3799-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

Despite ongoing national scrutiny of police tactics, the number of fatal shootings by officers in 2016 remained virtually unchanged from last year when nearly 1,000 people were killed by police.

Through Thursday, law enforcement officers fatally shot 957 people in 2016 — close to three each day — down slightly from 2015 when 991 people were shot to death by officers, according to an ongoing project by The Washington Post to track the number of fatal shootings by police.

The Post, for two years in a row, has documented more than twice the number of fatal shootings recorded by the FBI annually on average.

As was the case in 2015, a disproportionate number of those killed this year were black, and about a quarter involved someone who had a mental illness. In a notable shift from 2015, more of the fatal shootings this year were captured on video.

Dozens of departments have vowed reforms since the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014 launched a national debate over police use of force. Many agencies have equipped officers with body-worn cameras, with prominent police chiefs vowing to further curb fatal encounters. But experts say an impact on fatal shootings may take years.

“Making these kinds of changes is very difficult on such a widespread scale,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank pushing for national police reform. “But quite frankly, we’re still on the front-end of the training that we’re pushing out. It may be at least six months to a year until we start to really see those numbers come down.”

The Post began tracking fatal shootings by officers after the deaths of Brown and others during police encounters. The federal government does not comprehensively record how many people are killed by police annually and depends on voluntary reporting from police departments. The Post’s database — which will continue in 2017 — largely relies on local news coverage, public records and social-media reports.

[Fatal force: The 2016 database of those shot and killed by police]

In the second year of tracking, The Post found:

●White males continued to be those most often killed, accounting for 46 percent of this year’s deaths — about the same as in 2015. But when adjusted by population, black males were three times as likely to die as their white counterparts.

●The percentage of fatal shootings of unarmed people declined in 2016, from 9 percent in 2015 to 5 percent. Black males, however, continued to represent a disproportionate share of those: 34 percent of the unarmed people killed this year were black males, although they are 6 percent of the population.

●Of all those who were shot and killed, 84 percent were armed, most with a gun or knife. Four percent wielded imitation firearms. In 7 percent of the fatalities, it was unclear whether the person was armed.

●Mental illness remained a factor in many of the fatal shootings. As was the case last year, about 1 in 4 people fatally shot by police in 2016 were grappling with a mental health issue, according to The Post’s analysis.

The consistency from 2015 to 2016 is telling, experts said.

“It shows that one year wasn’t an anomaly,” said Geoff Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina. “It’s a very robust number that is something we can trust in the future and a good measure to see when things do change.”

This year, The Post gathered additional information about officers involved in fatal shootings from media reports or news releases and filed more than 1,000 public-records requests from each police department involved in a fatal shooting. One-fourth of the departments queried by The Post have not responded to the requests.

Many gave only partial information. Of those who responded, only a third of the departments provided the race of the officers involved in fatal shootings. The racial breakdown roughly matched the composition of local and state police departments nationwide, according to federal data.

For the 811 officers about whom work information was disclosed or gathered, their average time on the job was nine years, and three-quarters of them were assigned to patrol. At least 60 officers who fatally shot someone this year had done so previously.

In 2016, deadly shootings by police erupted out of a broad range of circumstances. In a suspected terrorist attack, 18-year-old college student Abdul Razak Ali Artan, believed to have been radicalized online and inspired by the Islamic State, drove a car into a crowd of teachers and students at Ohio State University in November and then wounded several people with a knife. A campus police officer was on the scene within minutes and fatally shot Artan.

In January, an eviction in Penn Township, Pa., led to the death of 12-year-old Ciara Meyer, the youngest person killed by police gunfire this year. Police said her father, Donald Meyer, pointed a rifle at a constable who was serving him an eviction notice. When the officer fired at the father, the bullet passed through his arm and struck his daughter, according to a police affidavit.

“Meyer’s reckless conduct, knowing his daughter was standing behind him, triggered a chain of events that tragically led to the death of Ciara Meyer,” Perry County District Attorney Andrew Bender said in announcing criminal homicide and other charges against Meyer in his daughter’s death. Jerry Philpott, an attorney for Meyer, said his client has entered a not guilty plea. He declined further comment.

While there was national controversy in 2015 over killings of unarmed individuals by police, fatal shootings of several armed individuals this year led to similar outrage.

The cases included the shootings in the summer of three black men who each were in possession of a gun: Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Philando Castile in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte. At least a portion of each of those fatal encounters was captured on video.

In the shootings of Sterling and Scott, the videos raised questions about whether either man was raising or pointing his gun at officers. Federal investigators continue to probe the Sterling shooting, while local prosecutors have declined to charge Officer Brentley Vinson, who is black, in Scott’s death. “He acted lawfully. I am fully satisfied and entirely convinced that Mr. Vinson’s use of deadly force was lawful,” Mecklenburg County District Attorney Andrew Murray said in announcing his decision.

The Castile case drew notoriety after his girlfriend live-streamed the fatal shooting’s aftermath on Facebook. Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria employee, was legally carrying a gun when police approached him in a traffic stop, and he informed the officer of that during an exchange recorded by the patrol car’s dashboard camera. The officer, Jeronimo Yanez, said he opened fire because he believed that Castile was reaching for the gun. But prosecutors have said the shooting was not justified and charged Yanez with manslaughter.

Thomas Kelly, an attorney for Yanez, said that his client has not yet entered a plea and is awaiting trial. He declined further comment.

That case is part of an overall increase in prosecutions of officers in fatal shootings in the two years since Ferguson. A review by The Post and Bowling Green State University professor Phil Stinson of officer prosecutions from 2005 to 2014 found that about five officers were charged annually in fatal shootings. There were 18 in 2015 and 13 this year, Stinson said.

Experts attribute the increase to greater availability of video evidence and political pressure. Still, the prosecution of officers for the use of deadly force remains rare — charges are filed in about 1 percent of all fatal police-involved shootings.

Stinson noted that almost 60 percent of the shootings for which officers have been charged in the past two years have included video evidence vital to the prosecution.

[A disproportionate number of black victims in fatal traffic stops]

“In the past, the police have always owned the narrative in police shooting cases because a dead man can’t talk,” Stinson said. “Now, the videos are providing an alternative narrative to the police version of events.”

The year was also a particularly deadly one for police: 62 officers were fatally shot by civilians, up from 39 in 2015, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. In 2014, 48 officers were shot and killed; in 2013, the toll was 31.

In July, five officers were fatally shot in Dallas by a sniper angered over recent police-involved shootings.

“There seems to be a growing number of people in the United States who are willing to take aggressive action against police officers,” said Jim Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police. “If you couple that with the number of guns in criminal hands, you’ve got a recipe for disaster.”

