Saturday, December 20, 2014

From fighting tigers and leaping wildebeest to incredible urban snapshots: National Geographic readers' best photographs

· The winners and honourable mentions from National Geographic Reader's Photos of the year competition

· More than 9,200 entries came from over 150 countries for the contest covering people, places and nature

· Grand prize went to Hong Kong's Brian Yen for his shot of a woman on a crowded train

On a crowded Hong Kong train yet seemingly so alone, a young woman's face is illuminated by the glow of her smartphone - this is the image judged the year's best and grand prize winner in National Geographic Readers' Photos of the Year competition.

The image entitled A Node Glows in the Dark, shot by Brian Yen of Hong Kong, beat more than 9,200 other entries which include stunning images of wildlife, natural phenomena and snapshots of unique cultures to the US$10,000 (£6,400) top prize.

Submissions were made from over 150 countries with their subject matter just as diverse, capturing a vast array of the earth's rich tapestry across three categories - people, places and nature.

Scroll down for video

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The National Geographic Readers' Photos of the year Grand Prize winning photograph from Brian Yen is a single image statement on technology, modern life and how advances have impacted our lives. Yen said of his successful entry: 'She's a node flickering on the social web, roaming the Earth, free as a butterfly. Our existence is no longer stuck to the physical here; we're free to run away, and run we will'

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A wildebeest jumps off a steep ledge at the Mara River in Tanzania's North Serengeti Nicole Cambre's shot, which won the Nature category

A shot of mist rising from Budapest's thermal spas at night by Tristan Yeo claimed the places honour while the premier nature image, by Nicole Cambre, features a wildebeest jumping off a steep ledge at the Mara River in Tanzania's North Serengeti.

Yet the winner came from a distinctly urban setting.

'I feel a certain contradiction when I look at the picture,' said Yen. “On the one hand, I feel the liberating gift of technology. On the other hand, I feel people don’t even try to be neighborly anymore, because they don’t have to.'

Scroll down for more incredible images, including the winners and those given honourable mentions by judges including National Geographic photographers John Stanmeyer and Erika Larsen, and the company's general manager of digital, Keith Jenkins.

Incredible and bizarre the best animal videos 2014

The moment car explodes into pieces as LIGHTNING allegedly hits it during high-speed police chase after church robbery

Gone in a flash? The moment car explodes into pieces as LIGHTNING allegedly hits it during high-speed police chase after church robbery

A hair-raising video has emerged that a car full of masked robbers exploding moments after they raided a church in Russia - and witnesses insist they were hit by lightning.

The dash cam footage uploaded by YouTube user World News TV, shows a vehicle speeding along with a police siren sounding in the background.

All of a sudden the car bursts into flames and explodes, sending debris all over the road.

Dashcam: Robbers' car 'destroyed by lightning bolt'

The vehicle filming the incident immediately slows down and pulls over.

According to a caption accompanying the video, everyone in the runaway car died as a result of the electrical bolt.

It is not known how many passengers were traveling at the time.

Another car was also damaged in the supposed accident which allegedly took place on December 9.

Caught on camera: A hair-raising video has emerged of a bolt of lightning allegedly hitting a carful of masked robbers who had just raided a church in Russia

Gone in a flash: The dash cam footage shows the vehicle speeding along with a police siren sounding in the background - All of a sudden the car bursts into flames and explodes sending debris all over the road

Chaotic: All of a sudden the car bursts into flames and explodes sending debris all over the road

Blown to smithereens: According to a caption accompanying the video, everyone in the runaway car died. But it's unclear just how real it is at all

It's also not clear who made the video or just how real it is.

The thieves had reportedly robbed a church in the city of St Petersburg.

To date the video has been watched more than 90,000 times. So even though it may not be real, it certainly has legs.

Many viewers though have deemed it an example of 'divine intervention'.

According to experts, the chances of getting killed by lightning are around 300,000 to one.

JCR

JC @JCR3758 ·

Guys some people will exchange b4 Xmas. Others will have appts till the end of year & continue in Jan. The banks are ready. UST ready now.

JC @JCR3758 ·

More announcements are being done in Iraq to prepare the people of the currency changes. Vendor awareness to prevent abuse & overpayments.

JC @JCR3758 ·

Funds are ready & deposited in paymasters accts. Advanced training for wealth mgrs done. Global Central Banks ready.

Hell we are ready!

JC @JCR3758 ·

The IMF has stated that their work is done in Iraq & implementation has started. HCL & other new laws go into effect Jan 1st. GOI ready.

