tapitsbo » 09 Nov 2016 06:46 wrote:Shedding more light on the individuals concerned wouldn't hurt. That's what.
Yeah, I think you missed the joke.
J.
Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by Jerky » Wed Nov 09, 2016 11:06 am
tapitsbo » 09 Nov 2016 06:46 wrote:Shedding more light on the individuals concerned wouldn't hurt. That's what.
by Cordelia » Wed Nov 09, 2016 5:07 pm
by JackRiddler » Wed Nov 09, 2016 5:12 pm
by Luther Blissett » Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:23 pm
by Joe Hillshoist » Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:56 pm
by Joe Hillshoist » Wed Nov 09, 2016 8:20 pm
by tapitsbo » Wed Nov 09, 2016 10:13 pm
Jerky » Wed Nov 09, 2016 11:06 am wrote:tapitsbo » 09 Nov 2016 06:46 wrote:Shedding more light on the individuals concerned wouldn't hurt. That's what.
Yeah, I think you missed the joke.
J.
by slomo » Thu Nov 10, 2016 9:50 am
I’ll cut right to the chase:
Pepe the Frog isn’t a white nationalist symbol.
Pepe the Frog isn’t a harmless meme propagated by teenagers on the internet.
Pepe the Frog is, in fact, the modern-day avatar of an ancient Egyptian deity accidentally resurrected by online imageboard culture.
Does that sound like the most b@tsh#t crazy thing you’ve ever heard?
Strap in, friendo. You’re in for one hell of a ride.
by seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 10, 2016 9:57 am
by dada » Thu Nov 10, 2016 10:44 am
by seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 10, 2016 10:45 am
2012 Countdown » Wed Nov 09, 2016 2:52 am wrote:Black swan, TEOTWAWKI. an extinction level event.
Black swan theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying which presumed black swans did not exist, but the saying was rewritten after black swans were discovered in the wild.
The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain:
The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology.
The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities).
The psychological biases which blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event's massive role in historical affairs.
Unlike the earlier and broader "black swan problem" in philosophy (i.e. the problem of induction), Taleb's "black swan theory" refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences.[1]:xxi More technically, in the scientific monograph 'Silent Risk',[2] Taleb mathematically defines the black swan problem as "stemming from the use of degenerate metaprobability".[2]
by coffin_dodger » Thu Nov 10, 2016 10:49 am
The whole reason I joined this forum long ago was because of the intersection of politics and esoteric information ("occult" for lack of a better term)
by seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 10, 2016 10:51 am
But since 2008, an entire sub-stratum of professional Jeremiah has grown up to tell us about the next monster event, the next Black Swan. The next crash won't be like the last one. A) It never is. B) There will be hundreds of people trying to figure out how to profit from it.
seemslikeadream » Mon Feb 01, 2016 10:31 pm wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqbGTfndtyE
Published on Jan 31, 2016
Nomi Prins, the Best selling author of All The President's Bankers, joins me to document the collapse of the western banking and economic systems. Nomi says, "We're getting to the end of what's possible in terms of stimulation, I would have thought the end should have happened years ago. But the reason it didn't was because of the epic coordinated efforts between the major central banks... and that element has left markets with the APPEARANCE of health they haven't actually had because of true growth. And there's only so much you can do of that. These are desperate actions."My Financial Road Map For 2016
DateTuesday, January 5, 2016 at 8:53AM
Happy New Year to All! May 2016 bring peace to you and your loved ones.
Over the holidays, I had the opportunity to stay away from airports and hike Runyon Canyon with my dogs. For those of you that have never traversed Runyon’s peaks and dips, they are nature’s respite from the urban streets of Los Angeles, yet located in the heart of the City of Angels. It’s a place in which to observe, reflect, and think about what’s coming ahead.
As a writer and journalist covering the ebbs and flows of government, elite individual, central bank and private industry power, actions, co-dependencies, and impacts on populations and markets worldwide, I often find myself reacting too quickly to information. As I embark upon extensive research for my new book, Artisans of Money, my resolution for the book - and the year - is to more carefully consider small details in the context of the broader perspective. My travels will take me to Brazil, Mexico, China, Japan, Germany, Spain, Greece and more. My intent is to converse with people in their respective locales; those formulating (or trying to formulate) monetary, economic and financial policy, and those affected by it.
We are currently in a transitional phase of geo-political-monetary power struggles, capital flow decisions, and fundamental economic choices. This remains a period of artisanal (central bank fabricated) money, high volatility, low growth, excessive wealth inequality, extreme speculation, and policies that preserve the appearance of big bank liquidity and concentration at the expense of long-term stability. The potential for chaotic fluctuations in any element of the capital markets is greater than ever.
