Facebook group to get Gulf Coast citizens connected with non-Gulf citizens that want to offer a stay !

Because of the growing rumours that the oil-affected coastlines will become unhabitable in short time:
This facebookgroup is just been started:

CONNECTING PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LEAVE THE

GULF AREA WITH PEOPLE WHO CAN HELP

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=114661128579934&v=wall&ref=mf

People of the inland are reaching their hands to the one that live at the shores and try to offer their some place to stay.

If you need a place to stay, I unfortunately live in Belgium nor have I extra beds but I wish you really good luck finding something!!! Though I hope you don't need it!

But before doing this, please protest as much as you can and index your finger at BP and the Gulf Coast. They are responsible for this and should help you all out in the first place! Or better: they have to prevent that you have to leave your area because of being poisoned by them!!

My heart is really with you guys!

Update: MASS EVACUATION DUE TO GULF OIL SPILL?

(Picture taken by NASA's earthobservatory centre at the 22nd of June 2010)




In the meantime there emerged more news about a possible mass evacuation of the BP Oil affected states at the Mexican Gulf Coast.
Surprisingly (or not??) much of this articles have already been deleted! So you need to look into the google cache to be able to read them. The sources spreading the news are starting to get more mainstream so it doesn't have the state of gossiping on forums, blogs and conspiracy sites anymore. (Themarketfinancial.com was one of the sources but has already removed the article).
The source of the news is said to be 'government insiders (FEMA)' who say to get ready for the dead zone.


As already was been feared and I stated out here and in other places of this blog: especially the Corexit forms a direct danger to the habitat. It is a heavily poison of which it's molecules can transist into gases and evaporate, form clouds and come onto land together with rain fall.
When fluid, this heavy posion is invisible, making it even more dangerous. You may not notice it is being around, while it is poisoning the ground, the water, ... and everything which is living on it.

"The oil dispersant used by BP, Corexit 9500, is seen by FEMA sources as mixing with evaporated water from the Gulf and absorbed by rain clouds producing toxic precipitation that threatens to continue killing marine and land animals, plant life, and humans within a 200-mile radius of the Deepwater Horizon disaster site ...in the Gulf.
Plans are being put in place for the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Mandeville, Hammond, Houma, Belle Chase, Chalmette, Slidell, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pensacola, Hattiesburg, Mobile, Bay Minette, Fort Walton Beach, Panama City, Crestview, and Pascagoula."

"The toxic rain from the Gulf is expected to poison fresh water reservoirs and lakes, streams, and rivers, which will also have a disastrous impact on agriculture and livestock, as well as drinking water, in the affected region."

"Adding to the worries of FEMA and the Corps of Engineers is the large amounts of methane that are escaping from the cavernous grotto of oil underneath the Macondo drilling area of Gulf of Mexico."

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Government-Insiders-Get-R-by-OilGuy-100624-488.html

http://oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spills/Government-Insiders-Get-Ready-for-the-Gulf-Dead-Zone.html (Here someone's speaks about the same article)

Reuters, A mainstream newssource confirms the problematic presence of methane gas:

"Texas A&M University oceanography pofessor John Kessler, just back from a 10-day research expedition near the BP Plc oil spill in the gulf, says methane gas levels in some areas are "astonishingly high."

Kessler's crew took measurements of both surface and deep water within a 5-mile (8 kilometer) radius of BP's broken wellhead.

"There is an incredible amount of methane in there," Kessler told reporters in a telephone briefing.

In some areas, the crew of 12 scientists found concentrations that were 100,000 times higher than normal."

The possibly developing of the first storm Alex in the Gulf is not good news either and an extra reason to suspect toxic rains getting into land.

But please don't panic! I'm not having any medical background but I can hardly imagine people drop dead directly after being exposed to this toxic rain and gasses as the articles state.
At the other hand health effects are almost certain after exposure to this highly poisoned mixture (see the clean up workers health risks).
Especially for some at risk groups (I can think of lung patiens, heart patients, kids and elderly) inhaling this stuff may harm them immediately so please, be careful!
I can only advise people living at these places to, if possible and you have family, relatives, friends,... somewhere else in the U.S. to go over there...

Please remember that the people living in unaffected areas and even more then 1000 miles away or on other continents are feeling very much for you and have compassion because no-one would have his landscape seen killed by this and I think anyone can imagine that we all can get the victim of heavily pollution sooner or later...



