1776 Will Commence Again' If Guns Taken Away

I watched this exchange with Piers Morgan and Alex Jones.  This clip has to go viral, which is why I posted it here.  Jones is at his best and the passion he displays on Morgan’s show is in-your-face, genuine!  Jones sets Morgan straight and because he is media savvy, and doesn’t fall for the out-of context, “factoid” Morgan tries to trip him up with.  Jones excoriates Morgan when he declares, if the government tries to take our guns it will be 1776 all over again.  

Added to this is the media black-out regarding the mind-blowing prescription drugs that many of these “shooters” were on at the time of their heinous crimes. (check the list below)  I covered this weeks ago and now certain sections of the media are beginning to get on board as they are reporting the link between mind-altering drugs and the shooters who commit these crimes.

What stands in the way of toppling the United States is the 2nd amendment.  This amendment to the constitution was implemented in the event the government became tyrannical, the citizenry would have the ability to defend itself.  Hitler rounded up the guns as well the Communist.  Over 70 million Russians lost their lives in the Gulags.  Over 80 million Chinese have been killed by their government and Hitler rounded up millions of his own people too!

There is a greater issue here and I believe it is this.  In order to establish the one world government prophecy tells us will form under the Anti Christ, America has to be removed.  I wrote about his in Politics, Prophecy & the Supernatural.   This will be accomplished by removing the 2nd amendment and the government rounding up the guns, and then collapsing the dollar, which will plunge the nation into chaos, something I believe is desired for the control of the populace.

Our guns are the reason why we are free.  Never forget this.   There are some issues that are worth dying for and the 2nd amendment is one as the alternative is to be rounded up and carted away in trucks, like the Jews were during WWII.

In closing todays post: We have the right to bear arms.  We have the right to defend ourselves.  Guns do not kill people, nor do knives, golf clubs, candle sticks, forks, automobiles, pool cues and almost an infinite variety of implements!  Take away the guns and the criminals will have a field day and the government can do what it pleases.  The media have chosen to ignore the link between violent behavior and  mind altering drugs.  The reason for this is simple, their left-wing ideology prohibits them from reporting the truth as their goal is to disarm the American people.

Our country was founded on self-reliance.  I live in a remote area, where if I call 911, it would take at least a half an hour to get someone here.  My wife and I took a gun training class and we are armed. I’m not relying on our government to save me should someone bust into my house at 2 in the morning.  As Alex Jones remarked to Morgan, you’re a hatchet man for the new world order!  Wake up people, Senator Feinstein of California is sending a bill on gun control to Congress.   In my opinion this is an orchestrated attempt to abolish the 2nd amendment.   Now is the time to stand up and be counted and let our government know, with the utmost certainty, that we will not, under any circumstances, relinquish our 2nd amendment rights!  Period!  Give me liberty our give me death!  Patrick Henry

Want to stop the violence? Here is the answer: (reposted from December 16)

Thanks to Watcher Tom for this list!

Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Colombine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.

Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.

Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.

Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.

Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.

Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.

Jarred Viktor, age 15, stabbed his grandmother 61 times after 5 days on Paxil.

Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.

Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.

A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school.

Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..

A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.

Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others.

TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.

Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.

James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers.

Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania

Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California

Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.

Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.

Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic’s file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.

Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.

Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.

Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled.

Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.

Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family’s Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002.

Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara’s parents said “…. the damn doctor wouldn’t take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil…”)

Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002,

(Gareth’s father could not accept his son’s death and killed himself.)

Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family’s detached garage.

Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.

Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.

Woody ____, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms.

A boy from Houston, age 10, shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was increased.

Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and “other drugs for the conditions.”

Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.

Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.

Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.

Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.

Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his New York high school.

L.A. Marzulli

Obama's Complete Victory 2012,Revelation,Chuck Missler

Big Brother Mouse

Student Suspended for Refusing to Wear RFID Tracker Loses Lawsuit

A Texas high school student who claimed her student identification was the “Mark of the Beast” because it was implanted with a radio-frequency identification chip has lost her federal court bid Tuesday challenging her suspension for refusing to wear the card around her neck.