The butterfly effect - the flutter of a wing in one part of the planet altering the course of seemingly unrelated events in another part - is on center stage. There is much information to process. So, I’d like to share with you – not my financial predictions for 2016 exactly - – but some of the items that I will be examining from a geographical, political and financial perspective as the year unfolds.
1) Central Banks: Artisans of Money
Since the Fed raised (hiked is too strong a word) rates by 25 basis points on December 16th, the Dow has dropped by about 3.5%. Indicating a mix of fear of decisive movements and a market awareness deficit regarding the impact of its actions, the Federal Reserve hedged its own rate rise announcement, noting that its "stance of monetary policy remains accommodative after this increase.”
These words seem fairly clear: there won’t be many, if any, hikes to come in 2016 unless economies markedly improve (which they won’t, or the words would be much more definitive.) Still, Janet Yellen did manage to alleviate some stress over the Fed's inaction on rate rises during the past 7 years, by invoking the slighted action possible with respect to rates.
Projections are past reactions here. The Fed, to save face more than anything or to “appear” conclusive, raised the Fed Funds rate (the rate US banks charge each other to borrow excess reserves, of which about $2.5 billion are with the Fed anyway), to .25-.50% from 0-.25%. And yet, the effective rate stood within the old Fed target range, or at an average of .20% on December 31 for various reasons, the timing of which was not lost on the Fed. It was at .35% or so on the first day of 2016. The Fed’s rate move was tepid, and it’s possible the Fed moves rates up another 25 or 50 basis points over 2016, but less likely more than that and more likely it engages in heightened currency swap activities with other central banks as a way to “manage” rates and exchange rates regardless.
Meanwhile, most other central banks (Brazil being an extreme counter example) remain in easing mode or mirror mode to the Fed. It’s likely that more creative QE measures amongst the elite central banks will pop up if liquidity, markets or commodities head southward. Less powerful central banks will attempt to respond to the needs of their local economies while balancing the strains imposed upon them by the elite central banks.
2) Global Stock Markets
They say that behavior on the first day of the year is indicative of behavior in the year to come. If so, the first trading day doesn’t bode well for the rest. Turmoil began anew with Asian stock markets crumbling at the start of 2016. In China, the Shanghai Composite hit two circuit breakers and China further weakened the yuan.
Yes, there’s the prevailing growth-decline story, a relic of 2015 “popular opinion”, being served as a reason for the drop. But also, restrictions on short selling by local Chinese companies are expiring. Just as in last August, China will have to balance imposing fresh sell restrictions with market forces pushing the yuan down.
The People’s Bank of China will likely inject more liquidity through further reserve requirement reductions and rate cuts to counter balance losses. The demise in stock values is not simply due to slower growth, but to high debt burdens and speculative foreign capital outflows; the story of China as a quick bet is no longer as hot as it was when China opened its markets to more foreign investors in mid-2014, since which volumes and volatility increased. It will be interesting to see if China responds with more capital controls or less, and how its “long-game” of global investments plays out.
Blood shed followed Asian into European markets. Subsequently, the Dow dropped by about 1.6% unleashing its worst start to a year since the financial crisis began. Last year's theme to me was volatility rising; this year is about markets falling, even core ones. This is both a reaction to global and local economic weakness, and speculative capital pondering definitive new stomping grounds, hence thinner and more dispersed volumes will be moving markets.
3) Global Debt and Defaults
As of November 2015, Standard & Poor’s tallied the number of global companies that defaulted at 99, a figure only exceeded by that of 222 in 2009. Debt loads now present greater dangers. Not only did companies (and governments, of course) pile on debt during this zero interest rate bonanza period; but currency values also declined relative to the dollar, making interest payments more expensive on a local basis.
If the dollar remains comparatively strong or local economies weaken by an amount equivalent to any dollar weakening, more defaults are likely in 2016. In addition, the proportion of junk bonds relative to investment grade bonds grew from 40% to 50% since the financial crisis, making the likelihood of defaults that much greater. Plus, the increase in foreign, especially dollar, denominated debt in emerging markets will continue to hurt those countries from a sovereign downgrade and a corporate downgrade to default basis.
I expect sovereign downgrades to increase this year in tandem with corporate downgrades and defaults. Also, as corporate defaults or default probabilities increase, so does corporate fraud discovery. This will be a year of global corporate scandals.
