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Europe's secret plan to boost GM crop production
Gordon Brown and other EU leaders in campaign to promote modified foods
By Geoffrey Lean
Sunday, 26 October 2008
GM corn growing in France, which has since suspended cultivation of modified crops
Gordon Brown and other European leaders are secretly preparing an unprecedented campaign to spread GM crops and foods in Britain and throughout the continent, confidential documents obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveal.
The documents – minutes of a series of private meetings of representatives of 27 governments – disclose plans to "speed up" the introduction of the modified crops and foods and to "deal with" public resistance to them.
And they show that the leaders want "agricultural representatives" and "industry" – presumably including giant biotech firms such as Monsanto – to be more vocal to counteract the "vested interests" of environmentalists.
News of the secret plans is bound to create a storm of protest at a time when popular concern about GM technology is increasing, even in countries that have so far accepted it.
Public opposition has prevented any modified crops from being grown in Britain. France, one of only three countries in Europe to have grown them in any amounts, has suspended their cultivation, and resistance to them is rising rapidly in the other two, Spain and Portugal.
The embattled biotech industry has been conducting a public relations campaign based round the highly contested assertion that genetic modification is needed to feed the world. It has had some success in the Government, where ministers have been increasingly speaking out in favour of the technology, and in the European Commission, with which its lobbyists have boasted of having "excellent working relations".
The secret meetings were convened by Jose Manuel Barroso, the pro-GM President of the Commission, and chaired by his head of cabinet, Joao Vale de Almeida. The prime ministers of each of the EU's 27 member states were asked to nominate a special representative.
Neither the membership of the group, nor its objectives, nor the outcomes of its meetings have been made public. But The IoS has obtained confidential documents, including an attendance list and the conclusions of the two meetings held so far – on 17 July and just two weeks ago on 10 October – written by the chairman.
The list shows that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany sent close aides. Britain was represented by Sonia Phippard, director for food and farming at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The conclusions reveal the discussions were mainly preoccupied with how to speed up the introduction of GM crops and food and how to persuade the public to accept them.
The modified products have to be approved by the EU before they can be sown or sold anywhere in Europe. But though the Commission officials are generally strongly in favour, European governments are split, causing the Council of Ministers, on which they are represented, to be deadlocked.
In that event the bureaucrats on the Commission wave them through anyway. They are legally allowed to do this, but overruled governments and environmental groups are unhappy.
The conclusions of the first meeting called for the "speeding up of the authorisation process based on robust assessments so as to reassure the public", while the second one added: "Decisions could be made faster without compromising safety."
But the documents also make clear that Mr Barroso is going beyond mere exhortation by trying to get prime ministers to overrule their own agriculture and environment ministers in favour of GM. They report that the chairman "recalled the importance for prime ministers to look at the wider picture", "invited the participants to report the discussions of the group to their heads of governments", and "stressed the importance of drawing their attention to ongoing discussions in the Council [of Ministers]".
Helen Holder of Friends of the Earth Europe said: "Barroso's aim is to get GM into Europe as quickly as possible. So he is going straight to prime ministers and presidents to tell them to step on their ministers and get them into line."
The conclusions of the meetings on public opposition are even more incendiary. The documents ponder "how best to deal with public opinion" and call for "an emotion-free, fact-based dialogue on the high standards of the EU GM policy". And they record the chairman emphasising "the role of industry, economic partners and science to actively contribute to such a dialogue". He adds that "the public feels ill-informed" and says "agricultural representatives should be more vocal". And in a veiled swipe at environmental groups he says that the debate "should not be left to certain stakeholders who have a legitimate but vested interest in it".
