General Strike Begins In Greece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOr-5sKnCDg

This is from 2008, but I think it warrants more attention.

Last year, the German Greens Party commissioned a report on the potential of biogas in Europe. The Öko-Instituts and the Institut für Energetik in Leipzig carried out a study on the potential of biomethane in Europe.  The study came to the startling conclusion that, if current production trends continue, all of Europe’s natural gas imports from Russia could be covered by locally produced biogas/biomethane within 20 years. Earlier, Ulrich Schmack, an energy advisor to the German government and manager of the world’s largest biogas firm, came to the same conclusion, even though his projection created some controversy.

The biogas/biomethane sector is booming in Germany, and has become the
continent’s fastest renewable energy sector. For example, market leader
Schmack Biogas recently received a $192 million investment to expand
its activities, which is one of last year’s largest renewable energy
deals.  The growing interest in the gaseous biofuel can be explained by
the fact that: (1) biomethane production can be decentralized
(producing the fuel closer to its end use); (2)  it is highly efficient
(yielding more than twice as much energy per area of energy crops than
ethanol from similar crops); (3) it can be obtained relatively easily
from a large variety of biomass resources (e.g., organic waste, manure,
dedicated energy crops); and (4) advances in biogas technology,
microbiology and crop engineering have made (and continue to make)
production even more efficient.

The EU currently imports some 40 percent of all its natural gas from
Russia. In 2030, this dependency will have increased to 60 percent (all
else equal). This outlook worries many, as it opens obvious questions
about energy security. Last year, gas disputes between Russia and
Belarus and the Ukraine, affected energy supplies to the EU. The
Leipzig report on biogas, entitled “Möglichkeiten einer europäischen
Biogaseinspeisungsstrategie” (“The opportunities of a European strategy
to feed biogas into the natural gas grid”) puts this geopolitical
question into an entirely different perspective.

The main findings of the study are:

•    Europe’s potential for the sustainable production of biomethane is
17.7 trillion cubic feet per year. This is roughly the total amount of
natural gas currently consumed by the entire European Union.

•    All EU’s natural gas needs for the medium-term future (2020) can
be met by biogas/biomethane.  All imports from Russia could be
replaced, while the excess can back out petroleum and coal.

•    The production of 17.7 Tcf of biomethane, fed into the grid, will
result in a reduction of 15 percent of Europe’s CO2 emissions. The
Kyoto protocol demands a reduction of 10%.

•    An efficient biomethane-feed-in strategy could be built around the
concept of “biogas corridors.”  Such corridors would consist of biomass
plantations established alongside the pipelines, so that the green gas
can be fed into Europe’s main natural gas grid without the need for new
pipelines and infrastructures.

•    A Europe-wide biomethane-feed-in strategy will result in the
creation of 2.7 million new jobs within the EU. Employment will be
generated mainly in agriculture and in the manufacture, construction
and management of biogas plants and biogas purification plants.

A major roadblock standing in the way of moving to a biomethane economy
for Germany is the fact that biomethane is too good for the country’s
natural gas pipeline system, i.e., its heating value exceeds the
Germany’s upper quality limit on gas (the only country in Europe to
have this restriction). The German Green Party and the country’s
environmentalists and farmers, therefore, are lobbying for a new law
that would allow producers to feed their superior, renewable and green
gas into the national pipelines.  The German government has now taken
the first steps towards crafting a ‘biogas feed-in law’ that would
allow pipeline operators to open their network for biomethane.

Source: -
http://www.ngvglobal.com/report-biomethane-could-replace-all-eu-natural-gas-imports-0110

The Price of ‘Development’ in China

Consumerism, Economics, Society — by Craig Mackintosh December 26, 2009

Christmas is supposed to be a time where we give some thought to people less fortunate. It is also a time of major consumeristic excess. The incongruity of these two thoughts is starkly demonstrated by the clip below. This is China, factory for the world. Here, to make room for industries and infrastructure that China needs to supply the world with barbies, bicycles and toy berettas, the common people are forcibly evicted from their homes before seeing them demolished.