In the US about 60% of 2015 defaults were in the oil and gas industry, but if oil prices stay low or drop further, more will come. Related industries will also be impacted. In mid-December, Fitch released its leveraged loan default forecast of the TTM (Trailing Twelve Month index) predicting a 2.5% rise in default rates for 2016, or $24 billion in global defaults. That’s an almost 50% increase in default volume over 2015, and more than the total over the 2011-2013 period. Besides higher energy sector defaults, the retail sector could see more defaults, as consumers lose out and curtail spending.
4) Brazil and Argentina
Brazil is a basket case on multiple levels with nothing to indicate 2016 will be anything but messier than 2015. Even the upcoming Olympics there have reeked of scandal in the lead up to the summer games.
Brazilian corporations have already sold $10 billion in assets to scrape together cash in 2015, a drop in the bucket to what’s needed. Brazil’s main company, Petrobras, is mired in scandal, its bond and share prices took massive hits last year as it got downgraded to junk, and a feeding frenzy between US, Europe and China for any of its assets on the cheap won’t be enough to alter the downward trajectory of Brazilian’s economy. In fact, it will just make recovery harder as core resources will be effectively outsourced.
Fitch downgraded seven Brazilian sub nationals to junk, with more downgrades to come. Brazil itself was downgraded to junk by S&P with no positive outlook from anywhere for 2016. Falling revenues plus higher financial costs due to higher debt burdens will accentuate trouble. In addition, pension funds are going to be increasingly underfunded, which will enhance local population and political unrest, as unemployment increases, too.
Though Brazil will have the toughest time relative to neighboring countries, Argentina, will not be having a walk in the park under its new government either. The new centrist government removed currency capital controls in a desperate bid to attract capital. This resulted in crushing the Argentinean Peso (a.k.a. “Marci’s devaluation”) and will only invite further speculative and political volatility into the country. It could get ugly.
5) The Dollar and Gold
Despite what will be a year of continued pathways to trade and currency arrangements amongst countries trying to distance themselves from the US dollar, the fact that much of the world is careening toward global Depression will keep the dollar higher than it deserves to be. It will remain the comparative currency of choice, as long as central banks continue to fabricate liquidity in place of government revenues from productive growth.
Outside the US, most central banks (except Brazil which has a massive inflation problem) have maintained policies of rate reduction, lower reserve requirements, and other forms of QE or currency swap activities. As in 2015, the dollar will be a benefactor, despite problems facing the US economy and its general mismanagement of monetary policy. But the US dollar index and the dollar itself might exhibit more volatility to the downside this year, straying from its high levels more frequently than during 2015.
Last year, given the enhanced volatility in various markets, I expected gold to rise during the summer as a safe haven choice, which it did, but it also ended the year lower in US dollar terms. Because the US dollar preserved its strength, the dollar price of gold fell during the year - yet not by as much as other commodities, like oil.
I take that as a sign of gold finding some sort of a floor relative to the US dollar, with the possibility of more upside than downside for 2016, though in similar volatility bands to the US dollar. Gold relative to the Euro was just slightly down for 2015, relative to the approximate 10% decline in value relative to the US dollar. Considering the home currency is important when examining gold price behavior.
Also, it’s important to note that investing in gold requires a longer time horizon - months and years, rather than weeks and months - and should be done through physical gold, coins or allocated bars depending on disposable investment thresholds, not paper gold.
In addition, as I mentioned last year, routinely extracting cash from bank accounts and keeping it in safe non-bank locations, remains a smart defensive play for 2016.
6) The People’s Economies
As companies default and economies suffer, industries will inevitably shed jobs this year around the world. The Fed’s publicly expressed optimism about employment figures and the headline figure decrease in US unemployment will be met with the realities of companies cutting jobs to pay the debts they took on during the ZIRP years and due to decreased demand.
Unemployment is already rising in many emerging countries, and it will be important to note what happens in Europe and Japan, as well as the US in that regard. This Recession 3.0 (or ongoing Depression) could fuel further artisanal money practices that might again be good for the markets and banks, but not for real economies or jobs lost through reactive corporate actions.
7) Oil
With Saudi Arabia and Iran pissed off at each other in a round of tit-for-tat power positioning, it’s unlikely either OPEC heavy weight will reduce oil production, this while tankers worldwide remain laden with their loads and rigs are quiet. Tankers off the coast of Long Beach in California for instance, that used to come in and unload, remain in stalling patterns away from the shoreline, waiting for better prices. This means tankers are making money on storage, but also that extra oil supplies are hovering off shore, and even if prices rise, release of that supply would have a dampening consequence on prices.
Oil futures have been a generally highly speculated product, so I’ve never believed that simple supply and demand ratios drive the price of spot oil as it relates to the futures price of oil. Only in this case, not only is there oversupply and weakening demand, but speculators are playing to the short side as well. That combination seems destined to keep oil prices low, or push them lower in the near future, but should be closely watched.
