cryptogon.com
   HOME
10/28/2006

EGYPT MOVES 5,000 TROOPS NEAR GAZA BORDER :.

Egypt moved 5,000 more security forces near the Gaza Strip border on Saturday after an Israeli report said Israel may bomb tunnels used for smuggling weapons into Palestinian territories, an Egyptian official said.



GAO Chief Warns Economic Disaster Looms :.

Maybe David Walker and the gang didn't get the memo on the mysterious buyers... Doesn't the eerie "bid" in the equity markets help them sleep peacefully at night?

This show would have already come down if it wasn't for the macroeconomic black ops. Rather than allowing this thing to die, it is being kept in an undead state for as long as possible.

With the debt closing in on $9 trillion, we're already living well within the realm of financial make believe. Could the debt reach $46 trillion or more? There's no purely economic reason why it couldn't. I don't see any difference between $9 trillion and $100 trillion. IT'S ALL FAKE AT THIS POINT.

Here's a list of things that are---unlike "Economics"---very real:

Water scarcity

Energy scarcity

Food scarcity

Raw materials scarcity

Weather cataclysms/global warming

In a word, 'Overshoot'

Any one of those issues could deliver a kill shot to this horror show we call the global economy. And, as I'm sure you already know, they're all starting to impact at the same time. But never mind all of that, just pay attention to "the terrorists." The terrorists! LOOK OUT!!! THE TERRORISTS!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Their basic message is this: If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation. That's almost as much as the total net worth of every person in America - Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and those Google guys included.

A hole that big could paralyze the U.S. economy; according to some projections, just the interest payments on a debt that big would be as much as all the taxes the government collects today.

And every year that nothing is done about it, Walker says, the problem grows by $2 trillion to $3 trillion.



UK: The Vigilante War on Speed-Limit Cameras :.

I wondered where the breaking point was for the Brits. It turns out that there is a limit to what they will tolerate:

Britons are vandalizing the country's growing army of speed surveillance cameras. The government has set up thousands of cameras to catch speeders; one vigilante group alone claims to have damaged more than 1,000. Favored techniques: "digging them up; shooting, hammering and firebombing them."

More: NY Times Article - Cameras Catch Speeding Britons and Lots of Grief

Research Credit: West



Bush Moves Toward Martial Law :.

There's probably not long to go now...

In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

...

Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy."


Research Credit: BW



FLOTILLA OF WARSHIPS SURROUNDS RAS TANURA :.

Are They going to hit Ras Tanura and blame Iran?

A British navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said a threat from al-Qaida last month to target gulf oil terminals had resulted in stepped-up security and vigilance at Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura terminal, as well as a refinery in Bahrain.

...

The British navy, part of the Italian-led Coalition Task Force 152 that patrols international waters off the Ras Tanura terminal, sent an e-mail warning on Friday asking merchant shippers in the region of Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia to be on alert for suspicious vessels or other activity.

Task Force 152 also contains ships from French, U.S., German and other navies.



SAUDI ARABIA CONFIRMS THREAT TO RAS TANURA :.

Top world oil exporter Saudi Arabia said on Friday it was taking measures to protect its oil and economic installations from a "terrorist threat".

Western naval forces in the Gulf have been deployed to counter a possible seaborne threat to its Ras Tanura oil terminal.

"The terrorist threat to the kingdom's economic installation exists and it is a declared goal of the straying faction to affect the interests of the Saudi citizen," an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

"Saudi security forces are cooperating and coordinating with the Saudi navy to take the necessary security measures," he told Reuters.


Related: The Strait of Hormuz: It's Not That Bad, It's Worse


10/27/2006

Cryptogon Reader Contributes $20

Core Cryptogon supporter, MW, sent another $20 contribution. Thanks, MW!


10/26/2006

Now Europe Targets Bloggers As Terrorists :.

The only remaining outlet for the groundswell of dissent in opposition to the Neo-Fascist takeover of the west is the Internet, and it keeps these jack-booted bastards awake at night to think you can sit in front of your computer and broadcast your outrage to the four corners of the earth on a whim.



Real Estate Crash Continues... :.

* yawn *

New home prices fell last month by the largest amount in 35 years and owners are being warned to brace for further declines, especially in formerly hot markets.

After years of increases, some buyers say prices are still out of their range.