When officers fail to record

One of the biggest shifts from 2015 to 2016 was the number of deadly police encounters recorded on video.

In 2015, 142 of the fatal shootings were recorded — by cellphone cameras, police dash cams, cameras worn by officers or other devices. That number rose this year to 231.

Nationwide, police departments began equipping their officers with body-worn cameras in 2009, but their use escalated after the Ferguson protests of 2014.

“The body-camera train was starting to move but then just absolutely took off after the summer of 2014,” said Michael D. White, an Arizona State University professor who has researched the police implementation of body cameras.

Up to half of the nation’s 18,000 police departments have officers who wear cameras, he said. While an increasing number of fatal shootings have been recorded, in some cases the cameras capture nothing.

In at least a dozen fatal shootings this year, cameras worn by the officers failed to record the fatal encounter, according to The Post’s survey of police departments.

In Baton Rouge, police said body cameras “fell off” the officers involved in the death of Alton Sterling as they responded to a call about a man with a gun outside of a convenience store. Bystander video captured the July 5 shooting, but police officials have said the body-cam video, which continued to record after the camera dismounted, did not capture images of the shooting.

“If these incidents are not properly recorded, they are gone forever, and then there will forever be questions that cannot be answered that could have been,” said Justin Bamberg, an attorney who is on the legal team that represents the families of Sterling and Keith Lamont Scott, who was fatally shot Sept. 20 by Charlotte police.

Chicago police released body-camera videos from the July 28 shooting of Paul O’Neal, an 18-year-old black man who allegedly fled police in a stolen Jaguar. The moment of the shooting was not captured by the body camera of the officer who fired the fatal shot because it was not activated, police said. The department is investigating the shooting.

Michael Oppenheimer, a Chicago attorney who is representing O’Neal’s family, questioned why the shooting wasn’t recorded. “And, what is the good of having a body camera if they’re not going to be turned on to capture what they’re supposed to capture?” he said.

Policing experts said that in the rush to equip officers with cameras, departments have failed to implement the proper training, and best practices and policies to ensure that the cameras work as intended.

In many cases, officers have little experience with body-worn cameras and forget to activate them, and departments lack clear policies about when they should be activated, said Kevin Angell, a former Florida police officer who consults police departments on developing body-camera polices.

In the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Dalvin Hollins in Tempe, Ariz., police said that the body camera being worn by one officer was not activated until several minutes after the shooting.

Police responded to a call about 9 a.m. July 27 that a young black man wearing sweatpants and carrying a book bag had robbed a Walgreens pharmacy. Security footage later released by police showed Hollins jumping the counter and demanding liquid narcotics while keeping one hand inside the bag. Police have said Hollins told the pharmacy workers that he had a gun.

[Fatal shootings by police are up in the first six months of 2016, Post analysis finds]

Hollins ran after being confronted by a Tempe police officer. A second officer joined the pursuit, first in his vehicle and then on foot, according to police.

Police said the second officer fired when he saw Hollins reach for his waistband. A gun was not recovered from the scene, police said.

Hollins’s family disputed police accounts of what happened. “This officer ran up on my scared son, who is running for his life and scared to death,” Frederick Franklin, Hollins’s stepfather, told The Post in an interview. “He committed a crime, but he hadn’t done anything that he should have died for.”

Franklin said Hollins had been struggling with mental illness, which the family believed to be bipolar disorder.

“In every jurisdiction, their body-camera policies are so different,” said the Rev. Jarrett Maupin, an Arizona activist who organized protests after Hollins’s death. “And there are no real consequences I’ve yet to see for when these cameras aren’t turned on or when they are arbitrarily turned off.”

When calls for help end in death

Over the two years analyzed by The Post, one of the occurrences that most frequently led to a fatal shooting by police was a domestic disturbance call.

Since January 2015, about 1 in 6 people were killed in cases that began like that.

Police say that investigating a domestic disturbance is one of the most dangerous calls an officer can respond to.

“It’s one of the most volatile situations because it’s emotional and can lead to injury and shootings,” said Alpert, the South Carolina professor. “Sometimes you have no choice — you’re taking a life to save a life.”

In Valdosta, Ga., 28-year-old Johnathan Lozano-Murillo was killed Sept. 28 after police were called to his home over a child custody dispute. When an officer arrived, Lozano-Murillo allegedly attacked his daughter’s mother and then brandished a knife at the officer, who used a Taser on him and then fatally shot him, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

“One police officer killed my son without any opportunity to try and listen to him,” Servando Lozano said.

In Lake Havasu City, Ariz., police were called in June by the father of Devin Christopher Scott after the 20-year-old broke into his father’s home and retreated to a bedroom. Four officers responded. When police entered the room, Scott allegedly approached them with a knife before he was Tasered and then shot twice by an officer, according to news reports.

“They were supposed to come and help me, not kill my son,” said Gary Christian, Scott’s father.

A similar scene unfolded in Harrisburg, Pa., in August when officers were called to a residence where Earl Pinckney was arguing with his mother about diapers for his newborn daughter, according to police and the local prosecutor’s office.

Three hours before the call, Pinckney, 20, had posted a picture of himself and the 2-week-old on Facebook: “Being a dad is the only thing that makes me happy,” he wrote.

The call to police about Pinckney was not the family’s first. In 2008, when Pinckney was 11, police were called by his mother, Kim Thomas, after he allegedly threatened to stab his siblings, according to the Dauphin County prosecutor’s office. Since then, police had been contacted about Pinckney’s behavior at least 12 times by his family, prosecutors said.

Many times, Pinckney, who struggled with bipolar disorder and was on antidepressants, could be calmed down without incident, his mother said.

But on Aug. 7, Pinckney’s 9-year-old niece called 911: “My uncle is trying to hurt my grandma. Can you please come quick,” according to the recording, released by the prosecutor’s office. When a dispatcher called back, Pinckney’s sister said he had a knife.

A push to reduce shootings

In 2016, advocates for police reform continued efforts to push for the nation’s police departments to adopt practices to curb the number of fatal shootings by police.

Earlier this month, 425 officers from 160 police agencies convened in New Orleans for the debut of training developed by the Police Executive Research Forum. The training is aimed at reducing the number of fatal shootings of people not armed with a gun — about 40 percent of this year’s fatal police-involved shootings, according to The Post’s analysis.

“Those are situations that we think that we can impact,” said Wexler, the group’s executive director, who believes that with changes in training, police can reduce the shootings of unarmed people as well as those armed with knives or blunt objects. That could potentially save 300 to 400 lives a year, Wexler said. “It’s difficult to expect a different outcome when an officer is faced with a firearm,” he said.