Meanwhile, signs of knock on problems are growing. In China, for instance, shipyards are struggling because global rig customers don’t need their rig model orders fulfilled.Europe
While Greece faces more blood-from-a-stone extortion tactics and none of the Troika get why austerity measures don't actually produce local revenues at high enough levels to pay expensive debts to foreign investors and multinational entities, other parts of Europe aren’t looking much better for 2016. Spain is facing political unrest, Italy, despite exhibiting a tenuous recovery of sorts, still has a major unemployment problem, and the Bank of Portugal lowered its growth estimates - for the next two years.
Mario Draghi, European Central Bank (ECB) head decided to extend Euro-QE to March 2017 from September 2016, having had the markets punish his less enthusiastic verbiages about QE late last year, because he has no other game. The Euro will thus likely continue to drop in value against the dollar, negative interest rates will prevail, and potential bail ins will appear if this extra dose of QE doesn’t keep the wheels, big banks and core markets of Europe properly greased.
9) Mexico
The Mexican Peso closed near record lows vs. the dollar for 2015. Much of the Peso’s weakness was attributed to low oil prices and Mexico’s dependence on its oil sector, but the Peso was already depreciating before oil prices dropped. If the US dollar remains comparatively high OR if oil prices continue to remain low or drop, the Peso is likely to do the same.
When I was in Mexico a few years ago, addressing the Senate on the dangers of foreign bank concentration, there were protests throughout Mexico City on everything from teachers’ pay to the opening of Pemex, Mexico’s main oil company to foreign players. The government’s promise then was that foreign firms would provide capital to Mexico as well as industry expertise that would translate to revenues. Oil prices were hedged then at 74 dollars per barrel. With oil prices at half of that, many of those hedges are coming off this year and that will cause additional pain to the industry and Pemex.
That said, though Mexico will feel the global Depression pain this year as a major player, it is still set to have a much better year than Brazil on every level; from a higher stock market to a higher currency valuation relative to the US dollar to lower inflation to lower unemployment to a better balance of trade with the US than Brazil will have with China. Plus, it has far less obvious inbred corporate-government corruption.
10) Elections and Media Coverage
It’s been a minute since the last debate or late night show fly-by from any Presidential hopeful, but this is the year of the US election. I look forward to continuing to post my monthly wrap on TomDispatch as the Democratic and Republican nominees emerge. I will be taking stock of the most expensive election in not just US history, but in the history of the World. Look for more on the numbers behind the politics later this month.
From a financial standpoint, this election has low impact on flows of capital. Given the platforms of everyone in reasonable contention (with the exception of Bernie Sanders’ platform), no one will actually touch excessive speculation, concentration risk in the banking or other critical sectors like healthcare, or meaningfully examine the global role of artisanal central bank policy, particularly as emanating from the Fed.
Elsewhere, economic stress throughout the globe and a general sense of exasperation and distrust with politicians is putting new leaders in place that are pushing for more austerity or open capital flow programs rather than foundational growth and restrictions on the kind of flows that cause undue harm to local economies. That is a recipe for further economic disaster that will fall most heavily on populations worldwide.
conniption » Tue Aug 26, 2014 11:30 pm wrote:RT
Russian fireworks show tops Cannes intl pyrotechnics competition (FULL VIDEO)
Published time: August 27, 2014
With their unique and breathtaking pyro-music performance a Russian fireworks company from Kaliningrad has won the “Olympic prize in pyrotechnics” at an international fireworks festival in Cannes.
The Russian team’s performance watched by over 200,000 spectators won over the jury by combining tradition and innovation. The magic of Khan pyrotechnic company from Kaliningrad bewitched all members of the jury with a sophisticated and unique show full of intensity called Black swan.
KHAN (Russie) - Festival Art Pyrotechnique Cannes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXL6AZL6etI
Published on Aug 25, 2014
In their concept, the Russian designers explained that their performance set out to create “deep emotions aroused both by the legendary music of Tchaikovsky and enchanting fireworks, while revealing the exceptional grace and beauty of the black swan.”
“Black swan is far from being a symbol of sorrow. Maybe one of them will grant you good luck!” Khan says.
Recognized as one of the most remarkable competitions of a kind, the Cannes Pyrotechnic Art Festival gathered fireworks gurus from around the world to compete for the Gold Vestale.
Each year, companies compete for the Silver Vestale and once in 6 years the prizewinners gather to fight for the Gold Vestale. The Russian firm won the competition in 2011, with their performance called “Kalinka – the Russian soul.”