BANK OF NORTH DAKOTA OUT PERFORMS WALL STREET.... YOU NEED ONE IN YOUR STATE.... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

BANK OF NORTH DAKOTA

OUT PERFORMS WALL STREET....

YOU NEED ONE IN YOUR STATE....

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

WSJ Reports: BND Outperforms Wall Street

FOLKS THIS IS WHAT WE NEED TO DO TO GET THE BANKING MESS STRAIGHTENED OUT.....PUT TOGETHER OUR OWN STATE BANK....THEY WILL BE GLAD TO SHOW US HOW THEY DID IT..... YOU HAVE TO BE A CITIZEN OF THE STATE TO BE A MEMBER IN THE BANK.... BUT..... THE BANKERS WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO CLEAN OUT YOUR FUNDS .... ALSO GOOGLE BANK OF NORTH DAKOTA....

posted by Ellen Brown
November 20, 2014

http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/bnd_outperforms_wall_street?utm_campaign=clone_newsl_15&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pbi

While 49 state treasuries were submerged in red ink after the 2008 financial crash, one state’s bank outperformed all others and actually launched an economy-shifting new industry. So reports the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the Bank of North Dakota (BND) and its striking success in the midst of a national financial collapse led by the major banks. Chester Dawson begins his November 16th article:

It is more profitable than Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has a better credit rating than J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and hasn’t seen profit growth drop since 2003. Meet Bank of North Dakota, the U.S.’s lone state-owned bank, which has one branch, no automated teller machines and not a single investment banker.

He backs this up with comparative data on the BND’s performance:

[I]ts total assets have more than doubled, to $6.9 billion last year from $2.8 billion in 2007. By contrast, assets of the much bigger Bank of America Corp. have grown much more slowly, to $2.1 trillion from $1.7 trillion in that period.
. . . Return on equity, a measure of profitability, is 18.56%, about 70% higher than those at Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan. . . .
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services last month reaffirmed its double-A-minus rating of the bank, whose deposits are guaranteed by the state of North Dakota. That is above the rating for both Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan and among U.S. financial institutions, second only to the Federal Home Loan Banks, rated double-A-plus.

Dawson goes on, however, to credit the BND’s remarkable performance to the Bakken oil boom. Giving his article the controversial title, “Shale Boom Helps North Dakota Bank Earn Returns Goldman Would Envy: U.S.’s Lone State-Owned Bank Is Beneficiary of Fracking,” he contends:

The reason for its success? As the sole repository of the state of North Dakota’s revenue, the bank has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the boom in Bakken shale-oil production from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. In fact, the bank played a crucial part in kick-starting the oil frenzy in the state in 2008 amid the financial crisis.

That is how the Wall Street-owned media routinely write off the exceptional record of this lone publicly-owned bank, crediting it to the success of the private oil industry. But the boom did not make the fortunes of the bank. It would be more accurate to say that the bank made the boom.

Excess Deposits Do Not Explain the BND’s Record Profits

Dawson confirms that the BND played a crucial role in kickstarting the boom and the economy, at a time when other states were languishing in recession. It did this by lending for critical infrastructure (roads, housing, hospitals, hotels) when other states’ banks were curtailing local lending.
But while the state itself may have reaped increased taxes and fees from the oil boom, the BND got no more out of the deal than an increase in deposits, as Dawson also confirms. The BND is the sole repository of state revenues by law.
Having excess deposits can hardly be the reason the BND has outdistanced even JPMorganChase and Bank of America, which also have massive excess deposits and have not turned them into loans. Instead, they have invested their excess deposits in securities.
Interestingly, the BND has also followed this practice. According to Standard & Poor’s October 2014 credit report, it had a loan to deposit ratio in 2009 of 91%. This ratio dropped to 57.5% in 2014. The excess deposits have gone primarily into Treasuries, US government agency debt, and mortgage-backed securities. Thus the bank’s extraordinary profitability cannot be explained by an excess of deposits or an expanded loan portfolio.
Further eroding the Dawson explanation is that the oil boom did not actually hit North Dakota until 2010. Yet it was the sole state to have escaped the credit crisis by the spring of 2009, when every other state’s budget had already dipped into negative territory. Montana, the runner-up, was in the black by the end of 2009; but it dropped into the red in March of that year and had to implement a pay freeze on state employees.
According to Standard & Poor’s, the BND’s return on equity was up to 23.4% in 2009 – substantially higher than in any of the years of the oil boom that began in 2010.