The training, which promotes de-escalation and encourages police to slow down encounters, has been tested in Baltimore, Houston and Prince William County, Va., Wexler said.

Meanwhile, the FBI said it is moving forward with plans to better track fatal force after mounting public pressure prompted the bureau last year to announce that it would launch a database in 2017.

President-elect Donald Trump has said previously that he does not think local departments should be forced to provide use-of-force data to the federal government.

“The federal government should not be in the habit of demanding data from local or state law enforcement organizations,” Trump said in a questionnaire he submitted in August to the International Association of Chiefs of Police. “Crime reporting should take place, but the management of local and state law enforcement should be left to those jurisdictions.”

Several officials who have worked with the Justice Department said the FBI will probably continue to collect data voluntarily but will not mandate reporting by local agencies.

The FBI said it remains committed to working with local law enforcement to create a new use-of-force data-collection system, said Holly Morris, an FBI spokeswoman.

“If we receive further guidance from the new administration, we will address it at that time,” she said.

(The Washington Post)

In the world of climate science, the skeptics are coming in from the cold.

Researchers who see global warming as something less than a planet-ending calamity believe the incoming Trump administration may allow their views to be developed and heard. This didn't happen under the Obama administration, which denied that a debate even existed. Now, some scientists say, a more inclusive approach - and the billions of federal dollars that might support it - could be in the offing.

"Here's to hoping the Age of Trump will herald the demise of climate change dogma, and acceptance of a broader range of perspectives in climate science and our policy options," Georgia Tech scientist Judith Curry wrote this month at her popular Climate Etc. blog.

William Happer

William Happer, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is similarly optimistic. "I think we're making progress," Happer said. "I see reassuring signs."

Despite harsh criticism of their contrarian views, a few scientists like Happer and Curry have pointed to evidence that global warming is less pronounced than predicted. They have also argued that this slighter warming would bring positive developments along with problems. For the first time in years, skeptics believe they can find a path out of the wilderness into which they've been cast by the "scientific consensus." As much as they desire a more open-minded reception by their colleagues, they are hoping even more that the spigot of government research funding - which dwarfs all other sources - will trickle their way.

President-elect Donald Trump, who has called global warming a "hoax," has chosen for key cabinet posts men whom the global warming establishment considers lapdogs of the oil and gas industry: former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to run the Energy Department; Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma to run the Environmental Protection Agency; and Exxon chief executive Rex Tillerson as secretary of state.

But while general policy may be set at the cabinet level, significant and concrete changes would likely be spelled out below those three - among the very bureaucrats the Trump transition team might have had in mind when, in a move some saw as intimidation, itsent a questionnaire to the Energy Department this month (later disavowed) trying to determine who worked on global warming.

It isn't certain that federal employees working in various environmental or energy sector-related agencies would willingly implement rollbacks of regulations, let alone a redirection of scientific climate research, but the latter prospect heartens the skeptical scientists. They cite an adage: You only get answers to the questions you ask.

"In reality, it's the government, not the scientists, that asks the questions," said David Wojick, a longtime government consultant who has closely tracked climate research spending since 1992. If a federal agency wants models that focus on potential sea-level rise, for example, it can order them up. But it can also shift the focus to how warming might boost crop yields or improve drought resistance.

While it could take months for such expanded fields of research to emerge, a wider look at the possibilities excites some scientists. Happer, for one, feels emboldened in ways he rarely has throughout his career because, for many years, he knew his iconoclastic climate conclusions would hurt his professional prospects.

When asked if he would voice dissent on climate change if he were a younger, less established physicist, he said: "Oh, no, definitely not. I held my tongue for a long time because friends told me I would not be elected to the National Academy of Sciences if I didn't toe the alarmists' company line."

That sharp disagreements are real in the field may come as a shock to many people, who are regularly informed that climate science is settled and those who question this orthodoxy are akin to Holocaust deniers. Nevertheless, new organizations like theCO₂ Coalition, founded in 2015, suggest the debate is more evenly matched intellectually than is commonly portrayed. In addition to Happer, the CO₂ Coalition's initial members include scholars with ties to world-class institutions like MIT, Harvard and Rockefeller University. The coalition also features members of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorology Society, along with policy experts from the Manhattan Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute and Tufts University's Fletcher School.

With such voices joining in, the debate over global warming might shift. Until now, it's normally portrayed as enlightened scholars vs. anti-science simpletons. A more open debate could shift the discussion to one about global warming's extent and root causes.

Should a scientific and research funding realignment occur, it could do more than shatter what some see as an orthodoxy stifling free inquiry. Bjorn Lomborg, who has spent years analyzing potential solutions to global warming, believes that a more expansive outlook toward research is necessary because too much government funding has become expensive and ineffective corporate welfare. Although not a natural scientist, the social scientist Lomborg considers climate change real but not cataclysmic.

Bjorn Lomborg

"Maybe now we'll have a smarter conversation about what actually works," Lomborg told RealClearInvestigations. "What has been proposed costs a fortune and does very little. With more space opening up, we can invest more into research and development into green energy. We don't need subsidies to build something. They've been throwing a lot of money at projects that supposedly will cut carbon emissions but actually accomplish very little. That's not a good idea. The funding should go to universities and research institutions; you don't need to give it to companies to do it."

Such new opportunities might, in theory, calm a field tossed by acrimony and signal a détente in climate science. Yet most experts are skeptical that a kumbaya moment is at hand. The mutual bitterness instilled over the years, the research money at stake, and the bristling hostility toward Trump's appointees could actually exacerbate tensions.

"I think that the vast 'middle' will want and seek a more collegial atmosphere," Georgia Tech's Curry told RealClearInvestigations. "But there will be some hardcore people (particularly on the alarmed side) whose professional reputation, funding, media exposure, influence etc. depends on cranking up the alarm."

Michael E. Mann, another climate change veteran, is also doubtful about a rapprochement. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State and author of the "hockey stick" graph, which claims a sharp uptick in global temperatures over the past century, believes ardently that global warming is a dire threat. He concluded a Washington Post op-ed this month with this foreboding thought: "The fate of the planet hangs in the balance." Mann acknowledges a brutal war of words has engulfed climate science. But in an e-mail exchange with RealClearInvestigations, he blamed opponents led by "the Koch brothers" for the polarization.

Mann did hint, however, there may be some room for discussion.

Michael Mann

"In that poisonous environment it is difficult to have the important, more nuanced and worthy debate about what to do about the problem," he wrote. "There are Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bob Inglis and George Shultz trying to create space for that discussion, and that gives me hope. But given that Donald Trump is appointing so many outright climate deniers to key posts in this administration, I must confess that I - and many of my fellow scientists - are rather concerned."