Because it is very clear that this is only the beginning!! If BP keeps spreading Corexit it will soon be the end ... cause it will then not only stay at the South-East Coast of North-America so we need to ORGANISE BIG PROTESTS WORLDWIDE that must be held at least EVERY DAY (each big city can have it's own protest one day so that it are everyday other people, mostly) IN THE BIG STREETS OF THE STATES, IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, IN FRONT OF LOCAL AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OFFICES AND IN FRONT OF BP's OFFICES TO NOTE THEM THAT THE PUBLIC DOES CARE AND WANTS THIS SURREAL MADNESS TO STOP!!!!

How money still comes first.

For a disaster of this proportion, you expect ALL AVALAIBLE equipment, materials, experts, ingeniors, booms, oil vessels, sweep arms, skimmers, dredging systems,workmen ... are being used to try to prevent as much as environmental damage possible.

Unfortunately, that is not even resembling reality.
There are a lot of problems occuring:

One is the fact that BP is in charge of this whole operation itself. BP is the one too that will need to pay for this disaster as well so ... BP is too the one which determines who it wants too work for them and who may not! Obviously, BP is - like usual - not giving environmental impact of the oil a priority.

In many cases, this equipment is being provided by private companies -- at BP's expense. And like other elements of the joint response, decision-making has been complicated because federal officials must consult with the oil giant before signing off on any offer.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/14/politics/washingtonpost/main6581011.shtml



Second, the U.S. administration system is not prepared enough to deal with a disaster of this extent. While decisions need to be taken as quickly as possible and waiting can prove fatal to the world as a whole, the administration is holding up offers of companies and governments wanting to help cause they simply don't know how to decide or the files end up on someone's desk...

"We're clearly behind the curve because BP did not have the game plan to deal with this spill," said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), who visited Louisiana on Friday. "I don't know if the federal government has the capacity it needs at this point."

Anthony H. Cordesman, a national security and energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the administration has been hampered because the spill is "a rare case"

(...)

when a Dutch official was seeking to broker an aid agreement last month, "it was for a long time unclear on where he should go to and who should take the decision."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/14/politics/washingtonpost/main6581011.shtml


Third, because of the US federal government, the state government ànd BP have to agree on what they want to accept and what not. The decision is being postponed to. And obviously priority is given to these companies offering help that are American or friends with BP or having contacts with BP or one of it's governments. Just like there's not enough work for everybody in this case. :-/ No, American companies wants to do it all of their own, because of the money!! No they are sure that they have work for like maybe a decade to come...

A plan by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) to create sand berms to keep oil from reaching the coastline originally came from the marine contractor Van Oord and the research institute Deltares, both in the Netherlands. BP pledged $360 million for the plan, but U.S. dredging companies -- which have less than one-fifth of the capacity of Dutch dredging firms -- have objected to foreign companies' participation.

Garret Graves, who chairs Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, wrote in an e-mail that state officials "have made it clear to our contractors from the beginning that we want to use American dredges to complete this sand berm as quickly as possible . . . Ultimately, any effort to expedite these berms will be fully considered, but we remain committed to our American companies."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/14/politics/washingtonpost/main6581011.shtml

Note that the Belgian companies (Flemish actually so Dutch-speaking too) de Nul and DEME have the best equipment in the world to do this. Material of them is laying unused in Antwerp, Dunkerqe and other places while it can remove the current quantity of oil without using dispersants in 3 to 4months!! It also asked to help making a sand barrier to protect Louisiana's wetlands begin May!! They could do it cheaper then the American companies!! If their offer had not been rejected, Louisiana's wetland may have been saved from the oil disaster!!
De Nul and DEME are currently negotiating, please let them help to clean up and contain the leak!!!

The Belgian dredgers say that the entire operation could have been executed much more rapidly using the sophisticated vessels that they have. Jan De Nul and DEME proposed to BP that their fall pipe vessels be used, which are unique ships equipped with a two kilometre long fall pipe that are normally used to dump rock at great depths when laying pipelines on the seabed. ‘The diameter of the pipe on such a ship is much broader than the funnel BP is now using (my add: it is double in diameter) to suck up the oil,’ says Noel Pille of Jan De Nul. ‘That means we can collect more oil, which can be pumped underwater into an oil tanker. Moreover, at the bottom of the fall pipe there is a type of unmanned submarine, which can perform tasks at great depths. With our assistance the entire process could have been speeded up greatly.’