What they say
'We have to feed an extra 2.5 billion people. It would be extraordinary if we chose not to exploit the most important breakthrough in biological science'
Professor Allan Buckwell
'New developments will benefit the world's poorest farmers: GM rice that is drought-resistant; transgenic crops with genes to protect against disease'
Lord Dick Taverne, Sense About Science
'GM crops pose unacceptable risks to farmers and the environment and have failed to increase yields despite funding at a cost of millions to UK taxpayers'
Kirtana Chandrasekaran, FoE
'GM crops do not increase yields. Scientists have found genetically engineered insecticide in crops can leak and kill beneficial soil fungi'
Peter Melchett, Soil Association
Q & A: The trouble with modified crops
How much GM is grown in Europe?
Very little. The documents boast the area increased by 21 per cent last year, proving "growing interest". But it still only covered 0.119 per cent of Europe's agricultural land.
What are the problems?
Mainly environmental. Official trials in Britain showed that growing GM crops was worse for wildlife than cultivating conventional ones. Worse, genes escape from the modified plants to create superweeds and to contaminate normal and organic crops, denying consumers a choice to be GM-free.
Do they endanger health?
Hard to tell. Some studies show that they may do, others (including almost all those by industry) are reassuring. The trouble is that very few truly independent, peer-reviewed research has been done. Most consumers have sensibly concluded that they would sooner be safe than sorry, particularly as they get no benefit from buying GM.
Can they feed the world?
Almost certainly not. Despite all the hype, present GM varieties actually have lower yields than their conventional counterparts. The seeds are expensive to buy and grow, so wealthy developing-world farmers would tend to use them and drive poor ones out of business, increasing destitution. The biggest agricultural assessment ever conducted – chaired by Professor Robert Watson, now Defra's chief scientist – recently concluded that they would not do the job.
To have your say on this or any other issue visit www.independent.co.uk/IoSblogs
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/europes-secret-plan-to-boost-gm-crop-production-973834.html
Turbocharged Nanomotors
Published: 06:11 EST, October 29, 2008
(PhysOrg.com) -- Nanorobots that are introduced into the body to eradicate tumor cells or clean out clogged arteries are not just science fiction; they are a realistic vision of the technological possibilities of the not-so-distant future. Efficient nanomotors will be needed to drive these nanomachines.
A team of scientists from University of California, San Diego (USA) and Arizona State University (Tempe, USA) has now developed nanorods that swim extremely fast. “These nanorods travel about 75 times their own length in one second,” report Joseph Wang and his co-workers in the journal Angewandte Chemie. “We are approaching the speed of the most efficient biological nanomotors, including flagellated bacteria.”
The first simple applications for nanomotors could include rapid transportation of pharmaceutical agents to specific target areas, or the passage of specimen molecules through the tiny channels of diagnostic systems on a microchip. However, forward motion through a liquid is not as trivial as one would like to think. One method for the construction of nanomotors that can achieve this is the fuel-driven catalytic nanowire. These are tiny nanoscopic rods whose ends are made of two different metals. Unlike macroscopic motors, they do not have a fuel tank; instead they move through a medium that contains the fuel they need.
The “classic” example of such a system is a gold–platinum nanotube that can travel at speeds of 10 to 20 µm per second with hydrogen peroxide as its fuel. Wang and his team have now dramatically accelerated these nanorod motors: they have achieved speeds of over 150 µm per second by replacing the gold portion with an alloy of silver and gold.
How does the nanomotor work? The platinum segment catalyzes the splitting of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into oxygen (O2) and protons (H+). It absorbs the excess electrons. These are transferred to the silver/gold segment, where they speed up the reduction reaction of H2O2 and protons to make water. The release of oxygen and water produces a small current, which drives the nanorod through the fluid, platinum side first. “The silver/gold alloy causes the electrons to be transferred more quickly,” explains Wang. “This increases the fuel decomposition rate and the nanorod is accelerated faster.” The speed of the nanorods can be tailored by changing the proportion of silver in the alloy. “Fuel additives or variations of the platinum segment will make these rods even faster,” predicts Wang.