It’s sobering to think, as we stand at the checkout – with our trolley overflowing with crap for little Tommy and Britney – that we are financing a tyrannical allegiance between governments and Big Industry.

Video: -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zU8SZQLDJw

Further Reading:

• Food Miles, or Fair Miles?
• The Peasants are Revolting
• Rich Nations Buying Up Land in Poor Countries at Escalating Rate

Source: -

http://permaculture.org.au/2009/12/26/the-price-of-development-in-china/

Bird Life, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Consumerism, Eco-Villages, Food Shortages, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development —

by Sarah Gorman December 10, 2009

Bronwyn’s urban backyard is teeming with diversity. It is providing local families with nutritious food through her Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), but she doesn’t think she is doing anything exceptional. Students from Mulloon Creek Natural Farm’s Permaculture Design Certificate course recently visited Bronwyn Richards’ home in Braidwood, NSW, Australia. They learnt how an urban gardener manages to provide a constant supply of organic vegetables not only for her own family, but five others.

Bronwyn’s bountiful garden doesn’t stop at the boundary of her house block. In true spirit of community and fair share, friendly neighbours have gladly let her use area that they don’t use, allowing Bronwyn to garden over an acre. So the hothouse can be found in the next door neighbour’s backyard this year and the turkeys forage under a neighbour’s old orchard.

As a passionate, down to earth, organic gardener, she has combined different methods, such as biodynamics and permaculture principles. The options she chooses suit her needs. For example, commercial day old ducklings and chicks are bought and raised free range for meat by hens that are “good mothers”. And the good mothers continue providing nutritious eggs.

Ducks, chickens and turkeys happily roam around the garden and the sheep (and sometimes, pigs) are kept amused down the back. Extra potatoes have been sown to give the next round of pigs something interesting to do while rooting around. In between the poultry and four legged creatures are the garden beds, regularly rotated with a diverse array of vegetables. Bronwyn’s philosophy is that if the animals and vegetables are happy and healthy, then when consumed by us, that essence is passed on.

Jerusalem Artichokes

The CSA model allows a close and flexible relationship with customers. Each week she emails them with a list of seasonal produce and the customers put in their orders. First in, first served. When there is an abundance of one vegetable, it is included in all the customer’s boxes. Sometimes customers are given something new for tasting. They can also ask Bronwyn to grow certain vegetables. As a grower, she finds it’s fantastic to have a consistent customer base. As Bronwyn is the gardener, she is at the natural limit of households she can provide for.

Bronwyn would encourage all of us to get in the garden and “just give it a go”.

Herbs

Source: -

http://permaculture.org.au/2009/12/10/an-urban-gardener-feeds-a-community/

House Financial Services Committee approved Ron Paul “Audit the Fed” * House Attacks Fed * Call for Geithner to Quit *

Critical Vote on Audit the Fed!

Congressman Paul will offer an amendment in Committee restoring an audit of the Fed’s entire $2 trillion balance sheet, but we have received word that some of the Democrat members may be waffling on their support for his amendment.

For example, Watt’s amendment prevents the GAO from auditing or reviewing decisions to authorize, modify, extend, or terminate loans or liquidity facilities.

Fed balance sheet can be audited, panel says

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – A key congressional committee approved legislation on Thursday that would allow for government audits of Federal Reserve monetary policy as well as how much the central bank has lent and will lend to specific banks in response to the financial crisis, despite major opposition from the central bank. The measure, introduced by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has the support of 309 members of Congress.

House Attacks Fed, Treasury

Panel Votes for Tighter Political Rein on Central Bank; Some Call for Geithner to Quit

WASHINGTON — Political frustration over the rescue of Wall Street and high unemployment erupted in Congress Thursday, with one committee threatening to impose tighter scrutiny on the Federal Reserve and another excoriating Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The House Financial Services Committee voted, 43-26, to approve a measure sponsored by Texas Republican Ron Paul, vociferously opposed by the Fed, that would direct the congressional Government Accountability Office to expand its audits of the Fed to include decisions about interest rates and lending to individual banks. The Fed says the provision threatens its ability to make monetary policy without political interference.