Neither side of the debate has been immune from harsh and sinister attacks. Happer said he stepped down from the active faculty at Princeton in part "to deal with all this craziness." Happer and Mann, like several other climate scientists, have gotten death threats. They provided RealClearInvestigations with some of the e-mails and voice messages they have received.

"You are an educated Nazi and should hang from the neck," a critic wrote Happer in October 2014.

"You and your colleagues who have promoted this scandal ought to be shot, quartered and fed to the pigs along with your whole damn families," one e-mailed Mann in Dec. 2009.

Similar threats have bedeviled scientists and writers across the climate research spectrum, from Patrick Michaels, a self-described "lukewarmer" who dealt with death threats at the University of Virginia before moving to the Cato Institute, to Rajendra Pachauri, who protested anonymous death threats while heading the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Putting such ugliness aside, some experts doubt that the science will improve even if the Trump administration asks new research questions and funding spreads to myriad proposals. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT and a member of the National Academy of Sciences who has long questioned climate change orthodoxy, is skeptical that a sunnier outlook is upon us.

"I actually doubt that," he said. Even if some of the roughly $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars currently spent on climate research across 13 different federal agencies now shifts to scientists less invested in the calamitous narrative, Lindzen believes groupthink has so corrupted the field that funding should be sharply curtailed rather than redirected.

"They should probably cut the funding by 80 to 90 percent until the field cleans up," he said. "Climate science has been set back two generations, and they have destroyed its intellectual foundations."

The field is cluttered with entrenched figures who must toe the established line, he said, pointing to a recent congressional report that found the Obama administration got a top Department of Energy scientist fired and generally intimidated the staff to conform with its politicized position on climate change.

India Cash Ban Could Get Worse: “We Don’t Even Have Enough Money To Buy Food”

DECEMBER 30, 2016

By Mac Slavo

Behold, the power of banksters, and the very rapid shift into the cashless, digital control grid that has been an objective now for many decades.

Suddenly, things are moving faster than anyone could have imagined.

Officially, the government of India believes their demonetization efforts to haul in some 86% of the cash in circulation will bolster the economy and improve the situation for the world’s second most populous country.

But on the ground, and in reality, the pain is still spreading – and it could become even worse.

The cost of goods is increasing sharply and the poor and working classes are being hit hard … and many are still waiting in long bank lines to deposit what little they have.

Cash-related industries, which dominate Indian daily life, including tourism, shops, farming, vendors, day labor, jewelry and the informal industries are facing huge declines as cash bans have severely cut back their business.

via Business Insider:
Modi’s announcement that 500 and 1,000 rupee bills — making up 86% of India’s currency — were no longer legal tender has posed an enormous hardship for millions of people who use cash for everything from salaries to cellphone charges.
Empty ATMs and ever-changing rules are preventing people from withdrawing money, andmany small, cash-reliant businesses from cinemas to neighborhood grocery stores are suffering huge losses or going under.
Daily commerce in essentials including food, medicine, and transportation screeched almost to a halt.
Real estate, tourism, transportation, and gold and gems have been hit the hardest, along with informal sectors that rely mostly on cash. Prices are forecast to rise since the cash crunch is pinching supplies of all sorts of goods.
“The first two months have been so bad for us, we don’t even have enough money to buy food,” daily wage laborer Neeraj Mishra, 35, said.
Worst affected were the country’s hundreds of millions of farmers, produce vendors, small-shop owners and daily-wage laborers who usually are paid in cash at the end of a day’s work.Many lost their jobs as small businesses shut down, compounding their poverty.

The direct shortage of cash, with no reliable alternative system in wide use among the nation’s poorer majority, resulted in demand that outstripped supply on every front for physical cash and a means of exchange.

This is how quickly they could bring things to a halt.

The inhumane impact on literally hundreds of millions of poor people there remains largely in the background of policy discussions – which have actually been branded as fighting for the poorest – as banking modernization becomes the most important factor.

So far, despite the widespread inconvenience and costs… The Indian government is urging patience, insisting it’s playing a long game that will eventually modernize Indian society and benefit the poor.
Since domestic commerce drives most economic activity, analysts have expressed alarm over the scale of economic and social disruption and are warning a contraction is likely in coming quarters.
[…]
The wide impact of the demonetization won’t be known until the government issues its next quarterly gross-domestic-product figures in February, but the Reserve Bank of India already has shaved half a percentage point from this year’s GDP growth forecast, to 7.1%.

If the United States banned the $100 bill tomorrow, and perhaps the $50 as well, as many bureaucrats and banking insiders have suggested, there would be a massive impact at home as well.

Despite the fact that a majority of transactions in America are now electronic, cash still remains a stubbornly viable exchange medium for all sectors of society, across wealth and age brackets, and remains especially vital for the working poor who often rely upon cash for daily transactions.

You can read more from Mac Slavo at his site SHTFplan.com, where this article first appeared.