Radio-frequency identification devices are a daily part of the electronic age — found in passports, and library and payment cards. Eventually they’re expected to replace bar-code labels on consumer goods. Now schools across the nation are slowly adopting them as well.

Northside Independent School District in San Antonio began issuing the RFID-chip-laden student-body cards when the semester began in the fall. The ID badge has a bar code associated with a student’s Social Security number, and the RFID chip monitors pupils’ movements on campus, from when they arrive until when they leave.

Sophomore Andrea Hernandez was notified in November by the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio that she won’t be able to continue attending John Jay High School unless she wears the badge around her neck. The district said the girl, who objects largely on religious grounds, would have to attend another high school that does not employ the RFID tags.

She sued, a judge tentatively halted the suspension, but changed course Tuesday after concluding that the 15-year-old’s right of religion was not breached. That’s because the district eventually agreed to accommodate the girl and allow her to remove the RFID chip while still demanding that she wear the identification like the other students.

The Hernandez family claims the badge and its chip signifies Satan, or the “Mark of the Beast” warning in Revelations 13:16-18. The girl refused the district’s offer, sued, and was represented by the Rutherford Institute.

“The accommodation offered by the district is not only reasonable it removes plaintiff’s religious objection from legal scrutiny all together,” (.pdf) U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia wrote.

The girl’s father, Steven, wrote the school district explaining why removing the chip wasn’t good enough, that the daughter should be free from displaying the card altogether. “‘We must obey the word of God,” the father said, according to court documents. “By asking my daughter and our family to participate and fall in line like the rest of them is asking us to disobey our Lord and Savior.”

The institute, which said it would appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, blasted the decision.

“By declaring Andrea Hernandez’s objections to be a secular choice and not grounded in her religious beliefs, the district court is placing itself as an arbiter of what is and is not religious. This is simply not permissible under our constitutional scheme, and we plan to appeal this immediately,” the institute said in statement.

The district, however, hailed the decision.

“Today’s court ruling affirms NISD’s position that we did make reasonable accommodation to the student by offering to remove the RFID chip from the student’s smart ID badge,” the district said in a statement.

The motive behind the RFID tagging appears largely financial.

Like most state-financed schools, the district’s budget is tied to average daily attendance. If a student is not in his seat during morning roll call, the district doesn’t receive daily funding for that pupil because the school has no way of knowing for sure if the student is there.

But with the RFID tracking, students not at their desks but tracked on campus are counted as being in school that day, and the district receives its daily allotment for that student.

Tagging school children with RFID chips is uncommon, but not new. A federally funded preschool in Richmond, California, began embedding RFID chips in students’ clothing in 2010. And an elementary school outside of Sacramento, California, scrubbed a plan in 2005 amid a parental uproar. And a Houston, Texas, school district began using the chips to monitor students on 13 campuses in 2004 for the same reasons the Northside Independent School District implemented the program. Northside is mulling adopting the program for its other 110 schools.

Judge Garcia gave the girl until the end of the semester, January 18, to say whether she will wear the badge or transfer to another school.

Wired

20 Facts About The Collapse Of Europe That Everyone Should Know

The economic implosion of Europe is accelerating.  Even while the mainstream media continues to proclaim that the financial crisis in Europe has been “averted”, the economic statistics that are coming out of Europe just continue to get worse.  Manufacturing activity in Europe has been contracting month after month, the unemployment rate in the eurozone has hit yet another brand new record high, and the official unemployment rates in both Greece and Spain are now much higher than the peak unemployment rate in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  The economic situation in Europe is far worse than it was a year ago, and it is going to continue to get worse as austerity continues to take a huge toll on the economies of the eurozone.  It would be hard to understate how bad things have gotten – particularly in southern Europe.  The truth is that most of southern Europe is experiencing a full-blown economic depression right now.  Sadly, most Americans are paying very little attention to what is going on across the Atlantic.  But they should be watching, because this is what happens when nations accumulate too much debt.  The United States has the biggest debt burden of all, and eventually what is happening over in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Greece is going to happen over here as well.