(...)
construct sand and stone barriers using their giant dredging vessels in order to protect the coastal wetlands from the encroaching oil. 'We could do that in half the time and at a lower price,' says Pille. Both Jan De Nul and DEME also own vessels that can suck up oil slicks at a depth of 500 feet, as well as vessels that can skim oil off the surface.

http://www.mediargus.be/flanderstoday.admin.en/rss/27675886.html?via=rss&language=en

So we have the technology to clean up much more rapidly, it only needs to be used to prevent more harm due to this this terrible disaster!!!




(Notice the boat upper left...)

Toxic rain containing Corexit oil mixture for years to come !

BP is still using Corexit widely. They pump it directly into the leak to hide the extent of the oil leak that is now forcely streaming into the Mexican Gulf for more then 2 months!

The main active ingredient of Corexit is 2-butoxyethanol of which you can read the health effects here.

Corexit helps to solute oil into water, making the oil - Corexit mixture sink into the water of the ocean instead of staying on the surface. In the water, it will be impossible to ever retrieve this highly deadly combination. Millions of animals and plants will not survive this, including phyotplankton which is the main source for Oxygen in the world. Read about "gassed in the gulf" here.

Corexit is also being sprayed on the surface oil "spots" to let them sink.

Unfortunately, the oil Corexit mixture can transit into gas molecules when temperatures are high enough - like in the Gulf of Mexico. These gases can go into the air, travelling miles to fall down somewhere as toxic rain and destructing everything which is on their way as Russian scientists already reported weeks ago!

The first reports of oil falling down in Louisiana are already days old... while this is just the start of the disaster.

NORTH AMERICA MAY BE DESTROYED by this deadly combination! Probably panic will only rise when these deadly rain is falling in the gardens of the White House and on the president and his family too! As the deadly mixture is being spread by natures main forces, other continents will face the same. Our water and food supplies will be poisoned. Our harvests will be killed. And eating fish or seafood will totally be out of question.

Reports of crop damage are already been made! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPgrKrLTnbE



Please people, we have to STAND UP AND PROTEST WORLDWIDE IMMEDIATELY!!!!

Oil spill suicide: captain couldn't cope with what he saw

A very sad but expected story is coming down from the Mexican gulf.
Condolences to the family, relatives, friends, ... of this man who was a hero, like everyone is who tried to fight the biggest disaster human mankind has ever faced.

Newsstories say

A captain of one of the boats cleaning up in the Gulf, has commited suicide. He couldn't cope with the destroyed environment he saw.

But he said it's not surprising the oil spill had weighed heavily on his mind, as it has on many local fishermen no longer able to support themselves with deep-sea sport fishing trips for marlin and the like, Vinson said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/06/gulf-oil-spill-boat-captain-despondent-over-spill-commits-suicide.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GreenspaceEnvironmentBlog+


This man has seen things that are been hided by BP from the public by censoring the press which isn't obliged to enter these areas!

I feel so for this man, his family and everyone who is a victim of the oil leak directly or indirectly... And after all we will all be.

Although I can understand why this man has done this. We really must avoid to make irreversible decisions like that.
This way, BP takes benefit of it in my opinion because this man who was so emotioned by this (who would not??? and we don't know what he has been going trough so we can't judge) is no death. Normally emotions can be an incentive to make people act. But if you commit suicide... you can't act anymore. So anyone who thinks this is a solution: it is not!! It only helps the responsibles for the disaster they created, because now a potential enemy of them is not existing anymore.
What we need to do is, having those feelings and using them to act, act and act. We need to organise ourselves as quickly as possible to stop this madness at the Gulf!!! Now!!!

Please let's collect on whatever website or place alltogether, so that we can coordinate our actions, before any more victim falls!!!!


(And sorry for this chaotic message but I am shocked myself a bit.)

Containment cap removed ... Oil spill dramatically.

BP needed to remove the cap that captured a proportion of the flowing oil from the coastal guard.


Now we see how bad it is: the oil is speeding dramatically out the so called "leak" (See here)!!