Treasury chief Geithner faced a House Republican who told him, ‘The public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job.’ He shot back: ‘What I can’t take responsibility is for the legacy of crises you’ve bequeathed this country.’

The vote was the latest blow to the central bank, which has been become a lightning rod for politicians responding to popular anger that Wall Street was bailed out while the public was not. The Fed faces a stinging backlash from legislators from both parties who argue that has too much power and too little oversight. On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee began debating legislation that would largely remove the Fed from bank supervision over the objections of both the Fed and the Obama administration.

The Paul-Grayson Amendment
by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson

“It is encouraging to see the issue of Federal Reserve transparency receiving so much attention during this current markup. Today we plan to offer an amendment to the Financial Stability Improvement Act that expands on the many extant proposals to enhance Federal Reserve transparency. Our amendment is based on HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which has broad bipartisan and grassroots support. The bill is cosponsored by 309 Members of Congress, including all Financial Services Committee Republicans and 13 Financial Services Committee Democrats.

The amendment removes restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve, as HR 1207 does, but makes a few changes to take into account some of the concerns that the Fed has made known in public testimony.

Unlike proposals that target the Fed’s 13(3) facilities, the Paul/Grayson amendment opens up the entire $2 trillion Federal Reserve balance sheet to a GAO audit.

Mr. bernanke, do THEY have OUR gold? or did THEY sell it to Europeans for $35/oz within years of being CONFISCATED from the American people at $25/oz after THEY bankrupted us in 1933?

Learn more about the corrupt “Federal Reserve System”:
http://americanbuilt.us/videos/federal-reserve-system.shtml

A video featuring quotes about a “New World Order” from 3 popes, richard nixon, dan quayle, bill AND hillary clinton, BOTH george w & gw bush, gordon brown, walter cronkite, george soros, henry kissinger, barack obama – and Lady GaGa gives the most important performance of her life.

1915 – Nov 27, Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler (on the executive committee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) delivered an address, “A New World Order is Being Born” to the Union League of Philadelphia in which he stated: “The old world order changed when this war storm broke–the old world order died with the setting of the day’s sun and a New World Order is being born while I speak.”

1976 Congressman Larry P. McDonald: “The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control…. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.”

1972 Robert Welch – May, page 10 “Or, as fellow Insider Mr. James Reston of the New York Times enthusiastically puts it, deliberately using the two-hundred years old language and slogan of the Conspiracy — ‘Mr. Nixon cannot become the head of a new world order (Novus Ordo Seclorum) unless the Communist nations are brought into the world order….’ ”

1972 Robert Welch – Sept, page 29 “This plan is to establish – very soon – the first stages of a ‘new world order.’ This will be the novus ordo seclorum for which a self-perpetuating inner circle of Conspirators has been working and scheming relentlessly during some six generations.”

1972 Robert Welch – Oct, page 28 “There should be no surprise for longtime readers of the Bulletin….that those plans include the conversion of the United States into a socialist nation – and the merger of that enslaved segment of mankind with other Communist nations into a New World Order. That goal, under that very name – originally written in bastardized Latin as novus ordo seclorum – has been envisioned by a Master Conspiracy for the past two hundred years as the ultimate product of all its crimes against humanity, and of all its subversive onslaughts against western civilization.”

2-25-1972: “and the hope that each of us has to build a new world order.” – nixon

1991 gw bush: “When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the UN’s founders.”

1993 – July 18: CFR member and Trilateralist Henry Kissinger writes in The Los Angeles Times concerning NAFTA: “What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system….a first step toward a new world order.”

1995 – Jan 27: Billionaire financier George Soros at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, says the world needs a “new world order,” and he further warns: “I am here to alert you that we are entering a period of world disorder.”