The following are 20 facts about the collapse of Europe that everyone should know…

#1 10 Months: Manufacturing activity in both France and Germany has contracted for 10 months in a row.

#2 11.8 Percent: The unemployment rate in the eurozone has now risen to 11.8 percent – a brand new all-time high.

#3 17 Months: In November, Italy experienced the sharpest decline in retail sales that it had experienced in 17 months.

#4 20 Months: Manufacturing activity in Spain has contracted for 20 months in a row.

#5 20 Percent: It is estimated that bad loans now make up approximately 20 percent of all domestic loans in the Greek banking system at this point.

#6 22 Percent: A whopping 22 percent of the entire population of Ireland lives in jobless households.

#7 26 Percent: The unemployment rate in Greece is now 26 percent.  A year ago it was only 18.9 percent.

#8 26.6 Percent: The unemployment rate in Spain has risen to an astounding 26.6 percent.

#9 27.0 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Cyprus.  Back in 2008, this number was well below 10 percent.

#10 28 Percent: Sales of French-made vehicles in November were down 28 percent compared to a year earlier.

#11 36 Percent: Today, the poverty rate in Greece is 36 percent.  Back in 2009 it was only about 20 percent.

#12 37.1 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Italy – a brand new all-time high.

#13 44 Percent: An astounding 44 percent of the entire population of Bulgaria is facing “severe material deprivation”.

#14 56.5 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Spain – a brand new all-time high.

#15 57.6 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Greece – a brand new all-time high.

#16 60 Percent: Citigroup is projecting that there is a 60 percent probability that Greece will leave the eurozone within the next 12 to 18 months.

#17 70 Percent: It has been reported that some homes in Spain are being sold at a 70% discount from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble back in 2006.  At this point there areapproximately 2 million unsold homes in Spain.

#18 200 Percent: The debt to GDP ratio in Greece is rapidly approaching 200 percent.

#19 1997: According to the Committee of French Automobile Producers, 2012 was the worst year for the French automobile industry since 1997.

#20 2 Million: Back in 2005, the French auto industry produced about 3.5 million vehicles.  In 2012, that number dropped to about 2 million vehicles.

One thing that these shocking numbers cannot convey is the tremendous amount of pain that many average Europeans are living through on a daily basis at this point.  To get a peek into what life is like in Greece these days, check out this short excerpt from a recent Bloomberg article…

Anastasia Karagaitanaki, 57, is a former model and cafe owner in Thessaloniki, Greece. After losing her business to the financial crisis, she now sleeps on a daybed next to the refrigerator in her mother’s kitchen and depends on charity for food and insulin for her diabetes.

“I feel like my life has slipped through my hands,” said Karagaitanaki, whose brother also shares the one-bedroom apartment. “I feel like I’m dead.”

For thousands of Greeks like Karagaitanaki, the fabric of middle-class life is unraveling. Teachers, salaries slashed by a third, are stealing electricity. Families in once-stable neighborhoods are afraid to leave their homes because of rising street crime.

All over Europe, people that have lost all hope are actually setting themselves on fire in a desperate attempt to draw attention.  Millions of formerly middle class Europeans have lost everything and are becoming increasingly desperate.  Suicide and crime are skyrocketing all over southern Europe and massive street riots are erupting on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.  Things are going to get even worse for Europe.

Meanwhile, those of us living in the United States smugly look down our noses at Europe because we are still living in a false bubble of debt-fueled prosperity.

But eventually we will feel the sting of austerity as well.  The recentfiscal cliff deal was an indication of that.  Taxes are going up and government spending is at least going to slow down.  It won’t be too long before the effects of that are felt in the economy.

And of course the reality of the situation is that the U.S. economy really did not perform very well at all during 2012 when you take a look at the numbers.  The cold, hard truth is that the U.S. economy has been declining for a very long time, and there are a whole bunch of reasons to expect that our decline will accelerate even further in 2013.