Still Corexit is being used. This while Obama and BP rejected a lot of foreign help because of their Jones Act!
The people who are responsible for this need to be punished immediately and we need some experts to clean this mess up as quickly as possible! The oil is already heading outwards the Gulf of Mexico to pollute the rest of the ocean included all the life and beaches it will meet on it's way!

Let's organise ourselves in the fight to safe our oceans from the oil spill!!

I'm looking for people who want to organise actions against BP, the U.S. government and the way they are handling this catastroph.
Or people who have organised something yet, or are willing to cooperate if something (like a protest) is being organised.

If there already exists a website who's handling and coordinating the public actions against this, please let me know.

If you feel nauseas from the way everything is being handled, please let me know something, in which country you live and in which city you want to organise something then we can try to create something together.
Don't take it won't make a difference. If we don't try it, it won't. If we try, it may!

So:


- I'm from Belgium. Brussels seems the best place for a protest to me.
Every one who wants to cooperate on this or help organising it, or know someone who might, please let me and them know!


(In Dutch:

Ik ben Belgische en ik ben het beu om vervuld met afschuw naar het nieuws over deze olievlek in de golf te kijken terwijl we allen niets ondernemen. Dit is de ergste catastrofe ooit, maar de publieke opinie, noch de overheid noch non-profitorganisaties laten van zich horen. Ik vind dat het hoog tijd wordt dat we deze oorverdovende stilte doorbreken en ons, het volk, organiseren tegen de almacht, pretentie en onkunde die BP en de U.S. overheid aan de dag hebben gesteld!

Ik stel voor dat we een protestmars organiseren in onze hoofdstad, Brussel.
Indien er geïnteresseerden zijn om mee te protesteren, of er al mensen bezig zijn met de organisatie van acties, er mensen kunnen meehelpen met de organisatie en het verspreiden van het nieuws, ... gelieve zeker en liefst zo snel mogelijk iets te laten weten !!

Samen kunnen we het verschil maken!


En français

Je suis originaire de Belgique et je voudrais organiser un action de protest à Bruxelles. Je en ai marre de voire chaque jour comment BP et le gouvernement de U.S. opérer de catastrophe huile à golf de Mexico.

Si vous voulez accompagner le protest, veuillez vous me contacter s'il vous plaît.

Ensemble on peut choisir une date, une place, ... et pourtant: on peut faire une différence! Le monde nous a besoin maintenant!!

Are BP & the Government doing their best?

That is a question we need to pose ourselves now, because our whole Earth is at stake at this moment...

So are they doing the best they could? Is coping with this disaster well coördinated? Are they using the best available infrastructure and equipment, are the best scientists there? Is the budget big enough to do everything? Are they using every possible mean to avoid further disaster?

I have some serious reasons to assume they aren't!

My following posts will list what goes totally wrong:


1. Belgium companies De nul en DEME (known from the palm Islands of Dubai) have equipment that is bigger and more efficient and effective then the one the US government and BP have working on this moment but because of the Jones Act these Belgium equipment is neglected and forbidden to help clean up and prevent the damage of this world-disaster!!

The Belgian dredgers say that the entire operation could have been executed much more rapidly using the sophisticated vessels that they have. Jan De Nul and DEME proposed to BP that their fall pipe vessels be used, which are unique ships equipped with a two kilometre long fall pipe that are normally used to dump rock at great depths when laying pipelines on the seabed. ‘The diameter of the pipe on such a ship is much broader than the funnel BP is now using to suck up the oil,’ says Noel Pille of Jan De Nul.

‘That means we can collect more oil, which can be pumped underwater into an oil tanker. Moreover, at the bottom of the fall pipe there is a type of unmanned submarine, which can perform tasks at great depths. With our assistance the entire process could have been speeded up greatly.’ Both dredging companies also proposed to the US authorities to construct sand and stone barriers using their giant dredging vessels in order to protect the coastal wetlands from the encroaching oil. ‘We could do that in half the time and at a lower price,’ says Pille. Both Jan De Nul and DEME also own vessels that can suck up oil slicks at a depth of 500 feet, as well as vessels that can skim oil off the surface.

http://www.dredgingtoday.com/2010/06/11/bps-ignorant-attitude-surprises-belgians/


Who else can help?
See here for a list of the biggest dredging companies in the world:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE62Q09K20100329



So who-ever reads this quote realises a lot of the things we see today didn't even need to happen!! The Lousianian wetlands may have been safed!
The Belgian firms may even be able to prevent the doom bleed out scenario!! But America and BP just dont want to accept this help to prevent disaster!