Cannes' bay in the French Riviera provides a fantastic setting to hold such competitions. Pyro-musical displays are fired over the Mediterranean from three barges located 180 meters from each other. A high quality and high power sound system is crucial to make sure that every spectator enjoys the show.
Italians, French, Chinese, Spanish and Russians all competed in 2014 to win the Gold Vestale in a natural setting 400 meters offshore. The jury evaluated the pyrotechnical shows based on music and firework conception, overall impression, sound tracks chosen, as well as the originality of the performance.
by seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 10, 2016 10:56 am
semper occultus » Mon Aug 04, 2014 1:32 am wrote:Air Algerie AH5017, Air France 447, Malaysian MH370 and MH17: Vanishing Aircraft, “Numerology”, and the Global Elite
By Jason Kissner
Global Research, August 01, 2014
www.globalresearch.ca
We have been told by much of Western MSM that Air Algerie flight 5017 (hereinafter AH 5017) and its 117 passengers (according to the airline) lost contact with the ground and subsequently crashed in Mali on 7/24due to heavy weather.
A simple, tidy story that; and for all one knows the MSM soporific might even be true.
And yet, true to the times, meaningful questions remain.
Via CNN on 7/24 we have:
“1:17 a.m. local time, Air Algerie Flight 5017 left Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso bound for Algiers. It was supposed to be a four-hour overnight flight but about 50 minutes of takeoff, it disappeared from radar over Mali close to a zone of ongoing conflict between Islamist rebels and the government.”
The Guardian chimed in on 7/29 with:
Radar recordings show the plane’s last contact at 1.47am local time. A witness reported seeing a ball of flame in the crash area at about 1.50am, suggesting the tragedy happened in minutes.
One witness said it was “as if a bomb had fallen” on the desert, and that the plane had hit the ground at a steep angle and at full speed, ruling out any attempt at an emergency landing.
Police investigators and gendarmes at the scene say the plane was “pulverised” and they have found no bodies. Even finding traces of the victims – who included one Briton and 54 French people, including entire families – is proving a challenge, with stifling heat alternating with torrential rain in a remote area.
The Guardian’s reportage that the plane was pulverized echoed Le Monde’s7/26 assertion that the wreckage was indicative of disintegration.
Matters are so compromised with respect to the status of bodily evidence that France now thinks it could take from three to five months for forensic processes to produce the first identifications.
And then we have the facts that it took hours for airline and government officials to make AH 5017’s disappearance public, there were 51 French passengers, and France, declaring victory, had very recently terminated Operation Serval (a counterterrorism adventure in Mali).
Finally, we have the pending performance on a France/Russia deal whereby Russia is to receive delivery of two Mistral warships. Maybe certain elitist elements would rather see France breach the contract?
Might the demise of AH 5017 be attributable to an act of terror, and might there be additional links to the vanishing aircraft of MH 17, MH 370, and veryconceivably even Air France 447? Newsweek on AH 5017:
“General Gilbert Diendere, head of Burkina Faso’s crisis cell, said radar data showed that the plane appeared to try to fly around the bad weather before reverting to its initial course, which took it back into the eye of the storm.
“Perhaps the pilot thought that he had completely avoided it and wanted to return to the original route,” Diendere said, according to the website of French radio RFI. “The accident took place while the plane performed this maneuver.”
Diendere said the last contact with the plane at its altitude of 10,000 meters was at 0147 GMT and the crash was reported by witnesses to have taken place at 0150.
“That means that (plane) fell from an altitude of 10,000 meters to zero in about three minutes, which is a steep fall given the size of the plane,” he added.”
10,000 meters is just about 33,000 feet, so, if the preceding sentence is true, AH 5017 lost altitude at an average of 11,000 feet per minute before being ostensibly destroyed.
The same thing happened to Air France 447.
A quick refresher on that flight from the Huffington Post:
“On the evening of May 31, 2009 [it was in the early hours of 6/1/2009 that the flight went missing], 216 passengers and 12 crew members boarded an Air France Airbus 330 at Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The flight, Air France 447, departed at 7.29 p.m. local time for a scheduled 11-hour trip to Paris. It never arrived. At 7 o’clock the next morning, when the aircraft failed to appear on the radar screens of air traffic controllers in Europe, Air France began to worry and contacted civil aviation authorities. By 11 a.m., they concluded that AF447 had gone missing somewhere over the vast emptiness of the South Atlantic.
How, in the age of satellite navigation and instantaneous global communication, could a state-of-the art airliner simply vanish? It was a mystery that lasted for two years.”
Air France 447, like MH 370, MH 17, and AH 5017 also “vanished without a word from the crew.” Perhaps, then, the official report regarding Air France 447, which explained the affair in terms of heavy weather, a high altitude stall, and pilot error also happens to more or less describe what occurred with AH 5017?
