Deal Extreme.com this is a superb web site!!! for all ur survival needs and more at quality prices, as the dollar is collapsing and you live in the UK you would be a fool to miss out on the cheap products and free postage, I was recommended this site by a friend and i was a bit reluctant at first, but after a couple of purchases i was extremal impressed, my best advice is, before ordering check out the reviews left by customers, and check for their holiday seasons, all the products come from hong Kong and are shipped vier air mail free of charge, delivery can take up to 3 weeks. just to check out the sites legitimacy i made a purchase for an led torch for about £1.20, and i was shocked when it turned up with free postage and also the quality and brightness was superb, checkout the site you will  not be disappointed!!!!!!!!!!  the link below takes you direct to the company or you can use the links to the left, if you use the currency converter you will see how great the prices are, but for some reason when using pay pal to pay for your item they seem to add an extra pound for every fifty that you spend, maybe they charge you extra for the transaction who knows!!!!                                           !!!!!!!!!!!!!!deal extreme!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! New York Lightning Strike link This is the moment a lightning bolt appears to strike the Statue of Liberty in New York. New York photographer Jay Fine had spent the night braving the storm in Battery Park City, Manhattan, in a bid to get the perfect picture. Jay spent nearly two hours poised with his camera and took more than 80 shots before striking lucky with this particular bolt of lightning at 8.45pm on 22 September. He said he had been waiting 40 years to get the picture. To capture the shots Jay used a Nikon D300s with 60mm f/2.8 lens on the following settings: Aperture: F/10, Shutterspeed: 5 seconds, ISO: 200.   DARK FILAMENT: A dark magnetic filament is stretching around the southeastern limb of the sun. "Seeing was poor today at my observatory in Selsey, UK," reports astrophotographer Pete Lawrence, "but this gorgeous filament made it well worth taking a ride on the atmospheric wobbles."link Magnetic filaments on the sun have a tendency to erupt. This one is attached to sunspot 1112. Does that make it more--or less--stable? No one knows. The magnetohydrodynamics of sunspots is so complex, not even the most powerful supercomputers on Earth can predict when they will explode. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor this region for unexpected developments. UK infrastructure faces cyber threat, says GCHQ chieflink GCHQ is mostly associated with electronic intelligence-gathering The UK's critical infrastructure - such as power grids and emergency services - faces a "real and credible" threat of cyber attack, the head of GCHQ says. The intelligence agency's director Iain Lobban said the country's future economic prosperity rested on ensuring a defence against such assaults. The internet created opportunities for hostile states and criminals, he said. For example, 1,000 malicious e-mails a month are already being targeted at government computer networks, he said. Speaking to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mr Lobban said he did not want to go into detail about the threat to the UK's "critical national infrastructure". But he said the threat posed by terrorists, organised criminals and hostile foreign governments was "real and credible" and he demanded a swifter response to match the speed with which "cyber events" happened. “Start Quote Cyberspace is contested every day, every hour, every minute, every second” End Quote Iain Lobban GCHQ Critical national infrastructure also includes sectors such as financial services, government, mass communication, health, transport, and food and water - all of which are deemed necessary for delivering services upon which daily life in the UK depends. With both the Strategic Defence and Security Review and the Comprehensive Spending Review due to be published next week, Mr Lobban said ministers would be looking at what capabilities the UK needs to develop further. "Clearly they will also be deciding how they trade off against other spending priorities." He added: "Just because I, as a national security official, am giving a speech about cyber, I don't want you to take away the impression that it is solely a national security or defence issue. It goes to the heart of our economic well-being and national interest." Intellectual property theft While GCHQ is more usually associated with electronic intelligence-gathering, Mr Lobban stressed that it also had a security role, referred to as "information assurance". He said that they had already seen "significant disruption" to government computer systems caused by internet "worms" - both those that had been deliberately targeted and others picked up accidentally. Each month there were more than 20,000 "malicious" e-mails on government networks, of which 1,000 were deliberately targeted at them, while intellectual property theft was taking place on a "massive scale" - some relating to national security. And there was a "big challenge" with the government wanting to get more and more services online, he said. "Cyberspace lowers the bar