The Commerce Department reported that the median price for a new home sold in September was $217,100, a decline of 9.7 percent from September 2005.

That was the lowest median home price in two years and the sharpest year-over-year decline since December 1970, providing dramatic evidence of the slowdown in the once-booming housing market.

The median price is the middle point, where half sell for more and half sell for less.

The price decline for new homes followed a report Wednesday that prices in the much bigger existing home sales market also dropped on a year-over-year basis in September by 2.5 percent, the largest decline in records going back nearly four decades.



How to Steal an Election by Hacking the Vote :.

Hint to the author of this piece: The time to hit the panic button passed long ago, before any of us were alive.

It would be less humiliating if U.S. elections were simply canceled. At least we wouldn't have to listen to the nauseating, hollow, droning rhetoric about freedom and democracy anymore. We could just focus on sports, entertainment and the latest celebrity news without any unsettling distractions:

Over the course of almost eight years of reporting for Ars Technica, I've followed the merging of the areas of election security and information security, a merging that was accelerated much too rapidly in the wake of the 2000 presidential election. In all this time, I've yet to find a good way to convey to the non-technical public how well and truly screwed up we presently are, six years after the Florida recount. So now it's time to hit the panic button: In this article, I'm going to show you how to steal an election.



The Bush Family: 'Dynasty of Death' :.

There is no historic parallel that can be drawn, nothing compares with the accomplishments of the Bush family. No dictator or tyrant can equal the suffering and destruction they have wrought on humanity, as they are not mere tyrants themselves, but the makers and breakers of tyrants, the organizers and profiteers of war and death. They are not alone and solely responsible for creating the present day military industrial complex, however since 1915 the Bush family has been directly involved in World War One and Two, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, numerous CIA secret wars, the Gulf War, and now a "Never Ending War". The past four generations of this one family have had a hand in promoting and profiting from most of major wars that America has waged since the beginning of the industrialized age.



Homeschooling Illegal in Germany :.

I just learned that parents who attempt to homeschool their kids in Germany are rabidly persecuted by the state. When you research this, you'll find that it's mostly evangelical Christians who are refusing to send their kids to public school.

Evangelical Christians are nuts, there is no doubt about it, but if the cops show up to take their kids away for indoctrination by the state, it means that the cops can show up to take your kids away for indoctrination by the state:

The German government is persecuting homeschoolers like never before. Armin Eckermann, president of Schulunterricht zu Hause (School Instruction at Home--SIH), the homeschool legal defense association of Germany, states that there are over 40 homeschool families in court in Germany!

The families are being heavily fined; the parents are being jailed; the children are being threatened with being seized and placed in the custody of the state; and families are being forced to flee to Austria and other surrounding countries.

Here are a few current and frightening situations...



NSA Facility that Houses U.S. Army's Largest Counterintelligence Unit Destroyed by Fire :.

What was "The Deuce" up to? Did they find something that they weren't supposed to find? Worse, maybe they were going to do something about it.

Also, in 9/11 Mysteries - Demolitions, remember all the bits about construction in the days before the attacks. Hale Hall had "minor construction" underway when it burst into flames.

Someone could make a career out of researching this incident:

Nicknamed "The Deuce" and led by Col. Christopher L. Winne who took command in July, the 902nd is the Army's largest counterintelligence unit with more than 1,000 people.

According to the its Web site, the group "conducts counterintelligence activities in support of Army commanders and to protect Army forces, secrets and technologies by detecting, identifying, neutralizing and exploiting foreign intelligence services and international terrorist threats."

Its "core competencies" include espionage, computer forensics, surveillance and polygraph, the Web site states.

NBC's Dateline program reported last December that members of the 902nd infiltrated an anti-war Quaker group in Florida called the Truth Project.

The Truth Project was deemed to be a threat, NBC reported.


10/25/2006

Spiegel: America and the Dollar Illusion :.

The dollar is still the world's reserve currency, even though it hasn't deserved this status for a long time. The devaluation of the dollar can't be stopped -- it can only be deferred. The result could be a world economic crisis.



Home Prices Post Record Drop :.

If this is "lukewarm," I'd hate to see a full blown crash!

Sales of existing homes fell for a sixth straight month in September and the median sales price dropped on an annual basis by the largest amount on record, further documenting a lukewarm [sic] housing market.