So if you are an American, don’t laugh at what is happening over in Europe at the moment.  We are headed down the exact same path that they have gone, and we are going to experience the same kind of suffering that they are going through right now.

Use these last few “bubble months” to prepare for what is ahead.  At some point this “hope bubble” will disappear and then the time for preparation will be over.

Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-economic-implosion-of-europe-is-accelerating-20-facts-about-the-collapse-of-europe-that-everyone-should-know/#41l3pTOZiCA2F8fp.99 

India Tests supersonic cruise Missile

NEW DELHI, January 9 (RIA Novosti) – The Indian Navy successfully tested on Wednesday a highly-maneuverable version of a sea-based Brahmos supersonic cruise missile, an Indian defense source told RIA Novosti.

The missile was fired from an unspecified warship off the coast of Vishakhapatnam in Bay of Bengal in a 34th test by the Indian military.

The source said the missile made a “double-maneuver in S-form” and hit the designated target ship just one meter above the waterline, “ripping through the ship’s hull.”

India has recently updated BrahMos missiles by installing the advanced satellite navigation systems from Russia's Kh-555 and Kh-101 strategic long-range cruise missiles, adding GPS-GLONASS technology to the existing doppler-inertial platform.

“After acquiring the target, the missile flies toward it with high precision, constantly receiving updated coordinates from a satellite navigation system,” the source said.

The BrahMos missile has a range of 290 km (180 miles) and can carry a conventional warhead of up to 300 kg (660 lbs). It can effectively engage targets from an altitude as low as 10 meters (30 feet) and has a top speed of Mach 2.8, which is about three times faster than the U.S.-made subsonic Tomahawk cruise missile.

Brahmos is based on the Russian-designed 3M55 Yakhont (SS-N-26) missile.

Sea- and ground-launched versions of the missile have been put into service with the Indian Army and Navy.

The flight tests of the airborne version were expected to be completed by the end of 2012.

The Indian Air Force is planning to arm 40 Su-30MKI Flanker-H fighters with BrahMos missiles.

Russia and India recently agreed to develop hypersonic BrahMos 2 missile capable of flying at speeds of Mach 5-Mach 7.

RIA Novosti

Mobile Phones With Fingerprint ID Coming This Year

Fingerprint Cards, a Swedish biometric-security company, said a Japanese electronics maker plans to introduce mobile phones with fingerprint sensors in the third quarter of this year. The technology, which identifies a person’s unique fingerprint when placed on a reader, can be used to prevent unauthorized access to a device.

Japanese phone makers placed a total of three orders for Fingerprint’s components in the fourth quarter of last year. One of those purchases was for at least a million phones, my colleague Niklas Magnusson reported. The demand from Japan has prompted Fingerprint Cards to open a sales and support office in Tokyo. The news sent the company’s stock soaring to its highest level in more than five years.

For Japan’s electronics makers, the big bet on biometrics could be an attempt to differentiate their phones from the myriad other black rectangles on the market. Those companies could use some help. Kyocera, Panasonic, Sharp and Sony are among the nation’s largest phone makers, yet none of them has captured enough global market share to rank among the top five mobile or smartphone manufacturers, according to research firm IDC. Fingerprint Cards declined to name its customers in a press release last month.

But the Japanese companies may have some competition from the world’s second-largest smartphone maker. In August, Apple agreed to pay about $350 million for AuthenTec, which has its own fingerprint authentication and encryption technology. The Cupertino, California-based company has also filed patents of its own for biometric technology. Silicon Valley-based SecuGen and Validity Sensors are showing off their fingerprint tools this week at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

As we cram ever more sensitive information into our smartphones, stronger security should be a welcome addition. But let’s make sure that, like with the passcode lock on today’s smartphones, there is some way to get around these biometric walls in case of emergencies, or when I accidentally mangle my thumb in the car door.

Bloomberg

Governments urged to prepare for the worst

Governments should learn from companies and appoint dedicated "risk ministers", according to the authors of a World Economic Forum (WEF) report.