for entry to the espionage game, both for states and for criminal actors," he said. "Cyberspace is contested every day, every hour, every minute, every second. I can vouch for that from the displays in our own operations centre of minute-by-minute cyber attempts to penetrate systems around the world." While 80% of the threat to government systems could be dealt with through good information assurance practice - such as keeping security "patches" up to date - the remaining 20% was more complex and could not simply be solved by building "higher and higher" security walls. Export expertise? Although cyberspace presented a potential security threat to the UK, Mr Lobban said that it also offered an opportunity if the UK could get its defences right. "Fundamentally, getting cyber right enables the UK's continuing economic prosperity. "There's a clear defensive angle. In order to flourish, a knowledge economy needs to protect from exploitation the intellectual property at the heart of the creative and high-tech industry sectors. It needs to maintain the integrity of its financial and commercial services." But he added that the implications were wider than that. "There is an opportunity which we can seize if government and the telecommunications sector, hardware and software vendors, and managed service providers can come together. "It's an opportunity to develop a holistic approach to cyber security that makes UK networks intrinsically resilient in the face of cyber threats. "That will lead to a competitive advantage for the UK. We can give enterprises the confidence that by basing themselves here they gain the advantages of access to a modern internet infrastructure while reducing their risks." He said developing such expertise would also open up potential export opportunities, with the global market for cyber security products "growing faster than much of the rest of the global economy". MARTIAL LAW ALERT: Banking Collapse Scenarios Fall/Winter 2010link As with our first MARTIAL LAW ALERT, we have held back our assessment of the financial collapse currently underway until we could gather enough information. Since our focus is martial law, we always look at current events with an eye toward assessing the conditions that would be necessary for the President and/or the military to implement martial law. And, since we try to stay at least one step ahead of the game in order to warn people, such assessments must, of necessity, be speculative in nature. Nothing stated herein is guaranteed to happen. The purpose of these alerts is to get people thinking outside the mainstream-media box so that they might be better prepared to meet any eventuality (and this includes being prepared: mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically — and being prepared physically includes being prepared financially). THE SITUATION: As the price of gold reaches new heights (over $1300 per ounce) and silver climbs to over $23 per ounce, the financial situation in America is dire, to say the least. Continuously rising rates of unemployment, increased government spending and the collapse of the real estate markets are all converging into one perfectly-directed/perfectly-designed collapse of, not only our economy, but the greater global economy as well. While major financial players such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan continue to have record profits, the middle class has disappeared from the American financial landscape. Major financial leaders such as Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, have openly admitted that our country’s financial system is in deep trouble and even Europe is having more banker bailouts. Meanwhile, the American media constantly hypes a possible terror attack in America and other countries in Europe. If another major terror attack such as 9/11 occurs, trends forecaster Gerald Celente has stated that the event would bring the banking system to a complete halt, which would then result in a “bank holiday.” And Celente is not alone. For over a year, many others have warned of an upcoming bank holiday. With our economy already in free fall, it would not take much of a national and/or worldwide terror event to completely crash our (fiat) dollar-based system in a very short period of time. Upon the crash of the dollar, more bank holidays could be declared and oppressive emergency banking powers could go into effect (see: Emergency Banking Act of 1933). These include severely limiting consumer withdrawals and a recall of physical gold holdings. Taking Presidential Defense Directive #51 into account (PDD-51), even a major stock-market crash could trigger this scenario. And once PDD-51 is invoked, then martial law could be fully implemented. Another way the collapse of the banking system could lead to martial law is through cyber attacks. This possibility has been particularly troubling to us, since, earlier this year, CNN aired a staged (i.e. fake) “cyber terror” attack complete with fake news reports being fielded by Michael Chertoff and other Washington insiders. Their premise was that the American power grid had been taken down by hacker/terrorists via cyber attack. Since the airing of that fake news program, alternative news agencies such as Infowars and others have made the point that such an