2001 – “There is a chance for the President of the United States to use this [9-11] disaster to carry out = a new world order.” (Gary Hart, at a televised meting organized by the CFR in Washington, DC 9/14/2001)

(EMAILWIRE.COM, September 28, 2009 ) Washington D.C., September 28, 2009 – Congressman Ron Paul will be making a return appearance on The Daily Show Tuesday, September 29 to talk about his latest book, End The Fed, which challenges the constitutionality of the Federal Reserve. The Congressman’s latest release recently entered the New York Times’ bestseller list at number six, mirroring the success of his previous book, The Revolution: A Manifesto.

End The Fed, has served as a rallying point for supporters of Paul’s bill, H.R. 1207 The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, meant to shed light on the practices of the nation’s central bank. Last week, the House Financial Services Committee held hearings on bringing more transparency to the Fed, this development came after increased support and a super-majority sponsorship of the bill in Congress.

The success of Congressman Paul’s book and the ‘Audit The Fed’ movement has given him a greater platform to spread his message of sound money and economic stability to the public, which seems to be growing ever more receptive since the economic crisis of last year.

The episode will air at 11:00 pm EST, and again Wednesday at 7:00 pm EST.

Paul, Bachmann to speak at student town hall at UofM

Republican U.S. Reps. Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul will share the stage at a student town hall this month.

The event, hosted by Young Americans for Liberty, will be held Sept. 25 at Northrop Auditorium on the campus of the University of Minnesota.

Organizers said Bachmann and Paul will discuss “monetary reform, limited government and free market economics” and that their appearance is designed to counter “President Obama’s health care proposal, bailout mania and the rapid rise of government control and spending.”

Bachmann, who is in her second term representing Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District, has attained a national profile as a conservative spokeswoman as a result of her regular appearances on cable television.

Paul, of Texas, attained a similar profile last year during his run for the Republican presidential nomination. Although he failed to attract a substantial number of votes, he attained surprising success in fundraising and grass-roots organizing.

The event is sponsored by the Minnesota Campaign for Liberty, Republican Party of Minnesota, Minneapolis City Republican Committee, College Republicans and Students for a Conservative Voice.

BOB VON STERNBERG

Video coverage of Congressman Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann speaking to students at University of Minnesota

Dr. Ron Paul’s Speech 10/25/2009 in Minneapolis

Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann Answer Student’s Questions

At the U, Paul and Bachmann question Washington’s corruption

In a Friday speech, the two rallied for new monetary policies and smaller government.

Addressing issues of economic responsibility and big government, Reps. Ron Paul, R-Texas and Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. spoke at a student town hall meeting in Northrop Auditorium Friday night to an audience of more than 600 people.

Bachmann and Paul highlighted the war on drugs, income tax and the government’s interference with the free market as policies that need to be changed in the United States.

The date of the speech coincided with the introduction of a bill Paul sponsored in the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.

The bill, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act , calls for an audit of the U.S. Federal Reserve to be completed by the end of 2010.

With wide-spread support including 271 co-sponsors, the bill calls for an end to the secrecy surrounding the acts of the Federal Reserve.

“Today, Ron Paul achieved a 26-year dream,” Bachmann said.

Both Bachmann and Paul blamed the Federal Reserve for the collapse of the dollar, citing its ability to print money without accountability.

“You can’t just print dollars,” Paul said.

Conservative groups, including Young Americans for Liberty and the College Republicans sponsored the event.

Minnesota College Republicans Chairman Abdul Magba-Kamara said Minnesota’s 5th and 6th Congressional districts have a strong Ron Paul following.

Chris Huxtable , president of Young Americans for Liberty — known as Students for Ron Paul during his 2008 presidential campaign — emphasized the importance of presenting opposing views on a campus like the University of Minnesota, which he views as liberal.

“It’s good to have rallies and events like this because they give people energy and something to look forward to,” he said. “If times seem dark, there is a hope for freedom and Ron Paul is the movement.”

Paul said the federal government does not have the right to tax a person’s income or dictate the way in which people live their private lives. He said it is the citizens’ duty to protect themselves from big government.