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes fell by 1.9 percent in September to a seasonally adjusted sales pace of 6.18 million units, the slowest sales rate since January 2004.

The median price of a single-family home fell to $219,800 last month, a drop of 2.5 percent from the price in September 2005. That was the biggest year-over-year price decline in records going back nearly four decades.

Housing, which had set sales records for both new and existing homes for five consecutive years, has been rapidly loosing altitude this year, as consumers were battered by rising mortgage rates, soaring energy prices and a slowing economy.



Humans Living Far Beyond Planet's Means :.

Humans seemed to be capable of such remarkable things, good things, but in the end, we wound up shitting in what remained of our drinking water and murdering the planet in order to choke ourselves on trash. What a sad way to go...

Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday.

Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report.

"For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.

"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing.

People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland and Canada, the report said.

Australia was also living well beyond its means.

The average Australian used 6.6 "global" hectares to support their developed lifestyle, ranking behind the United States and Canada, but ahead of the United Kingdom, Russia, China and Japan.

"If the rest of the world led the kind of lifestyles we do here in Australia, we would require three-and-a-half planets to provide the resources we use and to absorb the waste," said Greg Bourne, WWF-Australia chief executive officer.

Everyone would have to change lifestyles -- cutting use of fossil fuels and improving management of everything from farming to fisheries.

"As countries work to improve the well-being of their people, they risk bypassing the goal of sustainability," said Leape, speaking in an energy-efficient building at Beijing's prestigous Tsinghua University.

"It is inevitable that this disconnect will eventually limit the abilities of poor countries to develop and rich countries to maintain their prosperity," he added.

The report said humans' "ecological footprint" -- the demand people place on the natural world -- was 25 percent greater than the planet's annual ability to provide everything from food to energy and recycle all human waste in 2003.

In the previous report, the 2001 overshoot was 21 percent.

"On current projections humanity, will be using two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050 -- if those resources have not run out by then," the latest report said.

"People are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources."



NZ Commissioner for the Environment: "We Are in for a Rough Road" :.

Make your time:

Speaking in Marlborough, Dr Williams said the latest evidence showed global warming was happening, and an expanding China, changing world markets and water availability meant New Zealand could be in for a rough ride.

"The debate is over," he said.

New Zealand should be future-proofing, and thinking and investing "outside the square".

Dr Williams said New Zealand had to look after its natural assets and he challenged urban and rural leaders to discuss where it was going in the long term.

Global forces meant the planet was moving into a period of massive reshaping: "We are in for a rough road."


10/24/2006

Drug Raid Yields Classified Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab Documents :.

You've gotta love it. The first sentence is a true keeper:

A drug bust at a trailer park in New Mexico turned up what appeared to be classified documents taken from the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory, authorities said Tuesday.

Local police found the documents while arresting a man suspected of domestic violence and dealing methamphetamine from his mobile home, said Sgt. Chuck Ney of the Los Alamos, N.M., Municipal Police Department. The documents were discovered during a search of the man's records for evidence of his drug business, Ney said.

Police alerted the FBI to the secret documents, which agents traced back to a woman linked to the drug dealer, officials said. The woman is a contract employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to an FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.

The official would not describe the documents except to say that they appeared to contain classified material and were stored on a computer file.

FBI special agent Bill Elwell in Albuquerque, N.M., confirmed that a search warrant was executed on Friday night, but he refused to discuss details.

"We do have an investigation with regard to the matter, but our standard is we do not discuss pending investigations," Elwell said.

A spokesman for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, in Los Alamos, N.M., declined to comment.



The Eerie "Bid" in the Equity Markets :.

This thing is the greatest show on earth. You can calmly explain why these markets can't be viable---list a thousand sources, two thousand, whatever---and then just stand back as you watch the antics in the bigtop get more dangerous and incomprehensible.

Remember my recent ramble about short squeezes:
When so many people get short, it doesn't take much to shake them out of their positions and actually cause a strong (temporary) rally! All They have to do to cause a massive short covering rally is to start buying index futures, in a sustained way, for a few minutes and * boom * it's on. Many shorts will yield to the "unseen hand of the market" and cover their positions. It only takes a couple of hundred million leveraged dollars to touch off one of these moves. I've seen it happen dozens of times. TR and I used to have this radar thing scanning the market, looking for "weird" momentum, among other things. A couple of times, we got alarms on nearly the entire NASDAQ 100 and lots of lower tiered relatives.