attack is impossible for the average hacker, because the power grid is on a completely separate network from the Internet. In the meantime, threats against our power grid have been highlighted in other (suspect) ways, such as the Russians who were recently found trying to break into a Georgia power plant. While the media continues to hype the threat of cyber terror against our power grid, others have looked into the perhaps more frightening prospect of a cyber attack on our banking system, which relies heavily upon computer networks as well as the Internet. Such an attack has already occurred both in America (over the July 4th holiday in 2009), as well as abroad (in South Korea, Estonia, India, and Canada). In fact, in February 2010, the American financial services industry actually participated in a cyber attack exercise to test the readiness of the financial system, so there’s no way they can deny that they’ve actually considered the possibility of such an attack. If such an attack did occur, whole sections of the banking system would most likely go offline (as many believe happened to Bank of America earlier this year), or, worse, massive amounts of account data could be compromised, or lost altogether. The possible result? Imagine being unable to access your checking account, your 401K, or, even worse, having your bank balance go to zero and, in the resulting chaos, being left with no way to prove the amount that should be in your account. After all, these days, all your sensitive banking data is stored in computer databases and, in the midst of a “cyber crisis,” many (or all) recent transactions could be lost (or the banks could claim such). In such a scenario, the only real proof of funds would be whatever cash a consumer happened to have on hand. Many analysts such as Gerald Celente and Max Kaiser have been warning people about keeping their money in banks. As America’s financial situation continues to deteriorate, a false-flag cyber attack would be a clever way to disguise the inevitable and blame the collapse on something (or someone) else. Also, with the nation’s financial data compromised and/or missing altogether, it would conveniently force a “reset” of the banking system back to zero. Amidst the chaos of people trying to function with little-to-no cash while at the same time clamoring for a solution, the government could easily roll out a ration-card system much like the one Venezuela currently has, and/or a combination identification/debit card like Malaysia’s. In addition, possible food and/or water riots could also create the perfect pretense for martial law. In conclusion: A cyber attack that took out either the banking, or the power grid system would undoubtedly cause much turmoil. A cyber attack that took out both would be devastating. Either one would pave the road to martial law. OUR RECOMMENDATION: If you have money in a bank, consider getting it out. (Digital dollars are not durable, nor dependable!) Keeping enough cash as needed for survival is always wise, but consider putting all other assets into precious metals and/or necessary goods in order make the transition into the next new currency (whatever that might be). If you do not already have storable food, water and defensive weaponry, now would be a good time to acquire these items. Consider liquidating all paper assets including retirement accounts, stocks, bonds and mutual funds, since, at this point, it wouldn’t take much to send the value of all these items to zero. Begin, if you have not already, to be more self-sustaining, whether through gardening, or bartering with other like-minded individuals, etc. Now is the time to introduce yourself to your neighbors before the power (and possibly other services) go out. Know who you can trust and who you can’t.   UK Government shovel ready snow program: “dig yourselves out” link But the forecast is the bigger worry, not the lame-o self help from the local government: Council chiefs have sparked outrage after proposing residents dig themselves out of the snow as Britain braces itself for another winter of Arctic conditions. As long-range forecasts suggest the country will be hit by blizzards and temperatures plummeting to -20c, bosses at Camden Council prepared to hand out spades. But their solution to the bitter weather has been slammed by those who remember the headache of last year’s gritting crisis which brought widespread disruption and left people trapped in their homes. The north London council’s proposal involves a ‘self-help’ scheme in which people can ring and request a shovel. The authority plans to give out more than 2,000 spades to community centres and groups, shopkeepers and families to help clear clogged-up roads and pavements. Eleanor Botwright, director of Castlehaven Community Centre, said: ‘It is not quite dig your own grave but it is a double-edged sword. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1318765/As-Arctic-winter-looms-council-hands-2-000-spades-tells-residents-dig-snows.html#ixzz11p6pjwKh The coming winter is worrying many in Britain, and it seems that such “shovel ready” programs really don’t help that worry. The MetOffice might lift spirits if they forecast a BBQ Christmas.   Cabbage Shortage in South Korea Frantic Government Lifts Tariffs on Cabbage Imports  link