“The good patriot sticks with the people and questions the government,” Paul said.

He addressed the government’s use of fear to push its own agenda, pointing at the PATRIOT Act , the recent bailout and the wars in the Middle East.

Bachmann said today’s economic issues will be handed to the next generation to fix.

Following the speeches, which were met with both positive and negative outbursts from the crowd, there was a question and answer period. Most questions centered on the current health care reform debate.

Bachmann and Paul stated succinctly their belief that health care is not a right.

Karen Zaklika , 61, of St. Paul said she attended the event to show support for a public health care option. She said she would have liked to hear more of their stances.

Zach Holmquist , a sophomore English major, said the speakers did not need to talk more about the subject because that statement summed it up.

When Bachmann posed a question to the audience about whether they wanted health care under a system like those in the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union , those in the audience who, like Zaklika, support universal health care shouted, “Yes!”

Bachmann mentioned the Soviet Union’s health care system several times Friday in present tense — the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s.

Despite naysayers, the event raised excitement in furthering a belief in individual freedom. Organizers said this will help gain more support for Ron Paul.

“It’s important that we understand that we have not gained a lot in Washington yet,” Paul said. “We have a long way to go, but we’re making progress.”

BY ANISSA STOCKS & TARYN WOBBEMA

Ron Paul has been trying to get a hearing since 1964 and finally had1 this morning at 9:AM. almost all govt corruption was based on the fed since 1913.

we are attempting to abolish the federal reserve (per JFK policy) because they’re the reason why our “FIAT” paper dollars are only worth 3 cents. THEY recently gave $500,000,000,000 to foreign banks – that’s their profits from ripping off the American dollar. THEY gave New Zealand the equivalent of $3000 PER PERSON – imagine if that money was never stolen from Americans in the first place = no imaginary financial crisis.

The House Committee on Financial Services held its first major hearing on H.R. 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, today. H.R. 1207, originally introduced by Ron Paul (R-Texas), now has 295 cosponsors in the House and a great deal of public support. (The bill’s Senate equivalent, S.604, called the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act, has 28 cosponsors.)

Speaking on behalf of the Federal Reserve was Scott G. Alvarez, General Counsel, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Speaking for H.R. 1207 was Thomas E. Woods, Jr., author and economist for the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Both made available some prepared testimony.

In his statement Alvarez argued that the Fed already receives an independent audit by an “independent public accounting firm that is selected and retained by the Board’s Inspector General annually [and] audits the financial statements for the Federal Reserve System, including the Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve makes these audited financial statements available to the public and submits them to Congress with detailed annual reports of our activities.”

He added that “all of our supervisory and regulatory functions are subject to audit by the GAO to the same extent as the supervisory and regulatory functions of the other federal banking agencies.”

Alvarez conceded that “two highly sensitive areas” have been excluded by Congress from GAO review: “one is monetary policy deliberations, decisions, and actions … and the other is Federal Reserve transactions for or with foreign central banks, foreign governments, and public international financing organizations.” These, he said, are “to ensure that the Federal Reserve could ‘independently conduct the Nation’s monetary policy’.… Thus, the Congress has sought to maintain an independent monetary policy not because it benefits the Federal Reserve, but because of the important public benefit it provides.”

He then contended that H.R. 1207 would remove these exceptions and lead to “a substantial erosion of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy independence.” This would “undermine public and investor confidence in monetary policy,” which would in turn “increase inflation fears and market interest rates and, ultimately, damage economic stability and job creation.”

Thomas Woods’ remarks set out to refute these and other common arguments against H.R. 1207. Woods argued that the Fed’s independence is a myth. “The bill is not designed to empower politicians to increase the money supply, choose interest-rate targets, or adopt any of the Fed’s central planning apparatus, all of which is better left to the free market than to the Fed or Congress.” Moreover, “ with its chairman up for reappointment by the president every four years…. Fed chairmen have been known to ingratiate themselves into the president’s favor close to election time by means of loose monetary policy and the false (and temporary) prosperity it brings about.”