The Real Reasons for Its Stellar Success

To what, then, are the remarkable achievements of this lone public bank attributable?
The answer is something the privately-owned major media have tried to sweep under the rug: the public banking model is simply more profitable and efficient than the private model. Profits, rather than being siphoned into offshore tax havens, are recycled back into the bank, the state and the community.
The BND’s costs are extremely low: no exorbitantly-paid executives; no bonuses, fees, or commissions; only only one branch office; very low borrowing costs; and no FDIC premiums (the state rather than the FDIC guarantees its deposits).
These are all features that set publicly-owned banks apart from privately-owned banks. Beyond that, they are safer for depositors, allow public infrastructure costs to be cut in half, and provide a non-criminal alternative to a Wall Street cartel caught in a laundry list of frauds.
Dawson describes some other unique aspects of the BND’s public banking model:

It traditionally extends credit, or invests directly, in areas other lenders shun, such as rural housing loans.
. . . [R]etail banking accounts for just 2%-3% of its business. The bank’s focus is providing loans to students and extending credit to companies in North Dakota, often in partnership with smaller community banks.
Bank of North Dakota also acts as a clearinghouse for interbank transactions in the state by settling checks and distributing coins and currency. . . .
The bank’s mission is promoting economic development, not competing with private banks. “We’re a state agency and profit maximization isn’t what drives us,” President Eric Hardmeyer said.
. . . It recently started offering mortgages to individuals in the most underserved corners of the state. But Mr. Hardmeyer dismisses any notion the bank could run into trouble with deadbeat borrowers. “We know our customers,” he said. “You’ve got to understand the conservative nature of this state. Nobody here is really interested in making subprime loans.”

The Downsides of a Boom

The bank’s mission to promote economic development could help explain why its return on equity has actually fallen since the oil boom hit in 2010. The mass invasion by private oil interests has put a severe strain on the state’s infrastructure, forcing it to muster its resources defensively to keep up; and the BND is in the thick of that battle.
In an August 2011 article titled “North Dakota’s Oil Boom is a Blessing and a Curse”, Ryan Holeywell writes that virtually all major infrastructure in the boom cities and counties is strained or exhausted. To shore up its infrastructure needs, the state has committed hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Meanwhile, it is trying to promote industries other than oil and gas, such as companies involved with unmanned aircraft, manufacturing associated with wind energy equipment, and data centers; but the remoteness of the western part of the state, along with the high cost of labor, makes doing business there complicated and expensive.
Hydrofracking, which has been widely attacked as an environmental hazard, is not as bad in North Dakota as in other states, since the process takes place nearly two miles underground; but it still raises significant environmental concerns. In 2011, the state levied $3 million in fines against 20 oil companies for environmental violations. It also undertook a review of industry regulations and was in the process of doubling its oil field inspectors.
The greatest stresses from the oil industry, however, involve the shortage of housing and the damage to the county road system, which in many places consists of two-lane gravel and dirt roads. Drilling a new well requires more than 2,000 truck trips, and the heavy rigs are destroying the roads. Fixing them has been estimated to require an investment of more than $900 million over the next 20 years.
These are external costs imposed by the oil industry that the government has to pick up. All of it requires financing, and the BND is there to provide the credit lines.

Lighting a Fire under Legislators

What the Bank of North Dakota has done to sustain its state’s oil boom, a publicly-owned bank could do for other promising industries in other states. But Dawson observes that no other state has yet voted to take up the challenge, despite a plethora of bills introduced for the purpose. Legislators are slow to move on innovations, unless a fire is lit under them by a crisis or a mass popular movement.
We would be better off sparking a movement than waiting for a crisis. The compelling data in Dawson’s Wall Street Journal article, properly construed, could add fuel to the flames.
____________________
Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books, including the best-selling Web of Debt. In The Public Bank Solution, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her 200+ blog articles are at EllenBrown.com.

French ex-airline boss claims cover-up on MH370

Asia-pacific

French ex-airline boss claims cover-up on MH370

Text by FRANCE 24

Latest update : 2014-12-18

Former airline boss and famous French author Marc Dugain argued Thursday that there had been a cover-up in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, speculating that the passenger jet could have been hacked and then shot down by the US.

Dugain, a well-respected French author, argues that the Boeing 777 carrying 239 people crashed near Diego Garcia, a British island in the middle of the Indian Ocean used as a strategic air force and intelligence base by the US military, in the six-page article in Paris Match.

The US has always officially denied that flight MH370 came anywhere near Diego Garcia.

The latest theory into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on March 8, 2014 has all the ingredients of a spy thriller and has grabbed the French public’s attention.