(activistpost.com)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/1/2017 2:10:18 PM
	Fatal shootings by police remain relatively unchanged after two years By Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery, Steven Rich, Julie Tate and Jennifer JenkinsDecember 30 Despite ongoing national scrutiny of police tactics, the number of fatal shootings by officers in 2016 remained virtually unchanged from last year when nearly 1,000 people were killed by police. Through Thursday, law enforcement officers fatally shot 957 people in 2016 — close to three each day — down slightly from 2015 when 991 people were shot to death by officers, according to an ongoing project by The Washington Post to track the number of fatal shootings by police. The Post, for two years in a row, has documented more than twice the number of fatal shootings recorded by the FBI annually on average. As was the case in 2015, a disproportionate number of those killed this year were black, and about a quarter involved someone who had a mental illness. In a notable shift from 2015, more of the fatal shootings this year were captured on video. Dozens of departments have vowed reforms since the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014 launched a national debate over police use of force. Many agencies have equipped officers with body-worn cameras, with prominent police chiefs vowing to further curb fatal encounters. But experts say an impact on fatal shootings may take years. “Making these kinds of changes is very difficult on such a widespread scale,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank pushing for national police reform. “But quite frankly, we’re still on the front-end of the training that we’re pushing out. It may be at least six months to a year until we start to really see those numbers come down.” The Post began tracking fatal shootings by officers after the deaths of Brown and others during police encounters. The federal government does not comprehensively record how many people are killed by police annually and depends on voluntary reporting from police departments. The Post’s database — which will continue in 2017 — largely relies on local news coverage, public records and social-media reports. [Fatal force: The 2016 database of those shot and killed by police] In the second year of tracking, The Post found: ●White males continued to be those most often killed, accounting for 46 percent of this year’s deaths — about the same as in 2015. But when adjusted by population, black males were three times as likely to die as their white counterparts. ●The percentage of fatal shootings of unarmed people declined in 2016, from 9 percent in 2015 to 5 percent. Black males, however, continued to represent a disproportionate share of those: 34 percent of the unarmed people killed this year were black males, although they are 6 percent of the population. ●Of all those who were shot and killed, 84 percent were armed, most with a gun or knife. Four percent wielded imitation firearms. In 7 percent of the fatalities, it was unclear whether the person was armed. ●Mental illness remained a factor in many of the fatal shootings. As was the case last year, about 1 in 4 people fatally shot by police in 2016 were grappling with a mental health issue, according to The Post’s analysis. The consistency from 2015 to 2016 is telling, experts said. “It shows that one year wasn’t an anomaly,” said Geoff Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina. “It’s a very robust number that is something we can trust in the future and a good measure to see when things do change.” This year, The Post gathered additional information about officers involved in fatal shootings from media reports or news releases and filed more than 1,000 public-records requests from each police department involved in a fatal shooting. One-fourth of the departments queried by The Post have not responded to the requests. Many gave only partial information. Of those who responded, only a third of the departments provided the race of the officers involved in fatal shootings. The racial breakdown roughly matched the composition of local and state police departments nationwide, according to federal data. For the 811 officers about whom work information was disclosed or gathered, their average time on the job was nine years, and three-quarters of them were assigned to patrol. At least 60 officers who fatally shot someone this year had done so previously. In 2016, deadly shootings by police erupted out of a broad range of circumstances. In a suspected terrorist attack, 18-year-old college student Abdul Razak Ali Artan, believed to have been radicalized online and inspired by the Islamic State, drove a car into a crowd of teachers and students at Ohio State University in November and then wounded several people with a knife. A campus police officer was on the scene within minutes and fatally shot Artan. At 12, Ciara Meyer of Penn Township, Pa., was the youngest person killed by police gunfire this year. She was accidentally shot by a constable after her father pointed a rifle at him, police said. (Facebook) In January, an eviction in Penn Township, Pa., led to the death of 12-year-old Ciara Meyer, the youngest person killed by police gunfire this year. Police said her father, Donald Meyer, pointed a rifle at a constable who was serving him an eviction notice. When the officer fired at the father, the bullet passed through his arm and struck his daughter, according to a police affidavit. “Meyer’s reckless conduct, knowing his daughter was standing behind him, triggered a chain of events that tragically led to the death of Ciara Meyer,” Perry County District Attorney Andrew Bender said in announcing criminal homicide and other charges against Meyer in his daughter’s death. Jerry Philpott, an attorney for Meyer, said his client has entered a not guilty plea. He declined further comment. While there was national controversy in 2015 over killings of unarmed individuals by police, fatal shootings of several armed individuals this year led to similar outrage. The cases included the shootings in the summer of three black men who each were in possession of a gun: Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Philando Castile in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte. At least a portion of each of those fatal encounters was captured on video. In the shootings of Sterling and Scott, the videos raised questions about whether either man was raising or pointing his gun at officers. Federal investigators continue to probe the Sterling shooting, while local prosecutors have declined to charge Officer Brentley Vinson, who is black, in Scott’s death. “He acted lawfully. I am fully satisfied and entirely convinced that Mr. Vinson’s use of deadly force was lawful,” Mecklenburg County District Attorney Andrew Murray said in announcing his decision. The Castile case drew notoriety after his girlfriend live-streamed the fatal shooting’s aftermath on Facebook. Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria employee, was legally carrying a gun when police approached him in a traffic stop, and he informed the officer of that during an exchange recorded by the patrol car’s dashboard camera. The officer, Jeronimo Yanez, said he opened fire because he believed that Castile was reaching for the gun. But prosecutors have said the shooting was not justified and charged Yanez with manslaughter. Friends embrace Allysza Castile, center, near a roadside vigil at the site where her brother, Philando Castile, was fatally shot three days earlier during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minn. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Thomas Kelly, an attorney for Yanez, said that his client has not yet entered a plea and is awaiting trial. He declined further comment. That case is part of an overall increase in prosecutions of officers in fatal shootings in the two years since Ferguson. A review by The Post and Bowling Green State University professor Phil Stinson of officer prosecutions from 2005 to 2014 found that about five officers were charged annually in fatal shootings. There were 18 in 2015 and 13 this year, Stinson said. Experts attribute the increase to greater availability of video evidence and political pressure. Still, the prosecution of officers for the use of deadly force remains rare — charges are filed in about 1 percent of all fatal police-involved shootings. Stinson noted that almost 60 percent of the shootings for which officers have been charged in the past two years have included video evidence vital to the prosecution. [A disproportionate number of black victims in fatal traffic stops] “In the past, the police have always owned the narrative in police shooting cases because a dead man can’t talk,” Stinson said. “Now, the videos are providing an alternative narrative to the police version of events.” The year was also a particularly deadly one for police: 62 officers were fatally shot by civilians, up from 39 in 2015, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. In 2014, 48 officers were shot and killed; in 2013, the toll was 31. In July, five officers were fatally shot in Dallas by a sniper angered over recent