Sean Paul Kelly asked a number of Agonist readers to predict what the world would look like in 30 years. I am hesitant to comply. For me, to predict events in the future is to prophesy. To prophesy incorrectly makes one a false prophet. So I am very cautious with even the simplest statements regarding the future.

I rarely say I will do anything tomorrow without adding, good Lord willing, as a qualifier.

To be honest, I have had mental images, glimpses if you will, of events I think may be part of this country’s future and they are quite scary. I don’t know if these images are divinely inspired or just creations of my own mind.

Opens today.

NY Times review.

In case you missed it, video after the jump.

Nick Pisa | Nov 4

DailyMail UK - Catholic convert Tony Blair is among several world leaders being invited to attend a top level summit with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the role of the Church in politics.

The two-day summit will be held at the Vatican and will include other Catholic politicians from all over the world, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. vice president Joe Biden, former Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Church officials have been quietly working on the conference, which will be called 'Witnesses of Christ in the Political Community', for several months.

The Beatles Store

Following the 9.9.09 debut of the digitally re-mastered catalogue on CD, Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music have announced the worldwide release of a limited edition of 30,000 Beatles Stereo USB apples on December 8th.

This unique, apple-shaped USB drive is loaded with the re-mastered audio for The Beatles' 14 stereo titles, as well as all of the re-mastered CDs' visual elements, including 13 mini-documentary films about the studio albums, replicated original UK art, rare photos and expanded liner notes.

The leaders of Argentina's horrible junta from the 1970s and 80s are finally facing trial:

The trial has begun of Argentina's last military ruler, Reynaldo Bignone, and five other retired generals.

The men are charged in connection with the alleged kidnapping, torture and disappearance of 56 opponents of the military government in the late 1970s.
...
Mr Bignone, 81, appeared frail and rocked back and forth in his chair as the charges were read out, correspondents said.

I hope Dick Cheney's heart holds out long enough to answer before a court of law for atrocities like this.

Educate yourself.

Mike Ruppert is distancing himself (or trying anyway) from the 9-11 "truth movement", despite the fact that he wrote a book (Crossing the Rubicon) that laid out a scenario of means, motive and opportunity that points in the direction of a false flag event.

I understand his position. And I am glad to see him do this. We've more important matters at hand. Here. Now.

While we're at it, I'm distancing myself from the legalize drugs so we can all get high and save the economy movement.

Earlier this week, President Obama signed into law the $680 billion FY 2010 Defense Authorization Bill, the largest such budget since the end of World War II. If you missed that aspect of the story, you weren’t alone. Many news stories chose instead to focus on the hate crime provisions tacked onto the bill.

I’ve often quarreled with the inclusion of superfluous legislative riders, and the hate crime provision is more superfluous than most. (Indeed, as my Cato colleague David Rittgers has pointed out, it might be worse than superfluous.)

NowPublic.com (Another interesting blog for your BookMarks, IMO)

A Japanese trawler capsized while trying to haul in a smack of Nomura's jellyfish. Nomura's jellyfish are massive creatures weighing over 400 pounds, and have begun crowding the Sea of Japan. The three crewmembers of the Daisan Shinsho-maru were rescued by another vessel.

Ewwwwww.

Philanthropy is not a life style choice for most of Australia's rich and famous.
But Australian science, especially the federal Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO )got a major financial boost due to a 10 year struggle fighting with HP, Apple, Dell et al. over the invention of WiFi; that was settled back in April.

However, Australian politics and science remain closely related, and casting aspersions on the ruling parties attitude to global emissions is not kosher.

The Observer Debate.uk has some columnists pondering the middle east, racism, Pakistan , the environment and reality.

goods.

Earlier this week, Ed Vulliamy of the Guardian came up for air after a number of months of immersion in the Mexican border scene. Julian Cardona, a mutual friend, suggested that he visit me. I suppose Ed figured I might provide additional insight into the murky world of Mexican gangs, violence and drugs, but he knows more details about the current wave of madness than I would. And, this is a subject of which I am tired of addressing. Drugs, violence and the rest of that crap are symptoms of the disease, rather than the cause, although at some point all of these contribute to each other in a seemingly endless feedback loop. The drug trade doesn't exist in a vaccuum.

Brad Jacobson | Oct 29

Raw Story - [Also Read Part I and Part II of this series.]

The covert Bush administration program that used retired military analysts to generate favorable wartime news coverage may not have been terminated, Raw Story has found.

In interviews, Pentagon officials in charge of the press and community relations offices — which worked in partnership on the military analyst program — equivocated on the subject of whether the program has ended.

Last May, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General issued a memorandum rescinding a Bush administration investigative report on the retired military analyst program because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.” The now-retracted report had exonerated officials of using propaganda and referred to the program as just "one of many outreach groups."

Yet Donald Horstman, Pentagon Inspector General deputy director, also stated in the memorandum that his office wouldn’t probe further because the “outreach program has been terminated and responsible senior officials are no longer employed by the Department.”

