PARK(ing) Day: User-Generated Urbanism

PARK(ing) Day: User-Generated Urbanism from Brandon Bloch on Vimeo.

It's called PARK(ing) Day! Citizen Activists around the globe turn parking spaces into mini-parks for a day to demonstrate the need for more urban green space. The annual event is organized online, but staged offline in dozens of cities on every continent around the world. It's a demonstration of the power of social media and international collaborative activism... and a great way to have fun and relax.

http://parkingday.org/

Germany: Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis

A study by a German military think tank has analyzed how "peak oil" might change the global economy. The internal draft document -- leaked on the Internet -- shows for the first time how carefully the German government has considered a potential energy crisis.

The term "peak oil" is used by energy experts to refer to a point in time when global oil reserves pass their zenith and production gradually begins to decline. This would result in a permanent supply crisis -- and fear of it can trigger turbulence in commodity markets and on stock exchanges.

The issue is so politically explosive that it's remarkable when an institution like the Bundeswehr, the German military, uses the term "peak oil" at all. But a military study currently circulating on the German blogosphere goes further.

The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military. The team of authors, led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Will, uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises.

The study, whose authenticity was confirmed to SPIEGEL ONLINE by sources in government circles, was not meant for publication. The document is said to be in draft stage and to consist solely of scientific opinion, which has not yet been edited by the Defense Ministry and other government bodies.

The lead author, Will, has declined to comment on the study. It remains doubtful that either the Bundeswehr or the German government would have consented to publish the document in its current form. But the study does show how intensively the German government has engaged with the question of peak oil.

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Mike Ruppert - CIA and Drug Running (1997)

Former narcotics investigator Mike Ruppert, and author of "The Truth and Lies of 911", was forced out of the LAPD in 1977 when he exposed evidence of drug trafficking by the CIA. This is one of his first appearances caught on Video in 1997 at the Granada Forum in Tarzana, CA. Topic is CIA Drug Running

British spy found dead in bath was padlocked into sports bag

Williams, 31, was found dead in his flat in Pimlico half a mile from MI6 headquarters in Vauxhall, on Monday August 23rd.

After colleagues reported him missing, police broke into his flat and found his partially decomposed body locked inside a large sportsbag in the bath, the hearing was told.

Remembered by school mates as a “maths genius”, Mr Williams was on a one-year secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the government's “listening post” in Cheltenham, Glos, where he worked for almost a decade.

His position regularly took him to the US where he liaised with the National Security Agency and the CIA and he is also reported to have made a number of visits to Afghanistan.

The cause of his death has still not been established despite two post mortems being carried out. There were no obvious injuries on his body, which is thought to have lain undiscovered for more than a week.

Police have yet to formally declare their inquiries a murder investigation, describing the death as "suspicious and unexplained"

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