                      

5 Oct 10 - E-mail from a reader

Hi Robert,

This was reported by CNN News this morning but focused more on the extreme prices than on the weather, which caused the problem.... 

"the weather has been strange and we received too much rainfall" and "out-of-control cabbage hoarding has become rampant" are the two key phrases in this report that speak volumes. 

Rioting in the streets now doesn't seem all that far-fetched...

Best regards,
Alan Stover

                                   Passages from the article:

"In Korea, over the past 12 months, the price of cabbage--the main ingredient in kimchi, the country's national dish--has risen over 400% to 11,500 won ($10) from 4,000 won two weeks ago, and 2,500 won a month ago.

That's like having the price of a loaf of bread jump from $2.25 to $10.00 in one year.

"Since we have monitored the price, nothing like this has happened before."

“The vegetable prices went up because land for farming has been removed for the four-river refurbishment project while the weather has been strange and we received too much rainfall.”

"Out-of-control cabbage hoarding has become rampant ... " the government has stepped in with unprecedented emergency measures to stave off a crisis of historic proportions by lifting all tariffs on imported cabbages.

Triple Crown of global cooling could pose
serious threat to humanity

Sea surface temperatures, extremely low
solar activity and increased volcanic activity would lead to
widespread food shortages and famine

By Kirk Myerslink

19 May 10 - (Excerpts) - “Global warming” may become one of those quaint cocktail party conversations of the past if three key climate drivers – cooling North Pacific sea surface temperatures, extremely low solar activity and increased volcanic eruptions – converge to form a “perfect storm” of plummeting temperatures that send our planet into a long-term cool-down lasting 20 or 30 years or longer.

“There are some wild cards that are different from what we saw when we came out of the last warm PDO [Pacific Decadal Oscillation] and entered its cool phase [1947 to 1976]. Now we have a very weak solar cycle and the possibility of increased volcanic activity. Together, they would create what I call the ‘Triple Crown of Cooling,’” says Accuweather meteorologist Joe Bastardi.

If all three climate-change ingredients come together, it would be a recipe for dangerously cold temperatures that would shorten the agricultural growing season in northern latitudes, crippling grain production in the wheat belts of the United States and Canada and triggering widespread food shortages and famine.

Cool Pacific Decadal Oscillation

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation refers to cyclical variations in sea surface temperatures that occur in the North Pacific Ocean. (The PDO is often described as a long-lived El Niño-like pattern.) PDO events usually persist for 20 to 30 years, alternating between warm and cool phases.

From 1977 to 1998, during the height of “global warming,” North America was in the midst of a warm PDO. 

But the PDO has once again resumed its negative cool phase, and, as such, represents the first climate driver in the Triple Crown of Cooling. With the switch to a cool PDO, we’ve seen a change in the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which alternates between El Nino (warm phase) and La Nina (cool phase) every few years. The recent strong El Nino that began in July 2009 is now transitioning to a La Nina, a sign of cooler temperatures ahead.

“We’re definitely headed towards La Nina conditions before summer is over, and we’re looking at a moderate to strong La Nina by fall and winter, which ...should bring us cooler temperatures over the next few years,” predicts Joe D’Aleo, founder of the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project (ICECAP) and the first director of meteorology at the Weather Channel.

He is not alone in his forecast. Bastardi also sees a La Nina just around the corner.

“I’ve been saying since February that we’ll transition to La Nina by the middle of the hurricane season. I think we’re already seeing the atmosphere going into a La Nina state in advance of water temperatures. This will have interesting implications down the road. La Nina will dramatically cool off everything later this year and into next year, and it is a signal for strong hurricane activity,” Bastardi predicts.

The difference in sea surface temperature between positive and negative PDO phases is not more than 1 to 2 degrees Celsius, but the affected area is huge. So the temperature changes can have a big impact on the climate in North America.

Declining solar activity

Another real concern – and the second climate driver in the Triple Crown of Cooling – is the continued stretch of weak solar activity... We recently exited the longest solar minimum –12.7 years compared to the 11-year average – in 100 years. It was a historically inactive period in terms of sunspot numbers. During the minimum, which began in 2004, we have experienced 800 spotless days. A normal cycle averages 485 spotless days.

In 2008, we experienced 265 days without a sunspot, the fourth-highest number of spotless days since continuous daily observations began in 1849. In 2009, the trend continued, with 261 spotless days, ranking it among the top five blank-sun years. Only 1878, 1901 and 1913 (the record-holder with 311 days) recorded more spotless days.