While BP just keeps going with firing the oil and using the highly toxic dispersant Corexit, one of the most toxic products which is ever been designed!!

So, don't think that the best means are used to cope with this disaster! Something is going seriously wrong at every level of the organisation that needs to cope with this catastroph!

So please people, we need to act know!! WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?? We are losing precious time we can't get back and we'll regret this later!


The least we can do is contact the responsible people for this clean-up and ask hem to urgently get in touch with the companies named above.

Finally something is starting to move

On the 21st June 2010, more then two months after the start of the biggest environmental disaster we ever faced, people with a so called "model-function" are finally starting to move!!

The band Korn, famous from hits like "freak on a leash", released the plan to boycot British Petrol. The company who was leasing the Deepwater Horizon oil platform from Transocean and is responsible for the catastroph (official US government page) which is currently treating the South-East coast of the United States and heads to Cuba too... (This is going to be the first non-U.S. country on a long list which will experience devastated coastlines and marine-life due to BP's oil spill and the lack of handling it right)
They did also place a request for other bands and artists to do the same. Creed, Flogging Molly, Slightly Stoopid, Rob Zombie, Megadeth, Anthrax and even the nowadays very popular pop star Lady Gaga have already say to follow Korn's request to stop use any oil products stemming from BP.



Many other stars including Justin Bieber , Cameron Diaz, Lenny Kravitz, Randy Jackson, Ted Danson, Jenny McCarthy, Tim McGraw, Alyssa Milano, Robert Redford, Ian Somerhalder, Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump, Victoria Principal, Pete Wentz and Sting will be viewable tonight in "Telethlon", a special edition of "Larry King Live" broadcoasted by CNN to collect money for the people that became victims of the disaster yet because they lost their jobs.


Congratulations for this artists to raise their voices, use the media they have an easy entree to and to use their power and money to try to change something into a positive way! I hope many more artists, bands and also the public will follow soon and starts to have more and more critics on the ridiculous way BP and the U.S.'government tries to cope with it, again giving priority to economical importants at the expense of the environment which is now in very acute and critical condition!!!

I hope more artists will follow soon!!


In the meantime CrowdStar, active in gaming trough internet, also started an action. When you play their facebookgames, you can buy animals alike the one that need help in the golf. The money from the sellings will go completely to the National Wildlife Federation.

This is great but there's still so much more left to do and the biggest problem is: no matter how much money you collect.
If this money isn't spent the right way, e.g. because the management of this oil spill acts fault on every possible level and manner, it makes no sense...

Mass evacuation in Gulf due to oil spill?

As we all know, crude oil exists out of a lot of components that are highly toxic (benzene, lead, ...). Some of these toxics aren't even out of the product when we buy it as energy source.

You wouldn't want to inhale this too much or get this stuff onto your skin where it can go to the pores of it and get into your bloodtraffic.

Even a lot more toxic than crude oil, is Corexit(pdf). A product which has been used in masses by British Petrol to "solute the oil". They say the goal of using this product was solute the oil into the water so that it's just gone. But ... it's believed that they used this highly toxic product to prevent that the oil stayed on the water surface, so that the oil spot seemed less big... Interestingly, Corexit is a product that didn't sell for obvious reasons (safety hazards), made by a company, Nalco of which BP has a lot of shares ... So BP makes money because of it's oil spill!
Other shareholders may sound familiar to, they are said to be Warren Buffet and Goldman sachs...

Now unfortunately, this mixture of Corexit and oil may be 11 times more poisonous then crude oil itself.
This means of course that probably all sea and marine life coming in touch with these will be killed. This we know for sure.

Everyone can see - I think - that this is "not good" for the sea life, but, why and how will it harm people when it is safely in the water? No-one will get into the water as long as this deadly mixture is present.

This will quickly will clear if you get onto the Gulf beaches or speak with the helpers ... of whom some have been brought to hospital with serious respiritory difficulties and other problems.

Okay, but you didn't plan to go to the beaches now probably so this deadly water mixture will not come close to your body.