Once, TR yelled out, "What the hell happened!?"

I said, "The 'unseen hand of the market' just slapped everyone across the face and said, 'I own this show.'"

The clinical term for this is buy program (or sell program) and if you have a way of visualizing the market, like we did, it's an awe inspiring thing. Most of the time, the market looks mostly like semi-random noise. Sometimes, you get more up trending noise. Sometimes, more down trending noise. Occasionally, though, nearly all of the money goes mostly one way or the other. These are the times when the wizard behind the curtain (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, etc.) starts pulling the big levers.
Well, as usual, don't take my tinfoil tainted word for it. I mean, it's all conspiracy theory, right?

Let Raymond James Chief Investment Strategist, Jeff Saut, introduce you to the "mysterious buyers" concept... After he assures you that he's not a conspiracy theorist.

What's the matter, Jeff, tinfoil hat doesn't match your suit and tie?

...It's also worth noting that we're not conspiracy theorists, believing that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that George W. Bush really did win the election. Yet, there remains an eerie "bid" in the equity markets since those July lows. For example, markets typically rally, then correct by about one-quarter to one-third of that rally's point gain, before beginning another rally phase. After that phase, they again correct by one-quarter to one-third before re-rallying. This, however, has not been the case recently. Indeed, every time it looked like the indices were about to correct, mysterious buyers materialized in the futures markets. Those "buyers" tend to widen the futures premiums so far above the cash markets that it attracts arbitrageurs. The arbs, in turn, short the futures and buy the appropriate baskets of stocks. That operation allows the arbs to "lock in" the spread between the futures price and what they paid for the basket of stocks, assuring them a risk-less profit and, in the process, driving stocks higher.

Research Credit: West



Laptops at U.S. Border: No Privacy Rights :.

Assuming that you're allowed to leave the U.S. in the first place, consider traveling using a laptop without a hard drive installed. When you need to do work, boot a live-CD OS and use a virtual session on some server located in a free country. Let the f*ckers at the airport examine your laptop until the cows come home. What are they going to find on a computer with no hard drive?

Or, maybe a laptop without a hard drive installed will win you instant enemy combatant status...

Have a nice flight:

Last week, an informal survey by the association, which has about 2,500 members worldwide, indicated that almost 90 percent of its members were not aware that U.S. customs officials have the authority to scrutinize the contents of travelers' laptops and even confiscate them for a period of time, without giving a reason. Appeals are under way in some confiscation cases, but the law is clear.

"They don't need probable cause to perform these searches under the current law," said Tim Kane, a Washington lawyer who is researching the matter for corporate clients. "They can do it without suspicion or without really revealing their motivations."

Laptops may be scrutinized and subject to a "forensic analysis" under the so-called border search exemption, which allows searches of people entering the United States and their possessions "without probable cause, reasonable suspicion or a warrant," a U.S. court ruled in July.



America's Other Drinking Problem :.

The addict feels low. His body needs a boost. He reaches into his pocket and finds a dollar bill. He slides it into the machine and a can rolls out. He opens the can and guzzles. He feels his energy return. His fix will last a couple of hours, enough to keep him alert for the rest of the morning.

The addict is twelve years old and his drug is a soft drink, purchased from a vending machine in his school. This addict and thousands like him will attend special classes, sponsored by his school, to warn him about the dangers of drugs, tobacco and alcohol. But no one will tell him about America’s other drinking problem.



Kill Switch Installed on the Dollar: Made in China :.

What happens when Americans are no longer able to take money out of their stucco box ATMs to buy Chinese goods?

The Chinese don't want to get stuck holding all of that funny money!

But don't take my word for it:
Zhong Wei, deputy editor-in-chief of China Foreign Exchange Magazine, said China needed to make "innovative adjustments" to the management of its reserves, which swelled to US$987.9bil at the end of September.

The stash, the world's largest, was on track to hit the US$1.5tril mark in the second quarter of 2008, Zhong wrote in the overseas edition of the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's mouthpiece.

He estimated that China in fact needed reserves of no more than US$800bil.

"The current foreign exchange management regime is extremely unsophisticated and is obviously not suitable for China's almost US$1tril in reserves," he wrote.
Hmmm. If China only needs to hold a maximum of US$800 billion, who's going to buy the other US$700 billion that China plans on dumping?