Pentagon officials wont confirm Bush propaganda program endedRaw Story’s investigation, however, has shown that some “responsible senior officials” are still employed by the Defense Department, including Bryan Whitman, who remains a chief Pentagon spokesman and head of all media operations, and Roxie Merritt, who is head of the Pentagon’s community relations office.

Raw Story has discovered that Horstman’s other justification for not reopening an investigation at the time – “because the [retired military analyst] outreach program has been terminated” – remains an open question.

A week after David Barstow’s New York Times expose on the program broke in April 2008, Whitman said the military analyst program’s suspension was only “temporary.”

Related: Senior official in Bush domestic propaganda program remains Obama’s Pentagon spokesman

This looks like a fun viewing experience:

Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new President will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil, and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and to hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst? Michael Ruppert is a different kind of American. He predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter “From the Wilderness” at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial.

Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation. He is especially passionate over the issue of “peak oil,” the concern raised by scientists since the 1970s that the world will eventually run out of fossil fuel. While other experts debate this issue in measured tones, Ruppert doesn’t hold back at sounding an alarm. He portrays a future that resembles apocalyptic science fiction. Listening to his rapid flow of opinions, the viewer is likely to question some of the rhetoric as paranoid or deluded; and to sway back and forth on what to make of the extremism. Smith lets viewers form their own judgments.

Trailer in full entry

Laura Dekker just turned 14. She wanted to be the youngest person to sail the globe alone. However, the powers that be were reluctant to let her. But that is about to change.

After considering several proposals, 'Team Laura Dekker" has agreed to go into business with one, as yet unnamed TV station. In a bizarre twist the TV coverage is being used as an argument before the juvenile court. After all, sailing around the world with a TV crew in tow, hardly qualifies as a solitary experience.

The media attention for Laura's case has gained her offers of support from around the world. An experienced sailor has put himself forward to follow Laura during the entire trip in a faster boat. Laura's website has received offers of free hotel rooms and private accommodation. Someone has proposed to be her spokesperson free of charge, and she will be met and taken care of at every port of call during her trip.

All of this could help sway the three juvenile court judges as they weigh their decision this week.

Meanwhile, Laura herself is completely unfazed by the media attention. "For her it's all about the sailing." Source

I came across an article via Matt Savinar's Peak Oil breaking news page called America's soul is lost. For those that say capitalism is dead. Things are going to get one hell of a lot uglier before the final throes. And I shudder to think about what waits on the other side. Here's a little anecdote closer to home, from my diary.

The Saga of Lolo

October 26, 2009. Once again I have failed to stay current on this diary of sorts. Today’s a Monday. It’s raining again. We got about 3,000 bales of good horse quality hay cut, baled and stacked in the barn between waves of rain. But I have fifty acres of hay grazer on the ground here at Belmont and today is the second rain we’ve had since we got it cut. I also have coastal grass cut down at Gonzales and grass on the ground at Seguin and all of it is soaking wet.

Four horses stand in a trap with no shelter, rumps to the cool north wind. Fifty degrees isn’t cold to a horse, but fifty degrees with wet and wind is cold to just about any warm blooded mammal. I need to build a walk-in shelter. I have stalls I could put them in but the forecast calls for clear weather by morning, so they’ll just have to tough it out. As it stands the cows have access to the one small shelter available and this is where I milk Smiley. There’s no good way to allow access to the horse and the cows at the same time and I’m not inclined to sit out in cold wet weather while milking a cow. I don’t think most people want to drink milk mixed with brown water dripped from a cow's hide. I know I don’t.

continue reading after the jump

@ Hitchens recently down under

many of those who put their faith in revelation and prophecy and prayer are feeling the need to give an account of themselves. This is a wholly good development, and it is part of the pluralism and polycentrism that distinguish the sort of society that we have to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

26 Oct.

The Province - UNITED NATIONS — Red-faced United Nations officials Monday admitted to a major security lapse after a UN guard helped Kentucky Fried Chicken's "Colonel Sanders" gain access to restricted areas.

The guard escorted the white-suited intruder past security barriers, where he got a handshake from the UN General Assembly president, Dr. Ali A. Treki of Libya.

The faux fast food chain founder also posed for a picture beneath the assembly's giant UN logo, which overlooks the spot where world leaders address their international counterparts.

I have free weights, a squat rack and a bench press in a stall of a horse barn near my house. As recently as five years ago, I competed in powerlifting competitions. But I haven’t lifted weights with any regularity in the five years since and haven't lifted a barbell at all in over two years. We have a mirror in the house, now that we got moved in, and I made the mistake of looking at a reflection of my naked ass the other day. Not a pretty site, I’ll assure you.

And then a couple of hands had a throw down the other day and I got to thinking the day might come, once again, when I’m faced with a physical confrontation. I’m of the school of thought that being physically prepared for conflict is in and of itself a deterrent to getting in fights. I don’t want to be in a fight; sometimes fights find me.

A patient had an operation in a private sector hospital, because the operation had been classified too risky in a public sector hospital.

The patient got some complications of the operation which were treated in a public sector hospital. The bill to taxpayers: 300 000 euros.