In 2010, the sun continues to remain in a funk. There were 27 spotless days (according to Layman’s sunspot count) in April and, as of May 19, 12 days without a spot. Both months exhibited periods of inexplicably low solar activity during a time when the sun should be flexing its “solar muscle” and ramping up towards the next solar maximum.

Strong correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature

Why are sunspot numbers important? Very simple: there is a strong correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature. During the Dalton Minimum (1790 - 1830) and Maunder Minimum (1645 -1715), two periods with very low sunspot activity, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere plummeted.

During the Dalton Minimum, the abnormally cold weather destroyed crops in northern Europe, the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. Historian John D. Post called it “the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world.” The record cold intensified after the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in more than 1,600 years (see details below).

During the 70-year Maunder Minimum, astronomers at the time counted only a few dozen sunspots per year, thousands fewer than usual. As sunspots vanished, temperatures fell. The River Thames in London froze, sea ice was reported along the coasts of southeast England, and ice floes blocked many harbors. Agricultural production nose-dived as growing seasons became shorter, leading to lower crop yields, food shortages and famine.

If the low levels of solar activity during the past three years continue through the current solar cycle ... we could be facing a severe temperature decline within the next five to eight years.

“The sun is behaving very quietly – like it did in the late 1700s during the transition from Solar Cycle 4 to Solar Cycle 5 – which was the start of the Dalton Minimum,” D’Aleo says. If the official sunspot number reaches only 40 or 50 – a low number indicating very weak solar energy levels – during the next solar maximum, we could be facing much lower global temperatures down the road.”

Even NASA solar physicist David Hathaway has said this is “the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century.”

Volcanic eruptions

Unfortunately, there is a very real chance Eyjafjallajokull’s much larger neighbor, the Katla volcano, could blow its top, creating the third-climate driver in the Triple Crown of Cooling. If Katla does erupt, it would send global temperatures into a nosedive, with a big assist from the cool PDO and a slumbering sun.

The Katla caldera measures 42 square miles and has a magma chamber with a volume of around 2.4 cubic miles, enough to produce a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) level-six eruption – an event ten times larger than Mount St. Helens.

Katla erupts about every 70 years or so, most recently in 1918, often in tandem with neighboring Eyjafjallajokull, which is not a good sign.

According to Bastardi, “The Katla volcano in Iceland is a game changer. If it erupts and sends plumes of ash and SO2 into the stratosphere, any cooling caused by the oceanic cycles would be strengthened and amplified.”

Iceland’s President Olafur Grimsson says the eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull volcano is only a "small rehearsal.”

“The time for Katla to erupt is coming close . . . I don't say if, but I say when Katla will erupt,” Grimsson predicts. And when Katla finally erupts it will “create for a long period, extraordinary damage to modern advanced society.”

Not a very encouraging outlook. Yet major eruptions throughout history bear witness to the deadly impact of volcanoes.

The Tambora eruption in 1815, the largest in 1,600 years, sent the earth’s climate into a deep freeze, triggering “the year without a summer.” Columnist Art Horn, writing in the Energy Tribune, describes the impact:

“During early June of 1815, a foot of snow fell on Quebec City. In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Frost killed crops across New England with resulting famine. During the brutal winter of 1816/17, the temperature fell to -32 in New York City.”

When (Katla) unleashed its fury in the 1700s, the volcano sent temperatures into a tailspin in North America.

"The Mississippi River froze just north of New Orleans and the East Coast, especially New England, had an extremely cold winter.

Global cooling: a life-threatening event

Says D’Aleo:  “Cold is far more threatening than the little extra warmth we experienced from 1977 to 1998 ... A cooling down to Dalton Minimum temperatures or worse would lead to shortened growing seasons and large-scale crop failures. Food shortages would make worse the fact that more people die from cold than heat.” 

Actions to limit CO2 emissions should be shelved and preparations made for an extended period of global cooling that would pose far more danger to humankind than any real or imagined warming predicted by today’s climate models.

See entire great article:
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2010m5d19-Tri ple-Crown-of-global-cooling-could-pose-serious-threat-to-humanity
Thanks to Kirk Myers and Joe D'Aleo for this lin