The former boss of Proteus Airlines travelled to the neighbouring Maldives where residents told local media that they had seen an airliner fly in the direction of Diego Garcia. Their claims were promptly dismissed by the authorities.

“I saw a huge plane fly over us at low altitude,” a fisherman on Kudahuvadhoo island told Dugain. “I saw red and blue stripes on a white background” – the colours of Malaysia Airlines. Other witnesses confirmed the sighting.

Fire on board?
Dugain speculates – adding to the numerous other existing hypotheses about what happened to flight MH370 – that a modern aircraft such as Malaysia Airlines' Boeing 777 could have been hijacked by a hacker.

“In 2006, Boeing patented a remote control system using a computer placed inside or outside the aircraft,” he noted. This technology lead Dugain to the idea of a “soft” remote hijacking.

But the writer also suggests that a fire could have led the crew to deactivate electrical devices, including transmission systems.

Whatever the initial reasons for leaving its flight path, Dugain suspects that the plane then headed to Diego Garcia, where a number of scenarios may have played out – including the US Air Force shooting it down for fear of a September 11-style attack.

Dugain met the mayor of neighbouring Baarah island, who showed him pictures of a strange device found on a beach two weeks after the plane had disappeared and before the Maldives military seized it. Two aviation experts and a local military officer concluded that the object was a Boeing fire extinguisher. Dugain points out that for the extinguisher to have floated, it must have been empty, having been automatically triggered by a fire. He adds that precedent exists in which fires on board aircraft caused all passengers and crew to die of asphyxiation, while the plane’s automated systems extinguished the blaze and kept it in the air.

Cover-up
The rest of his article draws more conclusions from the information that has remained buried than from new facts.

The writer notes that the search operation in the southern Indian Ocean was based on satellite data from UK-based Inmarsat – the last organisation to receive a signal from the airliner – which is "very close to intelligence agencies".

For Dugain, the suppression of testimonies from the Maldives, the unlikely event that Diego Garcia’s US intelligence officers “equipped with the best technology in the world may have ‘lost’ a 63-metre-long object”, and the secrecy surrounding the cargo in the plane’s hold all point towards a large-scale cover-up.

So does the friendly advice of a “Western intelligence officer” – a British one, Dugain said in a radio interview on Thursday – who cautioned him against the “risks” of investigating the flight’s disappearance and suggested that he “let time do its work” instead.

The writer’s conclusion is that “the only firm belief left from this investigation is that someone knows”.

Date created : 2014-12-18

Tony CC (conference call) Cliff Notes ~ Saturday, Dec. 20,2014

Highlights of Tony's "Quickie" CC - This will be down and dirty. Have an church event to get too - Sunny

Tony: Everything we were expecting on Friday and Saturday has been completed, positioned. We are just waiting. I will tell you he (DC) is excited.

Tony said this is ON THE INTERNET: (He did not say whose internet Iraq?)

“Monday, the economy will change. Everything should be official as of 19th and payments as of Monday the 22nd. Hopefully Mon/Tues it will start."

Iraq has permission to go whenever they choose.

USA has same permission to go whenever they chose so it maybe 10 minutes or hours, days before we hear.

FOREX - scheduled for January 2nd appearance. Could come out higher to get people trading it.

No Packages yet

Rate as of this morning is $3.58

TNT DINAR CONFERENCE CALL REPLAY SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2014 CALL REPLAY 805-399-1500 Code: 409029# REPLAY LINK ONLINE AFTER IT REWINDS http://events.instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=63745509 NOTES by ADEPT COMING LATER

NESARA- REPUBLIC NOW - GALACTIC NEWS

Saturday, December 20, 2014

From fighting tigers and leaping wildebeest to incredible urban snapshots: National Geographic readers' best photographs

From fighting tigers and leaping wildebeest to incredible urban snapshots: National Geographic readers' best photographs

more videos

The moment car explodes into pieces as LIGHTNING allegedly hits it during high-speed police chase after church robbery

JCR

BANK OF NORTH DAKOTA OUT PERFORMS WALL STREET.... YOU NEED ONE IN YOUR STATE.... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

WSJ Reports: BND Outperforms Wall Street

French ex-airline boss claims cover-up on MH370

French ex-airline boss claims cover-up on MH370

Former airline boss and famous French author Marc Dugain argued Thursday that there had been a cover-up in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, speculating that the passenger jet could have been hacked and then shot down by the US.

Tony CC (conference call) Cliff Notes ~ Saturday, Dec. 20,2014

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