talking about all the
problems when he knows damn well what the solution is...I burst
out, asking him why he wasn't going after Wall St. with
Glass-Steagall? I then turned to the audience, telling them that
we have the solution to these problems, we don't need to cut the
budget, and the problem is, he is not going after Wall St.
Bacerra, absolutely frightened as the audience errupted, due to
my outburst, was trying to calm the audience down, saying it was
alright. So this organizer then got dragged out of the room by
the local police officer. Joe then went and asked Bacerra if he
would endorse Glass-Steagall telling him that he's [?] been
pressuring him on this for awhile...his response ended up being
the same as last time.
We then went outside to hand out more literature to those
people who were leaving. The response from the audience
was...'ahh we like you speaking out in there and all, but you
should change your approach' or 'Everyone has a question you
should wait your turn..it's fair that way.' One guy I had talked
to after the event tried to convince me that it was hopeless for
Glass-Steagall, but being pressured on fighting for it, and
working with us to pressure Bacerra he just shirked the issue.
Not sure what will come of this intervention...but we will be
targeting his district in the coming week to make the point.
CAY

Congressional Debt Ceiling and the Environment

At the same time Lyndon LaRouche was
answering questions at his webcast yesterday, from Congressional
sources who wanted his comments on the debt ceiling negotiations
and Glass-Steagall, tensions between the White House and
Congressional Democrats were boiling over. A number of Senate
Democrats, including Majority Letter Harry Reid (Nev.), John
Kerry (Mass.), Barbara Mikulski (Md.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.),
and possibly others not named, were attending a meeting with
Office of Management and Budget director Jacob Lew, when rumors
flashed across their Blackberries of a $3 trillion deal between
President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Mikulski
said afterwards that when the rumors of mega-cuts and no new
taxes came across, "it was like Mount Vesuvius... Many of us
were volcanic." Reid threatened that if the deal comes to a vote
in the Senate, the Democratic Caucus will oppose it. "I'm the
Senate majority leader," Reid reportedly said. "Why don't I know
about this deal?" One unnamed senator told {The Hill} that
"There's a basic lack of trust with the president," which stems
from suspicions that Obama is negotiating in secret with Boehner.
According to the senators' account of the meeting, Lew denied
that there was any deal, at first, then argued that Obama has to
negotiate alone with Boehner if there's to be a deal that'll pass
the House of Representatives. They can't do that "if there are
too many people in the room."
There was a second, later meeting between Obama and the four
top Congressional Democrats, Reid, Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.),
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and House Minority
Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.), Thursday evening, which went on for two
hours. One source reported to EIR that there was intense yelling
at this meeting, with the Democrats accusing Obama of betraying
the Democratic Party by attempting to give away entitlements in
his negotiations with Boehner. There has been only one other
media leak from this meeting, so far, published by Reuters, that
tends to bear out the EIR source report. Reuters reported that a
Democratic aide told them that "President Obama failed to satisfy
Democratic Congressional leaders about a possible debt reduction
deal he's negotiating with Boehner." The aide said Democrats see
no guarantees of additional revenue in the possible 10-year deal,
which would provide $3 trillion in spending cuts."
In a late breaking development, Friday afternoon, Boehner
told his colleagues, in a letter, that he was breaking off
negotiations with Obama, because Obama "is emphatic that taxes
have to be raised" and "adamant that we cannot make fundamental
changes to our entitlement programs." Instead, Boehner said he'll
start discussions with the Senate leadership "in an effort to
find a path forward."
When LaRouche was asked about all this during his webcast,
yesterday, he said "this is a fraud, a complete fraud. There's no
truth to it. We have to crack down with a Glass-Steagall law.
Otherwise, anything you're doing is just nothing but an act of
masturbation." So, instead of wasting energy on these ridiculous
discussions, the Congress has to ram through Glass-Steagall and
force Obama out of office.

Financial Environment Heats Up

Oh Greenies, you have your global warming, but it's of the financial system. The Trans-atlantic system is heating up as it gets ready to crash. Get ready for some financial green dollar toxic waste.

Well, I think it is a question if the financial system is
going to make it through this week, because all kinds of crises
are converging, and the international cacophony of voices, what
to do, and of people who don't know what to do, and who are
complete bunglers is becoming indeed deafening, and therefore,
{the} most important event of this coming week is obviously Lyn's
webcast on Thursday, which, as every fair estimate goes, is
probably going to be the last one before the crisis breaks,
because the situation is overripe to explosion and the tension in
the international strategic picture is becoming absolutely
unprecedented. Both the danger of coups, the motion to
potentially get rid of Obama, and also the tension of the system
to detonate, maybe even before Thursday.

Now, just to start somewhere, the Vice Prime Minister of
Great Britain, Nick Clegg, came out and said that he is extremely
worried that the world is on the verge of a new financial crisis,
because the simultaneity of the crisis in the Eurozone and the
potential bankruptcy of the United States is really
unprecedented, and the British should not think that they're not
affected by it, because what is happening, both in Europe and the
United States, could potentially affect millions of jobs and
work, and livelihoods in Great Britain.

Now, obviously the EU special summit called by Van
Rumpelstiltskin is totally unclear what will happen, because
there are many, many versions of what could happen, but they're
all according to their own accounts, risky, and each one of them
could worsen the crisis, and therefore, none of these crises will
do anything good, but will make it worse as long as they're not
Glass-Steagall.

The Space Program and the Environment

If the present plant to cut the NASA space program and end manned space launches is not reversed, we will lose essential knowledge of the environment, and about horrible disease spreading such as cholera.