police-involved shootings. “There seems to be a growing number of people in the United States who are willing to take aggressive action against police officers,” said Jim Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police. “If you couple that with the number of guns in criminal hands, you’ve got a recipe for disaster.” Police in Dallas respond after shots were fired at a protest march on July 7. Five officers were killed by a sniper who was upset about fatal shootings by police. (Smiley N. Pool/Dallas Morning News via Associated Press) When officers fail to record One of the biggest shifts from 2015 to 2016 was the number of deadly police encounters recorded on video. In 2015, 142 of the fatal shootings were recorded — by cellphone cameras, police dash cams, cameras worn by officers or other devices. That number rose this year to 231. Nationwide, police departments began equipping their officers with body-worn cameras in 2009, but their use escalated after the Ferguson protests of 2014. “The body-camera train was starting to move but then just absolutely took off after the summer of 2014,” said Michael D. White, an Arizona State University professor who has researched the police implementation of body cameras. Up to half of the nation’s 18,000 police departments have officers who wear cameras, he said. While an increasing number of fatal shootings have been recorded, in some cases the cameras capture nothing. In at least a dozen fatal shootings this year, cameras worn by the officers failed to record the fatal encounter, according to The Post’s survey of police departments. In Baton Rouge, police said body cameras “fell off” the officers involved in the death of Alton Sterling as they responded to a call about a man with a gun outside of a convenience store. Bystander video captured the July 5 shooting, but police officials have said the body-cam video, which continued to record after the camera dismounted, did not capture images of the shooting. “If these incidents are not properly recorded, they are gone forever, and then there will forever be questions that cannot be answered that could have been,” said Justin Bamberg, an attorney who is on the legal team that represents the families of Sterling and Keith Lamont Scott, who was fatally shot Sept. 20 by Charlotte police. Chicago police released body-camera videos from the July 28 shooting of Paul O’Neal, an 18-year-old black man who allegedly fled police in a stolen Jaguar. The moment of the shooting was not captured by the body camera of the officer who fired the fatal shot because it was not activated, police said. The department is investigating the shooting. Michael Oppenheimer, a Chicago attorney who is representing O’Neal’s family, questioned why the shooting wasn’t recorded. “And, what is the good of having a body camera if they’re not going to be turned on to capture what they’re supposed to capture?” he said. At the trial of former police officer Michael Slager, jurors viewed a cellphone video of Slager fatally shooting Walter Scott on April 4, 2015, in North Charleston, S.C. The case ended in a mistrial, and a retrial has been set for March 1. (Pool photo by Grace Beahm/Post and Courier via Associated Press) Policing experts said that in the rush to equip officers with cameras, departments have failed to implement the proper training, and best practices and policies to ensure that the cameras work as intended. In many cases, officers have little experience with body-worn cameras and forget to activate them, and departments lack clear policies about when they should be activated, said Kevin Angell, a former Florida police officer who consults police departments on developing body-camera polices. In the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Dalvin Hollins in Tempe, Ariz., police said that the body camera being worn by one officer was not activated until several minutes after the shooting. Police responded to a call about 9 a.m. July 27 that a young black man wearing sweatpants and carrying a book bag had robbed a Walgreens pharmacy. Security footage later released by police showed Hollins jumping the counter and demanding liquid narcotics while keeping one hand inside the bag. Police have said Hollins told the pharmacy workers that he had a gun. [Fatal shootings by police are up in the first six months of 2016, Post analysis finds] Hollins ran after being confronted by a Tempe police officer. A second officer joined the pursuit, first in his vehicle and then on foot, according to police. Police said the second officer fired when he saw Hollins reach for his waistband. A gun was not recovered from the scene, police said. Hollins’s family disputed police accounts of what happened. “This officer ran up on my scared son, who is running for his life and scared to death,” Frederick Franklin, Hollins’s stepfather, told The Post in an interview. “He committed a crime, but he hadn’t done anything that he should have died for.” Franklin said Hollins had been struggling with mental illness, which the family believed to be bipolar disorder. “In every jurisdiction, their body-camera policies are so different,” said the Rev. Jarrett Maupin, an Arizona activist who organized protests after Hollins’s death. “And there are no real consequences I’ve yet to see for when these cameras aren’t turned on or when they are arbitrarily turned off.” Sarah Coleman’s son Dalvin Hollins was fatally shot by police after a robbery in Tempe, Ariz. Police said the body camera worn by one officer was not activated until several minutes after the shooting. “We still have no answers,” Coleman says. (Caitlin O’Hara/for The Washington Post) When calls for help end in death Over the two years analyzed by The Post, one of the occurrences that most frequently led to a fatal shooting by police was a domestic disturbance call. Since January 2015, about 1 in 6 people were killed in cases that began like that. Police say that investigating a domestic disturbance is one of the most dangerous calls an officer can respond to. “It’s one of the most volatile situations because it’s emotional and can lead to injury and shootings,” said Alpert, the South Carolina professor. “Sometimes you have no choice — you’re taking a life to save a life.” In Valdosta, Ga., 28-year-old Johnathan Lozano-Murillo was killed Sept. 28 after police were called to his home over a child custody dispute. When an officer arrived, Lozano-Murillo allegedly attacked his daughter’s mother and then brandished a knife at the officer, who used a Taser on him and then fatally shot him, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. “One police officer killed my son without any opportunity to try and listen to him,” Servando Lozano said. In Lake Havasu City, Ariz., police were called in June by the father of Devin Christopher Scott after the 20-year-old broke into his father’s home and retreated to a bedroom. Four officers responded. When police entered the room, Scott allegedly approached them with a knife before he was Tasered and then shot twice by an officer, according to news reports. “They were supposed to come and help me, not kill my son,” said Gary Christian, Scott’s father. A similar scene unfolded in Harrisburg, Pa., in August when officers were called to a residence where Earl Pinckney was arguing with his mother about diapers for his newborn daughter, according to police and the local prosecutor’s office. Kim Thomas has created a memorial to son Earl Pinckney, who was killed by a Harrisburg, Pa., police officer at their home on Aug. 7. She disputes officers’ accounts that Pinckney, 20, had a knife or was holding her at knifepoint. (Paul Chaplin/for The Washington Post) Three hours before the call, Pinckney, 20, had posted a picture of himself and the 2-week-old on Facebook: “Being a dad is the only thing that makes me happy,” he wrote. The call to police about Pinckney was not the family’s first. In 2008, when Pinckney was 11, police were called by his mother, Kim Thomas, after he allegedly threatened to stab his siblings, according to the Dauphin County prosecutor’s office. Since then, police had been contacted about Pinckney’s behavior at least 12 times by his family, prosecutors said. Many times, Pinckney, who struggled with bipolar disorder and was on antidepressants, could be calmed down without incident, his mother said. But on Aug. 7, Pinckney’s 9-year-old niece called 911: “My uncle is trying to hurt my grandma. Can you please come quick,” according to the recording, released by the prosecutor’s office. When a dispatcher called back, Pinckney’s sister said he had a knife. Hands from the crowd comfort Cameron Sterling at a July 6 vigil for his father in Baton Rouge. Police said body cameras “fell off” the officers involved in the death of Alton Sterling, but a bystander’s video captured the shooting. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press) A push to reduce shootings In 2016, advocates for police reform continued efforts to push for the nation’s police departments to adopt practices to curb the number of fatal shootings by police. Earlier this month, 425 officers from 160 police agencies convened in New Orleans for the debut of training developed by the Police Executive Research Forum. The training is aimed at reducing the number of fatal shootings of people not armed with a gun — about 40 percent of this year’s fatal police-involved shootings, according to The Post’s analysis. “Those are situations that we think that we can impact,” said Wexler, the group’s executive director, who believes that with changes in training, police can reduce the shootings of unarmed people as well as those armed with knives or blunt objects. That could potentially save 300 to 400 lives a year, Wexler said. “It’s difficult to expect a different outcome when an officer is faced with a firearm,” he said. The training, which promotes de-escalation and encourages police to slow down encounters, has been tested in Baltimore, Houston and Prince William County, Va., Wexler said. Meanwhile, the FBI said it is moving forward with plans to better track fatal force after mounting public pressure prompted the bureau last year to announce that it would launch a database in 2017. President-elect Donald Trump has said previously that he does not think local departments should be forced to provide use-of-force data to the federal government. “The federal government should not be in the habit of demanding data from local or state law enforcement organizations,” Trump said in a questionnaire he submitted in August to the International Association of Chiefs of Police. “Crime reporting should take place, but the management of local and state law enforcement should be left to those jurisdictions.” Several officials who have worked with the Justice Department said the FBI will probably continue to collect data voluntarily but will not mandate reporting by local agencies. The FBI said it remains committed to working with local law enforcement to create a new use-of-force data-collection system, said Holly Morris, an FBI spokeswoman. “If we receive further guidance from the new administration, we will address it at that time,” she said. (The Washington Post)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/1/2017 5:02:15 PM
	Swarm of 100 small earthquakes strikes near California-Mexico border KABC-TV Sun, 31 Dec 2017 20:09 UTC © USGS A swarm of more than 100 small earthquakes hit near Brawley, Calif., on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2016, according to the California Institute of Technology. A swarm of more than 100 small earthquakes hit near the California-Mexico border on Saturday, according to the California Institute of Technology. The swarm struck near Brawley, which is about 125 miles east of San Diego and 20 miles north of the border. The first earthquake registered a magnitude of 1.1 at about 3:30 a.m. The biggest earthquake so far was a 3.9 magnitude, but scientists said larger quakes were possible and the shaking may continue for several days. Officials stated the swarm was more than 30 miles from the San Andreas Fault and was not expected to trigger a major earthquake along the fault. Cal Tech said the location of the swarm registered a 5.4-magnitude earthquake back in 2012. Comment: Earthquake swarms prompt emergency declaration in Brawley, CA The location was also known for geothermal activity and frequent earthquake swarms, according to Cal Tech. Dr. Lucy Jones said a swarm in the area back in 2012 was much larger than Saturday's episode. There were no reports of damage or injuries due to the earthquakes. Comment: A few days ago three large earthquakes hit near the Nevada-California state line. (sott.net)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/1/2017 5:08:59 PM
	Skeptical climate scientists coming in from the cold James Varney RealClearInvestigations Sat, 31 Dec 2016 20:19 UTC In the world of climate science, the skeptics are coming in from the cold. Researchers who see global warming as something less than a planet-ending calamity believe the incoming Trump administration may allow their views to be developed and heard. This didn't happen under the Obama administration, which denied that a debate even existed. Now, some scientists say, a more inclusive approach - and the billions of federal dollars that might support it - could be in the offing. "Here's to hoping the Age of Trump will herald the demise of climate change dogma, and acceptance of a broader range of perspectives in climate science and our policy options," Georgia Tech scientist Judith Curry wrote this month at her popular Climate Etc. blog. William Happer William Happer, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is similarly optimistic. "I think we're making progress," Happer said. "I see reassuring signs." Despite harsh criticism of their contrarian views, a few scientists like Happer and Curry have pointed to evidence that global warming is less pronounced than predicted. They have also argued that this slighter warming would bring positive developments along with problems. For the first time in years, skeptics believe they can find a path out of the wilderness into which they've been cast by the "scientific consensus." As much as they desire a more open-minded reception by their colleagues, they are hoping even more that the spigot of government research funding - which dwarfs all other sources - will trickle their way. President-elect Donald Trump, who has called global warming a "hoax," has chosen for key cabinet posts men whom the global warming establishment considers lapdogs of the oil and gas industry: former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to run the Energy Department; Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma to run the Environmental Protection Agency; and Exxon chief executive Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. But while general policy may be set at the cabinet level, significant and concrete changes would likely be spelled out below those three - among the very bureaucrats the Trump transition team might have had in mind when, in a move some saw as intimidation, itsent a questionnaire to the Energy Department this month (later disavowed) trying to determine who worked on global warming. It isn't certain that federal employees working in various environmental or energy sector-related agencies would willingly implement rollbacks of regulations, let alone a redirection of scientific climate research, but the latter prospect heartens the skeptical scientists. They cite an adage: You only get answers to the questions you ask. "In reality, it's the government, not the scientists, that asks the questions," said David Wojick, a longtime government consultant who has closely tracked climate research spending since 1992. If a federal agency wants models that focus on potential sea-level rise, for example, it can order them up. But it can also shift the focus to how warming might boost crop yields or improve drought resistance. While it could take months for such expanded fields of research to emerge, a wider look at the possibilities excites some scientists. Happer, for one, feels emboldened in ways he rarely has throughout his career because, for many years, he knew his iconoclastic climate conclusions would hurt his professional prospects. When asked if he would voice dissent on climate change if he were a younger, less established physicist, he said: "Oh, no, definitely not. I held my tongue for a long time because friends told me I would not be elected to the National Academy of Sciences if I didn't toe the alarmists' company line." That sharp disagreements are real in the field may come as a shock to many people, who are regularly informed that climate science is settled and those who question this orthodoxy are akin to Holocaust deniers. Nevertheless, new organizations like theCO₂ Coalition, founded in 2015, suggest the debate is more evenly matched intellectually than is commonly portrayed. In addition to Happer, the CO₂ Coalition's initial members include scholars with ties to world-class institutions like MIT, Harvard and Rockefeller University. The coalition also features members of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorology Society, along with policy experts from the Manhattan Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute and Tufts University's Fletcher School. With such voices joining in, the debate over global warming might shift. Until now, it's normally portrayed as enlightened scholars vs. anti-science simpletons. A more open debate could shift the discussion to one about global warming's extent and root causes. Should a scientific and research funding realignment occur, it could do more than shatter what some see as an orthodoxy stifling free inquiry. Bjorn Lomborg, who has spent years analyzing potential solutions to global warming, believes that a more expansive outlook toward research is necessary because too much government funding has become expensive and ineffective corporate welfare. Although not a natural scientist, the social scientist Lomborg considers climate change real but not cataclysmic. Bjorn Lomborg "Maybe now we'll have a smarter conversation about what actually works," Lomborg told RealClearInvestigations. "What has been proposed costs a fortune and does very little. With more space opening up, we can invest more into research and development into green energy. We don't need subsidies to build something. They've been throwing a lot of money at projects that supposedly will cut carbon emissions but actually accomplish very little. That's not a good idea. The funding should go to universities and research institutions; you don't need to give it to companies to do it." Such new opportunities might, in theory, calm a field tossed by acrimony and signal a détente in climate science. Yet most experts are skeptical that a kumbaya moment is at hand. The mutual bitterness instilled over the years, the research money at stake, and the bristling hostility toward Trump's appointees could actually exacerbate tensions. "I think that the vast 'middle' will want and seek a more collegial atmosphere," Georgia Tech's Curry told RealClearInvestigations. "But there will be some hardcore people (particularly on the alarmed side) whose professional reputation, funding, media exposure, influence etc. depends on cranking up the alarm." Michael E. Mann, another climate change veteran, is also doubtful about a rapprochement. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State and author of the "hockey stick" graph, which claims a sharp uptick in global temperatures over the past century, believes ardently that global warming is a dire threat. He concluded a Washington Post op-ed this month with this foreboding thought: "The fate of the planet hangs in the balance." Mann acknowledges a brutal war of words has engulfed climate science. But in an e-mail exchange with RealClearInvestigations, he blamed opponents led by "the Koch brothers" for the polarization. Mann did hint, however, there may be some room for discussion. Michael Mann "In that poisonous environment it is difficult to have the important, more nuanced and worthy debate about what to do about the problem," he wrote. "There are Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bob Inglis and George Shultz trying to create space for that discussion, and that gives me hope. But given that Donald Trump is appointing so many outright climate deniers to key posts in this administration, I must confess that I - and many of my fellow scientists - are rather concerned." Neither side of the debate has been immune from harsh and sinister attacks. Happer said he stepped down from the active faculty at Princeton in part "to deal with all this craziness." Happer and Mann, like several other climate scientists, have gotten death threats. They provided RealClearInvestigations with some of the e-mails and voice messages they have received. "You are an educated Nazi and should hang from the neck," a critic wrote Happer in October 2014. "You and your colleagues who have promoted this scandal ought to be shot, quartered and fed to the pigs along with your whole damn families," one e-mailed Mann in Dec. 2009. Similar threats have bedeviled scientists and writers across the climate research spectrum, from Patrick Michaels, a self-described "lukewarmer" who dealt with death threats at the University of Virginia before moving to the Cato Institute, to Rajendra Pachauri, who protested anonymous death threats while heading the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Putting such ugliness aside, some experts doubt that the science will improve even if the Trump administration asks new research questions and funding spreads to myriad proposals. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT and a member of the National Academy of Sciences who has long questioned climate change orthodoxy, is skeptical that a sunnier outlook is upon us. "I actually doubt that," he said. Even if some of the roughly $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars currently spent on climate research across 13 different federal agencies now shifts to scientists less invested in the calamitous narrative, Lindzen believes groupthink has so corrupted the field that funding should be sharply curtailed rather than redirected. "They should probably cut the funding by 80 to 90 percent until the field cleans up," he said. "Climate science has been set back two generations, and they have destroyed its intellectual foundations." The field is cluttered with entrenched figures who must toe the established line, he said, pointing to a recent congressional report that found the Obama administration got a top Department of Energy scientist fired and generally intimidated the staff to conform with its politicized position on climate change. "Remember this was a tiny field, a backwater, and then suddenly you increased the funding to billions and everyone got into it," Lindzen said. "Even in 1990 no one at MIT called themselves a 'climate scientist,' and then all of a sudden everyone was. They only entered it because of the bucks; they realized it was a gravy train. You have to get it back to the people who only care about the science." (sott.net)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/1/2017 5:39:23 PM
	India Cash Ban Could Get Worse: “We Don’t Even Have Enough Money To Buy Food” DECEMBER 30, 2016 By Mac Slavo Behold, the power of banksters, and the very rapid shift into the cashless, digital control grid that has been an objective now for many decades. Suddenly, things are moving faster than anyone could have imagined. Officially, the government of India believes their demonetization efforts to haul in some 86% of the cash in circulation will bolster the economy and improve the situation for the world’s second most populous country. But on the ground, and in reality, the pain is still spreading – and it could become even worse. The cost of goods is increasing sharply and the poor and working classes are being hit hard … and many are still waiting in long bank lines to deposit what little they have. Cash-related industries, which dominate Indian daily life, including tourism, shops, farming, vendors, day labor, jewelry and the informal industries are facing huge declines as cash bans have severely cut back their business. via Business Insider: Modi’s announcement that 500 and 1,000 rupee bills — making up 86% of India’s currency — were no longer legal tender has posed an enormous hardship for millions of people who use cash for everything from salaries to cellphone charges. Empty ATMs and ever-changing rules are preventing people from withdrawing money, andmany small, cash-reliant businesses from cinemas to neighborhood grocery stores are suffering huge losses or going under. Daily commerce in essentials including food, medicine, and transportation screeched almost to a halt. Real estate, tourism, transportation, and gold and gems have been hit the hardest, along with informal sectors that rely mostly on cash. Prices are forecast to rise since the cash crunch is pinching supplies of all sorts of goods. “The first two months have been so bad for us, we don’t even have enough money to buy food,” daily wage laborer Neeraj Mishra, 35, said. Worst affected were the country’s hundreds of millions of farmers, produce vendors, small-shop owners and daily-wage laborers who usually are paid in cash at the end of a day’s work.Many lost their jobs as small businesses shut down, compounding their poverty. The direct shortage of cash, with no reliable alternative system in wide use among the nation’s poorer majority, resulted in demand that outstripped supply on every front for physical cash and a means of exchange. This is how quickly they could bring things to a halt. The inhumane impact on literally hundreds of millions of poor people there remains largely in the background of policy discussions – which have actually been branded as fighting for the poorest – as banking modernization becomes the most important factor. So far, despite the widespread inconvenience and costs… The Indian government is urging patience, insisting it’s playing a long game that will eventually modernize Indian society and benefit the poor. Since domestic commerce drives most economic activity, analysts have expressed alarm over the scale of economic and social disruption and are warning a contraction is likely in coming quarters. […] The wide impact of the demonetization won’t be known until the government issues its next quarterly gross-domestic-product figures in February, but the Reserve Bank of India already has shaved half a percentage point from this year’s GDP growth forecast, to 7.1%. If the United States banned the $100 bill tomorrow, and perhaps the $50 as well, as many bureaucrats and banking insiders have suggested, there would be a massive impact at home as well. Despite the fact that a majority of transactions in America are now electronic, cash still remains a stubbornly viable exchange medium for all sectors of society, across wealth and age brackets, and remains especially vital for the working poor who often rely upon cash for daily transactions. You can read more from Mac Slavo at his site SHTFplan.com, where this article first appeared. (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Menu

Forums

News that shaped 2016: Trump, Brexit, Turkish coup & more

Swarm of 100 small earthquakes strikes near California-Mexico border

Skeptical climate scientists coming in from the cold

India Cash Ban Could Get Worse: “We Don’t Even Have Enough Money To Buy Food”

Like us on Facebook!