Then again, it was reported regarding Air France 447 that:
“Two pilots of an Air Comet flight from Lima to Lisbon saw a bright flash of light in the area where Flight 447 went down, the Madrid-based airline told CNN. The pilots have turned in their report to authorities.
“Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds,” the captain wrote in the report.
The flash of light contributes to the theory that an explosion is what brought down Flight 447, which was carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.”
To be sure, these reports have gone down the memory hole.
Intrepid readers will have little difficulty locating other disturbing claims about Flight 447, but to be honest it’s difficult to decisively separate mere rumors from plausible alternative accounts.
Be that as it may, what follows may amount to nothing more than a mirage of coincidences (some of them possibly forced)—but it might also suggest something quite significant.
“Numerology”
An earlier contribution to Global Research on the subject of MH 17 stated:
Next, here are a few other curious tidbits. The flight 17 crash shares an anniversary with the demise of TWA 800, which AT’s own Jack Cashill has compellingly argued was, in fact, brought down by a missile on July 17, 1996 and subsequently covered up by the US government. And, the maiden flight of flight 17 occurred in 1997 on the date of, you guessed it, July 17.
[Moreover Russia's last ruling monarch of the Romanov family Tsar Nicholas II, together with his wife Tsarina Alexandra and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei were executed on 17 July 1918. Subliminal message to Putin? No doubt it's another "coincidence"]
So “17s” are everywhere. To be sure, though, each of the items in the last paragraph is easily ranged under the heading “coincidence.”
With respect to AH 5017, we obviously encounter “17” again in the number of the flight. And, we have the fact that the flight left at 1:17 AM. Plus, some early reports indicated 117 passengers.
In a related vein, as previous quotes show, “7s” and “11s” seem to reverberate around facts pertaining to Air France 447 and AH 5017. And, MH 370 was lost on 3/7/2014 at 17:20 UTC.
Of course, many other numerical facts connected with the three flights have nothing to do with 7s, 11s, or 17s.
It is unquestionably easy to get carried away with this sort of thing; one very serious problem is that in the absence of a consistently applied, rationally based rule for combining digits and assigning times, it is easy to mold phenomena so as to reach conspiratorial conclusions when nothing obtains other than coincidence (and perhaps not even that).
In short, we do not want to consume witches’ brews or magicians’ potions; instead, we should ask whether there might be scientifically sensible reasons as to why intelligence enterprises and their associates might want to play numerological games.
Rare events and events that are meaningfully singular in their description (such as the vanishing of MH 370) are next to impossible to predict statistically, especially if one is attempting to predict the precise time, date, and place of occurrence (almost by definition there’s not enough data to support valid statistical analyses). It is just such “black swan” events, though, that often exert the greatest, and most reverberating, impacts on global dynamics. Because such events are difficult to predict even with a great deal of information in hand, they are difficult to prevent—even with a tremendous amount of information.
With these thoughts in mind, consider that when singular, rare events such as plane vanishings that receive intensive coverage take place, the threshold geopolitical question is really whether the occurrence was accidental or in some way planned. It is here that “numerological” factors may come into play. It may be that the numerological properties of events can function as ways of indicating human agency, even though such agency will, of necessity, be invisible to algorithms and associated databases. If human consciousness, on the basis of ironically non-quantifiable meaning, considers an event to be too significant to perfunctorily ascribe to an accident, it will react accordingly even if the “data” and surface authorities (such as certain visible bureaucrats and news anchors with far more proximate connections to the public) say otherwise.
If these ruminations are accurate, it may be that the degree of brazenness of “numerological” ties functions as a measure of the danger we confront. Surface authority, in spite of its nearly universal mathematical illiteracy, has been successfully conditioned to believe that the only measures of scientific significance are those that can be quantified. Therefore, it is blind to many potential indications of agency that could indicate covert conflict.
However, had a flight numbered 7077 crashed on 7/7/2014 after having disappeared from radar at 7:07 PM, even surface authorities might have been forced to acknowledge design—even if they were told in so many terms by deep authority that “Big Data” could not back it up. Since even the dimwits of surface authority would be talking design, the risk of overt hot war would rise substantially. It is for reasons such as these that the rather glaring 17s surrounding MH 17 are unsettling.