Citation: Joseph Wang, Ultrafast Catalytic Alloy Nanomotors, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, doi: 10.1002/anie.200803841
Provided by Wiley
http://www.physorg.com/news144479498.html
Waterloo welcomes first Green Bay Store
September 20, 2008 (Canada)
The ongoing success and growing affluence of Waterloo has prompted The Bay, a division of the Hudson's Bay Company (Hbc) to launch a beautiful new 120,000 square foot Bay store at Conestoga Mall. The new store, which is the first green Bay location in Canada, will open to the public on September 19th, 2008.
"Waterloo has become home to some of Canada's leading entrepreneurs and most successful companies," said Bonnie Brooks, President and CEO, The Bay.
"Our new store provides people in Waterloo with an exciting shopping experience, as well as appealing to the community's environmentally progressive nature through unique green initiatives like solar panels, wind turbines, energy efficient lighting and even recyclable carpet."
Among the store's many green innovations are:
- Special energy efficient lighting inside and out - LED exterior signage lights, which uses 10 percent of the energy required for conventional lighting; Fluorescent lighting uses energy efficient T8 and T5 ballast which save energy and reduce cooling loads while providing same lighting quality within the store.
- High efficiency roof top units use ozone friendly R410A refrigerant.
- Accent lighting uses highly efficient Metal Halide light fixtures.
- Solar panels mounted on the front of the store enabling the store to draw less power from the local grid.
- Two wind turbines, which will generate enough electricity to offset the power consumption of an average home.
- White TPO roofing to reflect heat and reduce thermal islanding; the cooler roof reduces the need for air conditioning and is recyclable at end of life.
- Waterless urinals and touchless water faucets and toilets for water conservation.
- Carpet tile is recyclable.
- Fully automated energy management system controlled by Hbc head office, which allows the Company to reduce energy consumption.
Peter Love, Ontario's Chief Energy Conservation Officer, has already recognized Hbc's commitment to creating a culture of conservation Ontario, and has awarded his prestigious Certificate of Recognition for their efforts.
"There is no doubt that energy conservation benefits us environmentally and economically", he said. "Hbc has shown that saving electricity can also go hand in hand with high style, with no compromise in comfort or design."
In addition to the many green features of the store, the new Waterloo Bay is a Company prototype with innovative design and some of the best materials available. Architecturally, it will be very distinctive with frosted glass accents and chrome finishing throughout.
Recently re-built from the ground up, this Bay store can now meet the demands of the Waterloo shoppers through a range of services and special features such as family size fitting rooms and facial rooms for cosmetic services.
Many new brands will also be launched for the first time in Waterloo including cosmetic lines MAC and Chanel. The Bay is also pleased to introduce updated clothing lines such as Esprit, Mexx and Kenzie as well as new jewelry and watches such as Puma.
The new collection in the store will be geared towards lines for her, for him, and for family as well as soft lines for home.
Hudson's Bay Company
http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textiles-industry-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=63625
This Past Week In Gold
Jack Chan
www.simplyprofits.org
November 8, 2008
GLD - on sell signal.
A triangle consolidation is in progress.
SLV - on buy signal.
GDX - on buy signal.
XGD.TO - on buy signal.
Summary
Only GLD remains on a sell signal, and with the triangle consolidation, we could see one final spike to a new low. A lower low on the metals with higher lows in gold stocks would be a positive divergence and we can become aggressive buyers in the sector.
********
Disclosure
We do not offer predictions or forecasts for the markets. What you see here is our simple trading model which provides us the signals and set ups to be either long, short, or in cash at any given time. Entry points and stops are provided in real time to subscribers, therefore, this update may not reflect our current positions in the markets. Trade at your own discretion.
I think, for them, it was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure :)
LOL...kinda would be the wrong place to hang out if you suffered from vertigo wouldn't it?