The "ministers" should assess a broad range of economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological risks, the Global Risks 2013 report's authors reason.

Companies have long had their own "finance ministers", though they call them chief financial officers, and in recent years it has become common to also have risk management functions in companies, according to Axel Lehmann, himself a chief risk officer at Zurich Insurance and a co-author of the report.

It would be useful, adds Lee Howell, managing director of the WEF's Risk Response Network and editor of the report, if governments were to create similar functions, with a view to "take an interdisciplinary and holistic approach to risk".

"How often do you see a central bank governor talk to a defence minister?" he says. "It doesn't really happen."

Multiple risks

Our responsibility as leaders and as communicators in society is to leverage this awareness into action”

The risks faced by nations - indeed by the world - have always been both complex and interconnected.

But recently, "the changes are in the amplification and the speed of these interconnections", according to David Cole, chief risk officer at the reinsurers Swiss Re and co-author of the report.

The complexity arises partly from the extensive variety of risks. The WEF report identifies the major risks of concern globally:

1.Health and hubris, the basic idea of which is that the world is complacent about threats to global health, ranging from rising resistance to antibiotics, to the way pandemics could easily spread in a hyperconnected world. In a world where genetic mutation often outpaces human innovation, it is foolhardy to be complacent, the report's authors suggest.

2.Economy and environment under stress, which focuses on how the economic and the environmental storms are colliding, essentially relating to how - during a period of widespread austerity - it is difficult to mobilise finance and other resources to mitigate risks arising from climate change, such as extreme weather events. The cost of storm and flood damages are huge and growing, and governments are finding it increasingly hard to pay. Other risks relate to socioeconomic or geopolitical fallouts from greater gaps between rich and poor, or from persistent global economic fragility. Violent anti-austerity protests in Athens might be little more than mild examples of such risks.

3.Digital wildfires are risks relating to how "the democratisation of information can... have volatile and unpredicted consequences, as reflected in the riots provoked by an anti-Islam film on YouTube", the report notes. Confidence in governments and companies, newspapers and markets, can be eroded by fast-spreading information or propaganda.

But these are just three of the 50 risks described by the report, ranging from security risks such as terrorism or the militarisation of space, to more existential risks such as shortages of food and water.
 

Governments should pay more attention to the risks that might lie ahead and prepare accordingly

"Some of the risks we see are not acute, but that doesn't mean they're not important - in fact, many of them are chronic," says Mr Cole.

The fact that there are not just so many risks, but also that they are in constant flux - responding to each others by morphing into new risks that in turn change other risks - means responses need to be fluid and flexible too.

Or more to the point, nations should not merely respond to crisis once it has happened, but instead work out how to "build resilience to global or external risks", by dealing with it the way they do with "preventable" risks such as breakdowns in processes, or "strategic risks" that are weighed up against potential rewards, Mr Howell says.

Nations' ability to respond and recover, he reasons, will rely on their ability to set aside excess capacity and back-up systems that kick in during times of crisis. It will rely on their resourcefulness and their robustness. Risks must be assessed in advance, both in terms of how likely it is that events will happen, as well as by looking at the likely impact of such events.

'Profound implications'

The report also describes so-called X Factors, or "unintended consequences of technology or science", according to the chief editor of Nature Magazine, Tim Appenzeller, who lists five such risks:

Runaway climate change, or the uncertainty about the consequences if we have passed the point of no return. "What if we have already triggered a runaway chain reaction that is in the process of rapidly tipping Earth's atmosphere into an inhospitable state?" the report queries.

Significant cognitive enhancements, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation that help boost memory - offering a number of obvious benefits, while at the same time posing risks ranging from unknown side-effects to ethical considerations around the impacts of the pills akin to those associated with doping in sports.

Rogue deployment of geoengineering, such as the creation of sun shades by injecting small particles high into the atmosphere to block some of the incoming solar energy and thus reduce global warming, a process that could inadvertently cause droughts. "The global climate could, in effect, be hijacked by a rogue country or even a wealthy individual, with unpredictable costs to agriculture, infrastructure and global stability," the report notes.