The Global Elite
Now consider these utterly bizarre remarks made by none other than IMF chief Christine Lagarde at a 1/15/2014 National Press Club speech:
“Now, I’m going to test your numerology skills by asking you to think about the magic seven, okay? Most of you will know that seven is quite a number in all sorts of themes, religions. And I’m sure that you can compress numbers as well. So if we think about 2014, all right, I’m just giving you 2014, you drop the zero, 14, two times 7. Okay,that’s just by way of example, and we’re going to carry on. (Laughter) So 2014 will be a milestone and hopefully a magic year in many respects. It will mark the hundredth anniversary of the First World War back in 1914. It will note the 70thanniversary, drop the zero, seven– of the Breton Woods conference that actually gave birth to the IMF. And it will be the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, 25th, okay. It will also mark the seventh anniversary of the financial market jitters that quickly turned into the greatest global economic calamity since the Great Depression. The crisis still lingers. Yet, optimism is in the air. We’ve left the deep freeze behind us and the horizon looks just a bit brighter. So my hope and my wish for 2014 is that after those seven miserable years, weak and fragile, we have seven strong years. I don’t know whether the G7 will have anything to do with it, or whether it will be the G20. I certainly hope that the IMF will have something to do with it.”
Can anyone recall the last time a global elitist of the stature of Lagarde made such bombastic reference to numerological notions during a speech, whether “jokingly” or not? That someone like her would even speak in such terms is decidedly odd—conceivably even unprecedented—irrespective of the particulars.
Aside from the very audacity of even mentioning numerology, the key 1/15/2014 language may very well be the G7/G20 wording; Lagarde states the alternative pretty starkly in terms of either/or but not both—and the G20 does not include Russia.
Dr. Jason Kissner is Associate Professor of Criminology at California State University. Dr. Kissner’s research on gangs and self-control has appeared in academic journals. His current empirical research interests include active shootings. You can reach him atcrimprof2010@hotmail.com.
stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Jul 24, 2014 2:41 pm wrote:Ukraine
July 20, 2014
The Russian Public Has a Totally Different Understanding of What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
And it's more of a problem than you think.
Did you know Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was full of corpses when it took off from Amsterdam? Did you know that, for some darkly inexplicable reason, on July 17, MH17 moved off the standard flight path that it had taken every time before, and moved north, toward rebel-held areas outside Donetsk? Or that the dispatchers summoned the plane lower just before the crash? Or that the plane had been recently reinsured? Or that the Ukrainian army has air defense systems in the area? Or that it was the result of the Ukrainian military mistaking MH17 for Putin’s presidential plane, which looks strangely similar?
Did you know that the crash of MH17 was all part of an American conspiracy to [url]provoke[/url] a big war with Russia?
Well, it’s all true—at least if you live in Russia, because this is the Malaysia Airlines crash story that you’d be seeing.
As the crisis surrounding the plane crash deepens and as calls for Vladimir Putin to act grow louder, it’s worth noting that they’re not really getting through to Putin’s subjects. The picture of the catastrophe that the Russian people are seeing on their television screens is very different from that on screens in much of the rest of the world, and the discrepancy does not bode well for a sane resolution to this stand-off.
Western media has been vacillating for days between calling Putin a murderer and peppering their coverage with allegedlys, telling the heart-rending tales of the victims, scrounging for anonymous leaks to link the Russians to the downed jet, and punditizing about exit ramps.
But in Russia, television—most of it owned or controlled by the Kremlin—is trying to muddy the water with various experts who insist that there is no way that an SA-11 missile system could possibly have downed a plane flying that high. And, mind you, this is not part of a larger debate of could they, or couldn’t they; this is all of Russian television and state-friendly papers pushing one line: The pro-Russian separatists we’ve been supporting all these months couldn’t have done this. Watching some of these Russian newscasts, one comes away with the impression of a desperate defense attorney scrounging for experts and angles, or a bad kid caught red-handed by the principal, trying to twist his way out of a situation in which he has no chance.
And that’s when they’re not simply peddling conspiracy theories, which have become a kind of symbiotic feedback loop between state TV and the most inventive corners of the Internet. The best of the bunch is, of course, an elaborate one: MH17 is actually MH370, that Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared into the Indian Ocean. According to this theory, the plane didn’t disappear at all, “it was taken to an American military base, Diego-Garcia.”
Then it was taken to Holland. On the necessary day and hour, it flew out, bound for Malaysia, but inside were not live people, but corpses. The plane was flown not by real pilots; it was on autopilot. Or take-off (a complicated procedure) was executed by live pilots, who then ejected on parachutes. Then the plane flew automatically. In the necessary spot, it was blown up, without even using a surface-to-air missile. Instead the plane was packed with a bomb, just like the CIA did on 9/11.