Big Wreck - That Song (1997)
Tango
Volcano
Making a youtube video
Water bomb
Solitude
Well guys we missed our chance...The Ashanti Vineyard has been sold and is now under new ownership. Guess we won't get to have a campout there :(
Kevin Rudolf Ft. Lil Wayne - Let It Rock
ELP - Hoedown
ELP - C'est la Vie
ELP - Fanfare for the common man
ELP - Lucky Man - Cal Jam 74
Colour wheel
Closed for repairs
Elephant whisperer
Botswana
Picnic thief
Stonehenge
Pondering of thoughts ...
Of the whys and ways
Of the what fors
What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
~ T. S. Eliot
I listened to it...it was pretty funny.
Interesting article...thanks for posting it, sumisu.
A Love Letter
I will seek and find you.
I shall take you to bed and have my way with you.
I will make you ache, shake & sweat until you moan & groan.
I will make you beg for mercy, beg for me to stop.
I will exhaust you to the point that you will be relieved when I'm finished with you.
And, when I am finished, you will be weak for days.
All my love,
The Flu
The methane time bomb
Arctic scientists discover new global warming threat as melting permafrost releases millions of tons of a gas 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Preliminary findings suggest that massive deposits of subsea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.
Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years.
Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.
The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in global coal reserves so there is intense interest in the stability of these deposits as the region warms at a faster rate than other places on earth.
Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University in Sweden, one of the leaders of the expedition, described the scale of the methane emissions in an email exchange sent from the Russian research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi.
"We had a hectic finishing of the sampling programme yesterday and this past night," said Dr Gustafsson. "An extensive area of intense methane release was found. At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These 'methane chimneys' were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instruments]."
At some locations, methane concentrations reached 100 times background levels. These anomalies have been seen in the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea, covering several tens of thousands of square kilometres, amounting to millions of tons of methane, said Dr Gustafsson. "This may be of the same magnitude as presently estimated from the global ocean," he said. "Nobody knows how many more such areas exist on the extensive East Siberian continental shelves.
"The conventional thought has been that the permafrost 'lid' on the sub-sea sediments on the Siberian shelf should cap and hold the massive reservoirs of shallow methane deposits in place. The growing evidence for release of methane in this inaccessible region may suggest that the permafrost lid is starting to get perforated and thus leak methane... The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed."
The preliminary findings of the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008, being prepared for publication by the American Geophysical Union, are being overseen by Igor Semiletov of the Far-Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1994, he has led about 10 expeditions in the Laptev Sea but during the 1990s he did not detect any elevated levels of methane. However, since 2003 he reported a rising number of methane "hotspots", which have now been confirmed using more sensitive instruments on board the Jacob Smirnitskyi.
Dr Semiletov has suggested several possible reasons why methane is now being released from the Arctic, including the rising volume of relatively warmer water being discharged from Siberia's rivers due to the melting of the permafrost on the land.
The Arctic region as a whole has seen a 4C rise in average temperatures over recent decades and a dramatic decline in the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by summer sea ice. Many scientists fear that the loss of sea ice could accelerate the warming trend because open ocean soaks up more heat from the sun than the reflective surface of an ice-covered sea.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html
Can Coal and Clean Air Coexist in China?
August 4, 2008
The furious growth of China fueled by burning coal takes a toll on health and the environment
By David Biello
HAZY SKIES: There is no horizon in industrial cities like Chongqing, pictured here, thanks to air pollution from burning coal.
David Biello/ © Scientific American
CHONGQING—Coal powers China. In addition to producing about 75 percent of its electricity, the dirty, black rock is burned everywhere from industrial boilers to home stoves. More than 4,000 miners die every year digging up the fossil fuel, shortages abound forcing curbs in electricity use, and the country's transportation infrastructure creaks under the weight of distributing it across the country.
But the Chinese reliance on coal is most visible in the air. Smog cloaks cities, rendering them all but invisible from the sky, which in many spots is little more than a blue patch amid a blanket of haze. And it's not just confined to China: as the pollution builds it forms a brown cloud, visible from space, that takes about a week to cross the Pacific to the western U.S., where it accounts for as much as 15 percent of the air pollution.