Woods intimated that the Fed is “independent” in ways that ought to alarm a free people who base their economic lives on an assumption that their money is sound: “The Fed may reward favored friends and constituencies with trillions of dollars in various kinds of assistance, while keeping the public completely in the dark. If that is the independence we are talking about, no self-respecting American would hesitate for a moment to challenge it.”

He argued further that monetary policy is already politicized and favors the well-connected: “Most Americans, not unreasonably, seem convinced of another thesis: that Goldman Sachs, for instance, might be just a little bit more politically well connected than the rest of us.”

Finally, if the Fed is already adequately audited, then “why is the Fed in panic mode over this bill? It is the broad areas these audits exclude that the American public is increasingly interested in investigating, and these are the gaps that H.R. 1207 seeks to fill.”

Woods asked “if our monetary system were really as strong, robust, and beyond criticism as its cheerleaders claim, why does it need to rely so heavily on public ignorance? How can it be a sound banking system that depends on keeping the public in the dark about the condition of its financial institutions?”

In closing, he turned on its head a remark that is often made by those of an authoritarian stripe who believe we should trust our political and financial overlords in all things, including when we believe our rights and privacy are being violated: “The Fed should take to heart the words of consolation the American people are given whenever a new government surveillance program is uncovered: if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.”

From an economic standpoint, the Federal Reserve does plenty that can be considered wrong to the point of irrational: creating hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air, and thus devaluing our currency. Our dollars have lost between 97 and 98 percent of their value since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 — following the now well-documented, but at the time highly secretive, meeting of powerful banking elites that designed the legislation to create the Fed at their enclave on Jekyll Island, Georgia.

Some might wonder why criticisms of the Fed are limited to just a few mostly solitary economics voices, such as Ron Paul, who are considered not “real” economists by the majority of those in that profession. A recent Huffington Post inquiry revealed the answer to this: for all practical purposes, the Fed owns the economics profession in the United States. You do not get to be an economics professor at a major university if you do not publish in one of the major journals of the field such as the Journal of Monetary Economics. These journals’ editorial boards have a significant fraction of members on the Fed payroll! This ensures that critics of the Federal Reserve will not be published, not receive tenure at major universities, and therefore not be in a position to educate the next generation of economists.

Such revelations help us understand why almost no one in the economics profession anticipated the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression — which was predicted by Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and others of the “contrarian” orbit who have subsisted outside of the economics “mainstream.”

Part of taking back our country from the elites necessarily includes taking back the economics profession. Subjecting the Federal Reserve to a full audit is a step toward what would really be desirable, which is to do what Andrew Jackson did to the Second Bank of the United States: close it down, as an institution both unnecessary and destructive of the economic lives of a free people.

Source JBS.org: Hearings Held on Ron Paul’s “Audit the Fed” Bill

Look Who’s Testifying During Ron Paul’s HR1207 Hearing Tomorrow

Ron Paul is bringing a friend to Washington DC tomorrow to testify during the hearing on Paul’s HR.1207. Thomas Woods, author of “Meltdown“, is on the list of witnesses. The only other currently listed witness is Federal Reserve General Counsel Scott Alvarez. What an interesting combination this is going to be.

Alvarez is quoted in the Wall Street Journal today (from his prepared remarks):

Fed General Counsel Scott Alvarez, in testimony prepared for a Friday hearing, said legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives giving the Government Accountability Office greater leeway to examine the central bank could have a detrimental effect.

“These concerns likely would increase inflation fears and market interest rates and, ultimately, damage economic stability and job creation,” Alvarez said in the prepared remarks for the House Financial Services Committee hearing.

If I were on the Financial Services Committee I’d suggest to Alvarez that the Fed itself is the cause of economic instability and a full GAO audit will neither help nor hinder its “ability” to continue being the primary cause of economic instability. I’m sure Ron Paul and Tom Woods won’t hesitate to make this point.

It’s rare occasion when I can say this, but… this Financial Services Committee hearing is going to be fun.

Click here to learn more about the Federal Reserve