Costs of living longer, which in a sense could be seen as an unintended consequence of developments in medical science, in that "big inroads against common banes such as heart disease, cancer and stroke, may be in the offing". "Are we setting up a future society struggling to come with a mass of arthritic, demented and, above all, expensive elderly who are in need of long-term care and palliative solutions?" the report asks.

Discovery of alien life is the final X Factor risk, with the report suggesting that "it is increasingly conceivable that we may discover the existence of alien life or other planets that could support human life". It talks of "profound implications" of such a discovery and insists it "would fuel speculation about the existence of other intelligent beings and challenge many assumptions which underpin human philosophy and religion".

Action is necessary

Identifying risks might well be the easy part, however. Working out what to do about it, and then doing it, might turn out to be much trickier, but there is no way around it, according to Mr Cole.

"Our responsibility as leaders and as communicators in society is to leverage this awareness into action," he says.

"We cannot keep kicking the can down the road".




BBC

The US Has Gone Over The 'Demographic Cliff' And Markets Will Crash This Summer

Harry Dent is not one to shy away from predictions. Just take a quick look at some of the man's bibliography: he wrote The Great Boom Ahead in 1993 and followed it up with The Great Jobs Ahead in 1995. In 2009, he authored The Great Depression Ahead, and in 2011, The Great Crash Ahead.

Now, Dent, the economic forecaster perhaps best known for the use of demographics in his analysis, is predicting a big market crash this summer.

Dent told CNBC this afternoon:

We think markets are going to go up for a while. I think Maria [Bartiromo] is right – the market wants to go up.

We'll see one more correction into this second fiscal cliff. I think we'll see another rally into March, April, May, or something. By the summer, we get another crash.

I think it's going to be a choppy rally – up, down, up, down, with an upward bias. It's the second half that we think a crash starts – that, just like the last crash, lasts about a year and a half or so, goes into late 2014, early 2015.

We get a slight new high in the Dow this year, and then we get a slight new low in the next crash. That's been the pattern. Higher highs in each bubble, slightly lower lows in each crash.

Again, this should not be something that people go, "Oh my gosh, how could this happen?" It's been happening since 1995. Bubble, crash, bubble, crash, bubble, crash.

Here is what Dent told CNBC regarding why he expects this crash in the second half of 2013:

How many crashes have we seen in the last ten years or so? 2000, 2002 – bubble, crash. 2007 – bubble, crash. We're getting a bubble and crash every four or five years.

This is what we have when you go over a demographic cliff. Remember Japan – Japan went over the demographic cliff. Peak in baby boom spending, peak real estate boom.

They had a bust. Guess what? 22 years later, real estate is still down over 60 percent, still drifting down. Stocks are down nearly 80 percent, not that far off their lows. They keep bubbling up and then going down to new lows.

This is the new normal, given that baby boomers are aging and the next generation is not only not in the workforce yet, largely, but they're not as large when they do [enter]. So, we're never going to see real estate prices at these levels again, and we're not going to see stocks at the level we saw in 2007 for a long time.

So, to me, this is not unusual at all.

Dent told CNBC regarding the United States, "We call this the economy in a coma."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/harry-dent-predicts-market-crash-in-q3-2013-1#ixzz2HUD7a0Ii

China and Japan step up drone race as tension builds over disputed islands

Drones have taken centre stage in an escalating arms race between China and Japan as they struggle to assert their dominance over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

China is rapidly expanding its nascent drone programme, while Japan has begun preparations to purchase an advanced model from the US. Both sides claim the drones will be used for surveillance, but experts warn the possibility of future drone skirmishes in the region's airspace is "very high".

Tensions over the islands – called the Diaoyu by China and the Senkaku by Japan – have ratcheted up in past weeks. Chinese surveillance planes flew near the islands four times in the second half of December, according to Chinese state media, but were chased away each time by Japanese F-15 fighter jets. Neither side has shown any signs of backing down.