There is no true horizon in this inland port city where the majority of China's motorcycles are produced, one of several industrial goods produced here. This "furnace" of China, as it's known, is akin to the entire Rust Belt of the U.S. crammed into a single community of 30-plus million people (twice the size of the New York City metropolitan region)—and its residents breathe air filled with so much lung-clogging soot that it would fail both U.S. and European Union (E.U.) safety standards.
The choking smoke produced by all that coal burning insinuates itself into the lungs of Chinese men, women and children and costs China an estimated $100 billion in health costs associated with respiratory ills, according to the World Bank. Further, it can literally stunt the growth of the next generation in this city in the heartland of China, according to recent research from Frederica Perera of Columbia University and her colleagues.
The Chinese have been burning coal for centuries. Venetian trader and explorer Marco Polo said that one of the most surprising sights during his travels through Asia in the 13th century was the Chinese practice of burning a strange, black rock for heat—and the mountains along the Silk Road that smoldered due to underground coal fires, like the ones burning throughout the country today. In fact, these underground blazes burn through an estimated 20 million tons of coal a year, the equivalent of the entire coal production of Germany last year.
But that pales in comparison to the amount of coal mined and deliberately burned annually by the Chinese: some 2.5 billion tons—double the amount burned by the U.S.—and doesn't even include ever growing imports. Much of it goes to the country's 541 coal-fired power plants, which pumped out 554,420 megawatts of electricity last year, according to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.
China is a developing country undergoing an energy transformation unprecedented in human history, but fired by an engineering optimism reminiscent of the U.S. in the 1950s. China opens one large coal-fired power plant a week on average to generate enough electricity to service its 1.3 billion population and fuel industries that manufacture cheap goods for the U.S. and Europe.
China has a plan designed to reduce pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, linked to climate change and breathing problems, by as much as 10 percent over the next five years. And part of that plan is simply shuttering small, inefficient coal plants and replacing them with larger ones, meaning the abundance of new coal power plants will actually help clear the air somewhat. "To close small plants, it will be very effective to improve air quality," says Greenpeace spokeswoman Sarah Liang.
But that still leaves a load of pollution: China this year surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind global warming.
Despite the surfeit of smut, the average Chinese citizen is responsible for a fraction of the greenhouse emissions of the average American—and the country is not bound by any international treaty to reduce its emissions. Yet, the government has launched a pilot project to address the problem by capturing and storing the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by using coal as a fuel for electricity generation at a power plant dubbed GreenGen.
The project in the port city of Tianjin will proceed in three phases. First, a consortium of power and coal companies will fork over funds to construct a so-called integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant (in which coal is turned to gas and pollutants removed before burning) that is capable of producing 250 megawatts of electricity. Such technology could cut acid rain–causing sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 90 percent, smog-forming nitrogen oxides by 75 percent, and—ultimately—capture more than 80 percent of the CO2 normally produced by combustion, storing it in nearby depleted oil fields by 2015.
China's $1 billion GreenGen power plant became the world's leading clean coal technology project after the U.S. government in February pulled the plug on FutureGen, a similar program that lost steam as the costs for building the demonstration plant in Mattoon, Ill., skyrocketed. Yet, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and leaders of the world's eight richest nations, including President Bush, among others, have called the development of clean coal technology essential to preventing the consequences of climate change.
But completing GreenGen may yet prove a challenge as well. "There's no co-benefit to doing the carbon capture and storage," says energy technology expert Kelly Sims Gallagher of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. "There's an argument for doing GreenGen in terms of research and getting experience with it but from a commercial point of view it doesn't make sense." The reason: it requires extra energy to turn the coal to gas and then to capture the CO2 as well—in effect requiring the burning of more coal to generate the same amount of electricity.
