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3/25/2006

Cyclone Wati Hitting Us in the Ten Ring :.

A Biblical style deluge has been pouring out of the sky for about the last 24 hours. The remnants of cyclone Wati are bearing down on us. The article mentions, "the eastern hills of Northland." Well, that's pretty much us.

The good news is that our property is a decent candidate for hydro power. Bex and I were just outside in our gumboots, checking out the realm. The stream on our property has a great flow. There are a couple of small waterfalls as well. It's amazing!

The bad news is that the power has been knocked out by the storm. My laptop is running on batteries. Obviously, the phone still works.

Now, if only I'd fired up that hydro generator...

Northland in for battering as Cyclone Wati approaches

26.03.06 9.00am

People living in Northland are being warned to batten down the hatches today.

Cyclone Wati is continuing to creep towards the top of the North Island.

Strong winds reaching gale force in exposed areas are forecast, along with heavy rain. Thunderstorms are expected north of Whangarei.

CNN forecaster Martin Jeanes says the centre of the storm is now over the Coral Sea.

MetService says Cyclone Wati is dragging down a lot of moist tropical air.

Up to 120mm of rain is expected in the eastern hills of Northland by midnight.

- NEWSTALK ZB


3/21/2006

Solar Pyramids Being Built in India :.

Coal. Natural gas. Nuclear fission.

How about: Heat rises?

Clean energy solutions are simple to the point of being unthinkable... And unstoppable once people wake up:

A Singapore-based company, MSC Power Corp, is building its first "solar pyramid" in India. The solar pyramid works by drawing in air, heating it with solar energy and moving it through turbines to generate electricity. The company aims to be listed this year on NASDAQ in an initial public offering that it says could be worth more than $5 billion.

The small scale of the power generation - up to 36 MW with the current design means it is more suitable for rural areas than for powering cities.

A 10 MW pyramid plant would be about 45 metres high and take up about 2,500 square metres of space, including an associated desalination plant.

The firm, MSC Power Corp, backed by private investors from the Middle East and Asia, will finish constructing a small $10 million five megawatt (MW) power station by June in Pune near Mumbai that will use solar energy to power wind turbines.



Peak Oil? How About Anything Into Oil? :.

Turkey guts, junked car parts, and even raw sewage go in one end of this plant, and black gold comes out the other end.

-Brad Lemley, DISCOVER, Vol. 27 No. 04, April 2006
The Peak Oil collapse crowd refuses to entertain the possibility that They have a trump card up their collective sleeve. This, of course, is the stuff of conspiracy theorists, etc.

The hardcore Peaknics will shoot down thermal depolymerization with the argument that there isn't enough energy to pull off the process on the scale required.

Fine and maybe so.

Now, did you ever hear the one about Boeing's Bird of Prey?

Gather 'round chillen. This is from, Top secret stealth jet revealed, 21 October 2002, NewScientist.com news service, David Windle:
A formerly top secret, bat-winged stealth jet has taken the aviation world by surprise, after a low key unveiling in St Louis, Missouri.

It may look like it flew straight off the screen of a sci-fi movie, but the Bird of Prey is no flight of fancy - it could translate into serious business for its makers, aerospace giant Boeing.

"Here we have an example of a classic 'black' programme: an aircraft which has been built and flight tested for a number of years - and no one outside the programme knew about it," says Nick Cook, aerospace consultant to Janes Defence Weekly. Other highly classified aircraft that have ultimately been revealed included the U-2 and Blackbird spy planes and the B-2 stealth bomber.

The Bird of Prey cost $67 million and is the product of Boeing's advanced research and development division, the Phantom Works. It first flew in 1996 and is said to have demonstrated a range of stealth and production technologies.
Look at that thing. Look at it! How many people had to be involved in the creation of something like that? It's got to be thousands, and most of the individual engineers probably had no idea what the final product actually was due to compartmentalization.

If the American Corporate State can design, build and ultimately fly a stealth aircraft in total secrecy, what else are They capable of doing in total secrecy? What other technologies have been sitting on shelves in various underground crypts for the last twenty or thirty years?