Wrong ... hurricane season is coming up. But even hurricanes are unnecessary, a severe storm or just an ordinary rainfall will do the trick ....
It will pick up the poisonous mixture of the Mexican Golf and bring it into land ... Maybe as far as 200 miles inside.
The consequences of this are extraordinary and the biggest catastroph scenario we possibly can think of:
if a human gets into contact with these poisonous mixture that can be air borne (gasses), is invisible, and is even damaging when it is onto your skin because it can be absorbed by the body and brought into the bloodstream, let alone what happens when you have to swim in it because of a flood and swallow a bit of this ...
that person will be in serious trouble.

Corexit is mutagenetic (meaning that your dna will transform causing all kinds of defects and if your reproduction cells will be affected to we will see generations of children that have all kinds of disabilities), it can cause accute and permanent blood (anemia), kidney, liver, respiratory,... damage. It contains all kinds of carcinogens, neurotoxics, heavy metals, ... It may even be worsers then we now, according to this article a lot has been censored.


So there are reasons why the "Family survival news" newsletter has put this paper online for free with tips for everyone who still lives near (within 200 miles) the affected coastlines.


Some sources picked up the news of an operation going on that is code named "Swift Fox". This is the name of the mass evacuation that has been planned to relocate the people living within 200 miles of the affected areas because of the serious health problems that are linked to the above mentioned poisonous gasses!
There are no mainstream sources of this yet. If you google "evacuation gulf coast", "swift fox evacuation" of "operation deadly tide" you'll notice though that some people say to have information that the military service is preparing this and camps are being built as well as hotel rooms are being rented (unter the Martial law). This evacuation is not started yet!! I'm just saying these plans are made for in case ...
Indeed, if the wind and rain brings Corexit and oil components into the South and East regions of America, that will ruin this whole parts of the country, making the food crops that are growing on it useless (poisoned), as the land, as all animals, lakes, rivers, ... everything will be destroyed


So people, we need to organise ourselves and act now in order to help the government taking the right decisions that are good for all of us and not only for the portfeuilles of some.

Gulf Oil Spill

Dear Earth-inhabitants,

Today we face a massive problem on an unseen scale. The consequences are bigger than we can and will ever be able to imagine.
This will undoubtly affect all life on Earth.


I will speak of the consequences of this and try to update the news about this in a time but since there's no time left I first want to do a begging call for something else which is even more mind-boggling then the disaster that is unfolding itself!!

The industry, together with the U.S. authorties and U.S. government is dealing with this catastroph the wrong way!!!
We, civilians, (because we are the only specie that is available too but all species will be affected even if they can't raise their voices), need to act and organise ourselves now to stop this!!!

I'm not saying that all of us are equally responsible for this. That is not true. But we all have the choice to do something, (instead of only feeling miserable and ashamed to be a human after watching the news, ,) and in the degree we have the choice to act the way we want too, we are responsible!!


The least we can do is protesting, forcing and urging the authorities to handle this leak properly in order to prevent further damage and to make this clean-up work as efficiently as possible.
So please, let all of us unite and force our governments (to force the company) to handle it with the best available equipment, technologies, infrastructure, scientists and other dedicated people who only do things based on all the information that is available, and do only things that are science or very common sense based!!!

It is shocking, to say at least, that we give the future of our fragile ecosystem which is determining the future of all life on earth, to a company which is hiding news-facts, hiding information, lieing, worsening the leak, using the poisonous Corexit (!!!!!) for it's own profit, and so on ...

If u want to try to organise something, do something or unite as quickly as possible, please leave a quick note unter this message then i'll contact u trough the given mailadress (if i can get that?) or if I wont be able to see your mailadress just keep following this blog (I have to make sure that my messages are reaching and motivating people to chose for their future!).

I hope for a massive response. (If not I'll have to look for something else to reach a lot of people that are motivated, tips welcome!! (making my completely own website may take too long...!!)

The illusion of health

Dear readers of this blog,


This blog will - hopefully temporary - probably not be updated anymore soon because I suffer from medical problems.


Thank you for visiting,

Yours sincerely,

me

Drought

Does this still need any explanation?




I don't think so.

The only question is when... the certainy is that it will hit us between this very day and like 30 years further...


(coming soon in a following blogpost)

R.I.P. Yasmine

I just heart the news that Yasmine, a great Flemish (Belgium) singer/presentator just died and can hardly believe she did. Rumours say that she was not in a good health last months. She had a harsh time coping with her recent divorce with the woman Marianne Dupon (winner from tv program 'Who is The Mol?), which whom she had a child.
She was only 37 years old. She made some incredible songs, presented some programs and was known a great person.