On July 6th, the House Appropriations Committee released its
draft for the nation's fiscal year 2012 budget. The following
day, the subcommittee that appropriates funds for NASA, passed,
by voice vote, an FY12 NASA spending bill that puts the space
agency's funding at $16.8 billion. This is $1.6 billion below
last year's level, and $1.9 billion below what the President
requested. Full Committee chairman, Hal Rogers (R-KY) explained
that the legislation eliminates "extraneous, duplicative, and
unnecessary programs." And what are these?
In the proposed NASA budget, funding would be eliminated for
the James Webb Space Telescope. (Webb was Kennedy's NASA
Administrator, who took Americans to the Moon). The telescope is
an infrared instrument, a follow-on to the optical Hubble Space
Telescope. Webb is over budget and behind schedule, largely due
to the challenges of designing, building, and testing of the
largest scientific instrument to be flown in space. The
telescope, on which about $3 billion has already been spent, is
75% complete.
The elimination of the funding for the Webb Telescope drew
an immediate reaction from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), who
heads the Appropriations subcommittee which does NASA's budget,
and the Representatives, also from Maryland, where the Goddard
Space Flight Center manages Webb. While there is little chance
this proposal would pass the Senate, and maybe not even the full
House, the mind-set of the proponents makes it clear that only an
LPAC-led political fight will give American back a space program.

Several scientists and medical researchers have
found that satellite imaging technology has already proven
extremely useful in predicting cholera outbreaks weeks before
they occur.
This is crucial, given that the world is in the grip of a
global cholera pandemic which shows no sign of abating. Edward T.
Ryan, director of Tropical Medicine at Massachusetts General
Hospital told {Scientific American} that "if anything," the
pandemic "is revving up. We are in this for the long haul."
Regular mutations of the cholera bacterium have produced a strain
that is more toxic and tenacious than researchers say they have
ever seen.
Yet the Nero in the White House is slashing funding for this
technology which can save lives. Throw the bum out!
Rita Colwell, professor at the University of Maryland and
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, found that
measurable changes in the sea often will precede an epidemic by
about six weeks. She told {Scientific American} that sensors on
satellites "allow us to measure chlorophyll, sea surface
temperature and sea surface height. These factors, it turns out,
are very useful in predicting cholera epidemics."
A 2009 paper co-authored by Colwell, entitled "Using
Satellite Technology to Model Prediction of Cholera Outbreaks,"
reported that remote imaging technologies developed by NASA "have
been used to relate sea surface temperature, sea surface height,
and chlorophyll A levels to cholera outbreaks." The paper noted
that because the satellite data are "becoming increasingly
accurate through ground truthing (real-time collection of
information on location), we believe that satellite imaging
provides tremendous promise for prediction of cholera, weeks and
even months in advance of an epidemic."
It goes on to warn, however, that in the U.S., "we face a
crisis in funding that not only affects basic and applied
research in this field but also undermines our ability to deploy
remote sensing technologies that provide the most promising means
for monitoring our environment." Although remote sensing
technology "is currently still a research tool, the example of
cholera prediction through its use provides a compelling argument
to maintain and adequately fund our satellite programs; unless
this is done, this extraordinary effort at disease prediction
will fail."

Making some changes to keep to my deck

Guest post written by Kathy Jeffries

I really love sitting on my back deck during summer afternoons and reading library books. There's also so many great conversations that I've had with friends or family members while sipping on some iced tea or lemonade. But it's starting to look a little shabby back there, so I know that I need to make some adjustments and just make it look that much better.

I'm not exactly what you would call a design guru though so I went online to find some ideas on easy adjustments that I could do by myself. I was getting lots of great ideas and then I saw the site www.homeproimprovement.com. After I read through it a little bit I decided to get our siding replaced. That would be one way to make our deck look just a bit better.

I'm going to spray paint all of the wicker furniture that we already have, which will make it look that much better. I think that while I'm at it I might as well just dress up all of the stuff on our front porch too. Besides, more people see that anyway

Info on Oil Spill in Montana

On July 1 the ExxonMobil oil pipeline
ruptured in the Montana channel of the Yellowstone River, the
major tributary of the Upper Missouri River; the break came at a
point 16 miles upstream from Billings, and sent 32,000 to 42,000
gallons of oil into churning floodwaters before the pipeline was
shutdown. No exact reason has been confirmed for the crack in the
12-inch-diameter pipe, which lies on the Yellowstone riverbed.
Today Gov. Brian Schweizer is visiting the scene, and is to give
a briefing. ExxonMobil officials, trying to play down the impact,
are saying that only 10 miles of river valley may be affected,
and issuing other disclaimers.
The context of the pipe break includes not only the fact
that the Yellowstone is flooding, but also that gas and oil
pipelines are not being fully maintained and inspected, as is the
case generally on aging North American infrastructure, especially
when owned by commodity cartels. Already this year, there were
leaks and shutdowns on the TransAlaska Pipeline (the 800-mile
North Slope-to-Valdez conveyance, shut for a while in January),
on the TransCanada (the Alberta-to-Texas pipeline, shut a while
in May because of leaks), and elsewhere.
Modern codes require river channel pipelines to be buried
underground, beneath the river, unlike the ExxonMobil Yellowstone
River pipe. As of last night, 36 property owners had called the
state hotline, saying that oil had shown up on their land. The
highwaters and swift currents are preventing oil-containment work
on the river, so the 280 emergency workers are using absorbants
on the riverbanks.
The flooded Yellowstone River itself (692 miles/1,114 km
long) only peaked in Billings on Saturday, July 2, for the season
(it is hoped), reaching 13.95 ft (a foot above flood stage).