Japan's new conservative administration of Shinzo Abe has placed a priority on countering the perceived Chinese threat to the Senkakus since it won a landslide victory in last month's general election. Soon after becoming prime minister, Abe ordered a review of Japan's 2011-16 mid-term defence programme, apparently to speed up the acquisition of between one and three US drones.

Under Abe, a nationalist who wants a bigger international role for the armed forces, Japan is expected to increase defence spending for the first time in 11 years in 2013. The extra cash will be used to increase the number of military personnel and upgrade equipment. The country's deputy foreign minister, Akitaka Saiki, summoned the Chinese ambassador to Japan on Tuesday to discuss recent "incursions" of Chinese ships into the disputed territory.

China appears unbowed. "Japan has continued to ignore our warnings that their vessels and aircraft have infringed our sovereignty," top-level marine surveillance official Sun Shuxian said in an interview posted to the State Oceanic Administration's website, according to Reuters. "This behaviour may result in the further escalation of the situation at sea and has prompted China to pay great attention and vigilance."

China announced late last month that the People's Liberation Army was preparing to test-fly a domestically developed drone, which analysts say is likely a clone of the US's carrier-based X-47B. "Key attack technologies will be tested," reported the state-owned China Daily, without disclosing further details.

Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Canadian-based Kanwa Defence Review, said China might be attempting to develop drones that can perform reconnaissance missions as far away as Guam, where the US is building a military presence as part of its "Asia Pivot" strategy.

China unveiled eight new models in November at an annual air show on the southern coastal city Zhuhai, photographs of which appeared prominently in the state-owned press. Yet the images may better indicate China's ambitions than its abilities, according to Chang: "We've seen these planes on the ground only — if they work or not, that's difficult to explain."

Japanese media reports said the defence ministry hopes to introduce Global Hawk unmanned aircraft near the disputed islands by 2015 at the earliest in an attempt to counter Beijing's increasingly assertive naval activity in the area.

Chinese surveillance vessels have made repeated intrusions into Japanese waters since the government in Tokyo in effect nationalised the Senkakus in the summer, sparking riots in Chinese cities and damaging trade ties between Asia's two biggest economies.

The need for Japan to improve its surveillance capability was underlined late last year when Japanese radar failed to pick up a low-flying Chinese aircraft as it flew over the islands.

The Kyodo news agency quoted an unnamed defence ministry official as saying the drones would be used "to counter China's growing assertiveness at sea, especially when it comes to the Senkaku islands".

China's defence budget has exploded over the past decade, from about £12.4bn in 2002 to almost £75bn in 2011, and its military spending could surpass the US's by 2035. The country's first aircraft carrier, a refurbished Soviet model called the Liaoning, completed its first sea trials in August.

A 2012 report by the Pentagon acknowledged long-standing rumours that China was developing a new generation of stealth drones, called Anjian, or Dark Sword, whose capabilities could surpass those of the US's fleet.

China's state media reported in October that the country would build 11 drone bases along the coastline by 2015. "Over disputed islands, such as the Diaoyu Islands, we do not lag behind in terms of the number of patrol vessels or the frequency of patrolling," said Senior Colonel Du Wenlong, according to China Radio International. "The problem lies in our surveillance capabilities."

China's military is notoriously opaque, and analysts' understanding of its drone programme is limited. "They certainly get a lot of mileage out of the fact that nobody knows what the hell they're up to, and they'd take great care to protect that image," said Ron Huisken, an expert on east Asian security at Australian National University.

He said the likelihood of a skirmish between Chinese and Japanese drones in coming years was "very high".

US drones have also attracted the interest of the South Korean government as it seeks to beef up its ability to monitor North Korea, after last month's successful launch of a rocket that many believe was a cover for a ballistic-missile test.

The US's Global Hawk is piloted remotely by a crew of three and can fly continuously for up to 30 hours at a maximum height of about 60,000 ft. It has no attack capability.

The US deployed the advanced reconnaissance drone to monitor damage to the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami on Japan's north-east coast.

The Guardian