This is a great loss for the Flemish world of music and tv.

I was touched by it, cause she is one of the singers I grew up with and I really appreciated her. That's why I chose to share this internationally.


Here you can listen to one of her songs (in dutch). (I cannot find more songs on youtube because it dates from the nineties ...)
I hope she may rest in peace now...

Condolences to her relatives and friends...

Iran begging desperately for honesty!

I never got the goosebumps so many times in my life on a row as when I read the news about Iranian protesters.... I've got it even more when I read they were being attacked by the police and army. The one that should care for them in all situations...
This while I'm absolutely astonished by the pictures showing the amount of people on the streets.



I have one very important call for the people of Iran who are demonstrating on the streets:

Please make clear where you stand for!! (cause in the western world, most people don't know for sure)...)

I'm not saying my own opinion here, but feedback about what I have gathered of information from average western people and media services.


In the western world we all know that you want the voices to be recounted. But I hear that some people think that the votings results might be right. Some media claim researches showed most people of the more rural Iranian areas will have voted for Ahmadinejad. (Extra source). Claiming that only a minority of the people, especially those living in the cities and higher-educated, are actually wanting the leadership of Mousavi. So, the victory of Ahmadinejad may be democratic, according to them.

But for western norms, nor the victory of Ahmadinejad nor Mousavi or any other candidate is fully democratic. This is because the Iranian system is totally different from the western view on what democracy has to be like, cause in Iran religion and politics are interwoven largely. Here, democracies are all seculate. People do not believe that presidential candidates that have to be approved first by the religion counsil in order to actualy become a candidate, can ever be democratic...


There are people here that fear a choice for Mousavi is the lesser of two evils. They think the possible policy of Mousavi won't make live better for an average Iranian citizen. This is corelated with the above argument, namely that real leadership actually is by the religious leaders.

Western people also remember he started the nuclear program of Iran while being Prime Minister for the country. Indicating the foreign policy certainly will not change. So egoistic as we are ...


And this might be exactly the reason(s) why the western society does not react heavily on the protests in Iran, taking a point against the government. I'm quiet sure the western world will react a lot more and heavier while hearing that you, Iranian civians, are want the whole Iranian theocracy to be reformed... I'm sorry to say to and I regret that this means that we have some values that are more important than others. Or otherwise said: our governments won't hesitate if they see a chance to force their own opinion about how a state should be organised ... (and especially to install a free market or a 'foot on ground in the oil-richt Iran'. This is how harsh the world is...

But let this shocking and maybe pessimistic news not rise any doubts about the fact that:
1) we all incredibly admire the courage of the people that are even unarmed and trying to make a better world for themselves, even if this means risking their lives!!
2) Under no circumstances, the western world will ever accept governments who are cheating their own population, let stand alone encouraging or understanding governments who make protests illegal or shoot their own population!!




In the meantime I heart the horrifying news that:
- internet and mobile phone connection are being shut down by the government
- Mousavi's new agency is being shut down ... (source: All Jazeera)
- protesters are giving up in fear because of the heavily violent actions of the armed army and police... (source: All Jazeera)

Can someone please (dis)confirm this rumours?


For the Iranian civilians now, being out there on the streets and making theirself an easy target for the government... I read about a way you could protect yourself and be more powerfull:
all the people joining the protests have to interlock themselves with their arms and no-one might let go, unter no circumstance!!!! When a group stays together, they are a lot stronger. When they separate the people, they may feel victory is on their side...

I cross my fingers for all you people. And please, remember one thing: never give up where your ideals stand for, than your voices will be heart in your own country and even at the other side of the globe!

Dollar collapsing?

It's time to bring something totally different than Belgium politics now:

I'm going to introduce you into some knowledge I noticed by chance. I can still barely believe it is real because it's really mind-boggling. So if someone has information that contradicts anything I'm going to write now (or anything what is in this blog at all), please give me a sign. :)



In Holland there is a docu-serie called 'Tegenlicht'. In November 2005, they broadcasted this informationserie about the real value of the American Dollar, titled 'the day the dollar drops'. In this docu was claimed: (I translate literally): Every second, the United States borrows 18 000 dollar. In total, it makes three billian dollar a day. This money is been borrowed especially from Asia, in particular China and probably also India. This way US get money to spend and buy stuff from ... China... and China builds up a (n invisible) reserve. So if China doesn't borrow money, it doesn't sell anything anymore in the US cause they simpley are out of money. This way, the two worldpowers hold each other in a constricting grip.