The theory also notes that the passports of victims at the crash site all look brand new even though there was an explosion and a fire. “That is, the passports were tossed in [after the crash].” And, most damningly, all the victims’ Facebook pages were created in one day and the media is not showing any of the victims’ families, just the crash site. Though this is not true of Western media, Russian television has not featured any of this. “There’s very little talk about the human cost of this catastrophe,” says independent television analyst Arina Borodina, formerly of the prominent Russian daily Kommersant. “Instead we’re seeing these unbelievable versions. For example, that someone had actually been hunting for the president or that some of the locals saw parachutists coming down from a height of 30,000 feet.”
But though it may look unconvincing to us in the West, that is because we have seen and read other things that contradict it. The Russian media space has become so uniform and independent voices so cowed and marginalized that there is no counterweight and, when there’s no counterweight, if you repeat a thing often enough, it becomes the truth.
This isn’t an innocent you-say-tomato moment; this is a very problematic development. The result of all this Russian coverage is that Russians’ understanding of what happened is as follows. At best, the crash is an unfortunate accident on the part of the Ukrainian military that the West is trying to pin on Russia, which had nothing to do with it; at worst, it is all part of a nefarious conspiracy to drag Russia into an apocalyptic war with the West. So whereas the West sees the crash as a game-changer, the Russians do not see why a black swan event has to change anything or they want to resist what they see is a provocation. To them, after a few days of watching Russian television, it’s not at all clear what happened nor that their government is somehow responsible for this tragedy. And the more we insist on it, the less likely the Russians are to agree.
Floriana Fossato, a longtime scholar of Russian media, says that this, coupled with the media’s conscious use of the Soviet language of crisis—“traitors,” “fascists,” “fifth columns”—quickly brings to the surface the psychological demons of a society massively traumatized by the twentieth century, traumas that society has never adequately addressed. The result, she says, is a kind of collective PTSD-meets-Stockholm Syndrome.
In Russians' view, “Americans have recreated the situation where they have excuse for intervention,” Fossato says. “No one admits that they are afraid, but they are. They are panicked. And they are right in being afraid because they know what happened, and they know there must be an answer to what is going on. And so they lock onto Putin for protection. This is why they don’t turn to Putin and ask him to do something.”
But in addition to the Russian public not clamoring for decisive action from Putin, there is a far more serious problem. As The New Yorker's David Remnick noted in his column on the crash of MH17, Putin has become prisoner to his own propaganda machine, much as he’s become prisoner of the rebels he thought were doing his geopolitical dirty work in Ukraine.
After Putin’s ascent, media became the flexible element that could be readjusted for any twist or turn of the political rudder. “Today, it’s the opposite,” says Gleb Pavlovsky, a political consultant who helped Putin win his first election and was a Kremlin advisor for years afterwards. “It’s almost impossible to turn the rudder of the picture that’s formed on television because it would mean losing the audience they formed in this year” of sword-brandishing and imperialistic conquest.
This audience is now fired up and brandishing its own swords, and the propaganda apparatus, much like the rebels in eastern Ukraine, has rolled on and on, fed by inertia and paranoia, reproducing and magnifying itself with each newscast. The sensationalized newscasts are now neck-and-neck, ratings-wise, with the sitcoms. “It keeps people in a traumatized state,” Pavlovsky says. “It’s notable in media metrics, and in conversations with people. They lose their sanity, they become paranoid and aggressive.”
This has had a noticeable impact on the ruling class, Pavlovsky says, which has to watch this stuff in order to stay au courant. And they become less sane as a result, too, which limits their ability to adequately assess a situation such as this and devise a good way out of it.
“It’s noticeable that the Kremlin is much more tempered than Russian TV but can’t change it,” Pavlovsky says. “It’s fallen into a trap, so it's now trying to function within the strictures of this picture.” He cites the example of the PR contortions the Kremlin had to use just to announce that it would not send troops into eastern Ukraine. “In this seemingly controlled media, any rational political arguments of the state have to be hidden and packaged in idiotic, jingoistic rhetoric,” Pavlovsky says.
None of this looks very good for the West, which is clearly hoping that MH17 is the thing that will bring Putin to his senses and get him to agree to some kind of off-ramp, or, at least, a deescalation. But that’s hard to do if neither your public nor your political class see it as a game-changer or as anything that should force Russia to end this game.
“Of course it gets in Putin’s way. He has to be the hero of this TV material, he’s not free from it anymore,” says Pavlovsky. “I have a feeling he's not very comfortable right now.”
Golly, New Republic, got binary logic? Maybe the real answer lies somewhere between Putin paternalism and the "Western media" salivating over a New Franz Ferdinand Moment. But I had to link this on this thread just for the MH17-MH370 connection.
by PufPuf93 » Thu Nov 10, 2016 10:58 am
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 187 guests