Work that out while I go dig up some more garden beds.



Global Ecosystems 'Face Collapse' :.

Current global consumption levels could result in a large-scale ecosystem collapse by the middle of the century, environmental group WWF has warned.

The group's biannual Living Planet Report said the natural world was being degraded "at a rate unprecedented in human history".

Terrestrial species had declined by 31% between 1970-2003, the findings showed.

It warned that if demand continued at the current rate, two planets would be needed to meet global demand by 2050.

The biodiversity loss was a result of resources being consumed faster than the planet could replace them, the authors said.

They added that if the world's population shared the UK's lifestyle, three planets would be needed to support their needs.


10/23/2006

The Next War: Pentagon Papers v2.0? :.

Daniel Ellsberg is asking brave military officers and intelligence agency personnel to leak documents related to the planning for the upcoming war with Iran. He's asking them not to make the same mistake he made in waiting too long before he leaked what became known as The Pentagon Papers.

Orange jumpsuits for the heroic leakers, or mass graves for the victims. Those are the options at this late stage of the game:

We face today a crisis similar to those of 1964 and 2002, a crisis hidden once again from the public and most of Congress. Articles by Seymour Hersh and others have revealed that, as in both those earlier cases, the president has secretly directed the completion, though not yet execution, of military operational plans---not merely hypothetical "contingency plans" but constantly updated plans, with movement of forces and high states of readiness, for prompt implementation on command---for attacking a country that, unless attacked itself, poses no threat to the United States: in this case, Iran.



U.S. Bans Vegemite :.

UPDATE: Vegemite Is Not Banned in the U.S.

Thanks for making us look, though!

Folic acid is a potent anti cancer substance, and is critical in pre-natal health. Vegemite is banned, but products containing Aspartame, a multipotential carcinogen, are just fine...

Do you get it yet?

THE United States has slapped a ban on Vegemite, outraging Australian expatriates there.

The bizarre crackdown was prompted because Vegemite contains folate, which in the US can be added only to breads and cereals.


10/22/2006

Oil, Smoke and Mirrors :.

If you, or someone you know, needs to be brought up to speed, this film can do it in just under fifty minutes. Watch it for free, buy the DVD if you wish, send the link to anyone who might be interested in saving their own life.

I would only make the effort for family and close friends at this point; maybe the people you would like to have with you when you move away from your doomed city or suburb. Don't waste any of your time with "the man on the street." Don't bother arguing or debating any of this. If the people you send this to don't want to take bold, drastic action right now: Give them a hug, say goodbye and run for your life. Don't look back:

"Oil, Smoke & Mirrors" offers a bleaker view of present global circumstances than many of us would dare consider. It deals with issues that are largely marginalised, if not ignored, in the discourse of mainstream media and politics.

However, as the film argues, it may well be that mediated political culture itself which, by sidelining some of the most challenging questions of historical truth in our time, poses the gravest threat to our future.



UK: Pub Customers Face Mandatory Fingerprinting :.

Try to imagine what this horror show will be like in 20 years! Do you dare to even entertain such horrible thoughts?

Every time I think, "Nope. It's too absurd. People won't go along with it," guess what? They do.

The government is funding the roll out of fingerprint security at the doors of pubs and clubs in major English cities.

...

Some licensees were not happy to have their punters fingerprinted, but are all now apparently behind the idea. Not only does the council let them open later if they join the scheme...

...

Oh, and they are also coerced into taking the fingerprint system. New licences stipulate that a landlord who doesn't install fingerprint security and fails to show a "considerable" reduction in alcohol-related violence, will be put on report by the police and have their licences revoked.

...

Bradburn noted the system had a "psychological effect" on offenders.




Google


cryptogon.com
www

:. Reading

Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell Readers will come to see that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest" - fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate farms.

Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross This is a relatively short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward; the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.

The Good Life
by Scott and Helen Nearing
Helen and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating, timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.

Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd In Silent Theft, David Bollier argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs, software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often, however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps give away our assets. Amazingly, the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed because we have lost our ability to see the commons.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide by John Seymour The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.

When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten When Corporations Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It documents the devastating human and environmental consequences of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their own narrow ends.

The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener This expansion of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables, with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock, the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other topics.