What's more important than energy?

Anyone who believes that the American Corporate State hasn't done exotic energy research in total secrecy is, in my opinion, nuts.

I'm not saying that a collapse due to energy isn't going to occur, all I'm saying is that if it does, it's by design. They probably found the answer---or, more likely, multiple answers---decades ago. But that's just a conspiracy theory.... Like the silly story of a stealth jet; funded, built and flown in total secrecy.

Related: Successful CFR replication by L. Kowalski, R. Slaughter and P. Clauzon

Research Credit: TR



General Motors in Crisis Talks to Cut 35,000 Jobs :.

General Motors is trying to stave off the possibility of collapse by thrashing out a last-minute job reduction plan with its former subsidiary and now major parts supplier, Delphi, and the powerful United Auto Workers union.

The plan on the table is believed to involve offering up to 35,000 employees in both companies cash incentives of up to $35,000 (GBP20,000) to take early retirement.


Related: Future of the Union



U.S. War Spending to Rise 44% to $9.8 Billion Per Month :.

U.S. military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan will average 44 percent more in the current fiscal year than in fiscal 2005, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said.

Spending will rise to $9.8 billion a month from the $6.8 billion a month the Pentagon said it spent last year, the research service said.



Iraqi Police Claim U.S. Troops Executed Family :.

More progress in Iraq:

Iraqi police have accused American soldiers of executing 11 Iraqi civilians, including four children and a six-month-old baby, in a raid on Wednesday near the city of Balad, it was reported yesterday.

The allegations are contained in an Iraqi police report on the killings, obtained and published by the Knight Ridder news agency. The report emerged at a time when a US navy criminal investigation is under way into a previous incident, in November, in which marines are accused of killing 15 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in reprisal for a bomb attack on a US patrol.

Last week's incident in the village of Abu Sifa, near Balad, stand out because of the seriousness of the accusations and the fact that they appear on an official police report signed by Iraqi officers.

After listing other incidents in the area, the report for March 15 states: "American forces used helicopters to drop troops on the house of Faiz Harat Khalaf situated in the Abu Sifa village of the Ishaqi district. The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people, including five children, four women and two men, then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals." Among victims the report lists two five-year-old children, two three-year-olds and a six-month-old baby.


3/20/2006

Several Readers Sent Contributions

Since I moved to New Zealand, the quality and frequency of posts on Cryptogon has suffered. I apologize for that.

Becky and I got married, again! :) This time with about 65 of Becky's friends and family from all over New Zealand.

We've been going on hikes and adventures around the Far North, as well as trying to get things sorted out in our new house.

Becky planted a small garden in the "kitchen garden" space on the side of our house. That's the only arable soil we have at the moment.


I need to clear about half an acre of matted kikuyu grass that has fully taken over the area we need to transform into our real garden.

Bex and I hung out with our neighbors, Jackie and Baz today. (They're very cool people. And living off grid!) I happened to mention that we're shopping for a brushcutter (imagine a gas powered weed-whacker, except with a blade instead of a nylon string) to deal with the initial phase of the kikuyu situation.

We had been considering a Stihl, but people who know from experience suggested the Echo brand. Would you believe that Jackie owned an Echo brushcutter? She and Baz were kind enough to fire it up and let me go a few rounds with some of their kikuyu. That thing really did the trick!

So, all of these generous contributions are going to go straight into the purchase of a brushcutter. (The electric fence system for the livestock also needs to be repaired, but that's another story.)

Thank you all very much! Your U.S. dollars go a long way in New Zealand!

MW $20
MO $100 !!!
KH $30
MJ $20
JG $30
RB $20
SI $10

P.S. I have lots of interesting stories about New Zealand already---and pictures! You can't imagine a slower, more relaxed place than Northland NZ, but somehow, I'm running out of time to do the things I want to do with Cryptogon and the new farm website. As winter sets in here, I'll probably get more time in front of the computer. You know, like when the road washes away. HAHA!




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