GreenGen is a for-profit power plant, so economic gains or losses will play a pivotal role in whether to proceed with the capture and storage portion. "It may well be in this environment where oil is above $100 a barrel that it is economically viable and valuable for nations that are rich in coal, like China, to use that coal and to sequester the CO2 for purposes of producing more oil," says Vic Svec, senior vice president of investor relations and communications at U.S. coal giant Peabody, which is also a part owner of GreenGen. The Chinese also "view it as being a long-term benefit to remove CO2."
Thanks to the Olympics and ongoing efforts, the air in cities like Chongqing (and particularly Beijing) is vastly improved. Factories have been shifted to industrial parks on the outskirts of town and small, inefficient coal power plants closed in favor of larger, higher heat facilities in an effort to clear the air for visiting athletes and tourists. "When I was young, the sky was green and we [could not] see stars at night," says local government official David Lee, a lifelong Chongqing resident "This year, we see blue skies and stars. We think it's much better."
Perhaps, but the air is still not so clear—it can be tasted on the tongue, felt in the lungs and obscures the horizon. Part of the problem is a lack of enforcement of existing clean air laws—and efforts to avoid them. Factories and power plants turn on pollution control equipment when government officials visit but, when they leave, such controls are shut off to boost power production. "The government cannot check every day," Lee says.
The government "needs to enforce the environmental laws, if they want blue skies," insists Li Jungfeng, director of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.
Other Chinese cities, such as Zhengzhou in China's most populous province Henan, have little hope of such clear skies any time soon. There the stars remain invisible at night, according to former resident Li Jia, now a college student in Beijing.
The atmosphere in Beijing is still so thick with pollution (despite a ban on coal burning and spending $17 billion, or 120 billion yuan, on clean air measures in the last decade) from cars, factories and other sources that some athletes, including marathon runner Haile Gebrselassie of Kenya, voluntarily withdrew from the games and a shot at Olympic Gold because of health concerns.
"It is bitter air that you can feel," says Timothy Hui, a program manager at environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council and a Beijing resident. "People hate it. They complain."
Efforts such as GreenGen bode well for resolving those complaints, but China is also moving ahead with efforts to turn coal into liquid fuel—a costly transformation that emits twice as much CO2 as does simply burning the black rock and consumes yet more energy.
Fundamentally, however, a good portion of China's air pollution is simply outsourced smog: industry that has migrated from the U.S. and E.U. to China to help maintain low prices or clean Western skies. A full 23 percent of China's greenhouse gas emissions can be linked to Western exports, according to an analysis by researchers at the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in England. And researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh put the percentage even higher: 33 percent.
That doesn't absolve China of responsibility to cut back on noxious emissions and it is clear that the fate of the world's climate will be forged in the crucible of its industrial cities. "Gradual warming of the earth's atmosphere is caused by the developing countries as well as the developed countries," says English professor Wang Xiansheng of Zhengzhou University, which is also facing rolling blackouts as a result of the current coal shortage. "The whole world should get united to deal with the problem."
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=can-coal-and-clean-air-coexist-china
A few Kondratieff Cycle links:
http://kondratyev.com/reference/theory_explained.htm
http://www.kondratieffwinter.com/kw_wave.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/207/development/longwaves.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/modelski/IPEKWAVE.html
http://www.comstockfunds.org/screenprint.cfm?newsletterid=1388
http://www.thelongwaveanalyst.ca/cycle.html
http://www.datacomm.ch/dbesomi/Links/links-16.html
http://www.safehaven.com/searcharticles.cfm
http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/Archives/2005/20050713.html
Kondratiev wave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave
Witches are hexy
Interestingly enough Rowan Atkinson will be doing a musical stage show, playing Fagin in "Oliver!"
http://www.theatreroyaldrurylane.co.uk/
Witches are hexy
Evil Mr bean (lol)
Billy Talent - Turn Your Back
Buckcherry - Don't Go Away
Buckcherry - Too Drunk