As long China is wanting to be a world bank for the US, everything goes well. But from the moment they realise that this money borrowed by the US won't come back, because it's just an amazing amount (in total, it's according to this site + 11 trillion dollars!).
This means there is like a bomb ticking beneath the US that may one day explode. That day the worth of the dollar will be far beneath any other coin in the world. This makes it even more problematic for 'worlds most powerful country' to pay ever back with they lend China. How this is going to be soluted and how this will affect world's economy, we might knew soon.


Today I read in "the Time" (De Tijd, a Belgian economical newspaper) this for me astonishing and shocking article. Astonishing because of the implications it may have for the welfare of the world and I'm not able to make a realistic estimation of the possible consequences of this:

De Chinese centrale bank heeft dinsdag opgeroepen om de Amerikaanse dollar te vervangen als internationale reservemunt en het internationaal monetair systeem te hervormen.

Literally translated, it says: "the Central Bank of China tuesday has called for a replacement of the American Dollar as the coin for international reserves (and to reform the international monetary system.)



As I stated before, I don't know where that will lead. And I don't know if I want to...







Will be continued, at least if the world economic doesn't slows so much on 24 hours (as predicted by some experts in the docu above) that I won't be able to pay for my internet anymore. :)



Smart persons among us already noticed that the US government has the same attitude as wat it's population is been blamed: buying everything on credit, and what now is the cause of the worldwide financial crisis. But there is more to come...

Are we pointing to the right man?

At the end, you can imagine Yves Leterme got al the blame for gettting no agreement to form a government to lead the country. But did he deserve that?
What only few people realise is that the base note of the pin points of the union reformation was made by no one less than ... Guy Verhofstadt. At that time looking for a free position in the European Union. Guess who might have collected all the blessings if the note would have been backed up by everyone.... (an impossible scenario). It may also be clear who got the humiliations if the note was not back-uped by everyone.



Leterme was actually gifted with another surprise from the previous politicians (government). Verhofstadt did not find it necessary to, despite all the calls of intellectuals and economical teachers to provide some savings for the future, prepare for the grey golf which comes closer day by day and may be a great danger for ouir welfare. Instead, he claimed measurements to save were not necessary because the economy was doing well. But, though the economy was doing well he had to do all kinds of trics to keep his government budget in balance. So he took all kind of short-term-importance measurements without thinking about the consequences. Why should he? This were worries for the future.. if the population would chose him again as a Prime Minister... now this chances had to be as high as possible, even by making choices that were impairable with good long-term management. (But you can't blame any politician for doing that. Almost any human being with a good job will do everything to keep his ass safe.)
Among these measurements were the selling of buildings from the government (and renting them immediately back ........) and the paying of the vacation salary at the huge adminstration corpse. This way, Verhofdstadt got his budget in balance at the end of the year. But he left his successor with a very difficult task: keep his budget in balance, in a financial crisis, without losing the demographic factors



So Verhodstadt was a real liberal...

The raise of votings for CD&V (continuation of the previous post: roots of the political crisis)

CD&V mainly took over some points of the Vlaams Belang and attenuated them, so they made them more interesting for a more diverse public and less extremistic. They promised a 'union reformation'. The structures of our state would be changed thorougly, leading to a greater independency of Flanders and Walloon and also resolving some territorial issues.
Front leader of the party at that moment had become Yves Leterme, a man from West Flanders who already was the Prime Minister of the Flandern government on that moment.



With his new and revolutionary program he promised to resolve all issues who were frightening every Belgium politician and were pending for years and years between Flanders and Walloon.
Leterme got chosen by the population and became the Prime Minister of Belgium. This implies he had the task to form a government. This didn't seem to be a cup of tea. As expected, especially the Walloon politicians blocked the negotiations on all possible ways. The four Walloon political parties demanded to not separate BHV, to appoint the chosen Frenchspeaking politicians as city managers of Dutchspeaking communes (which is against the main law, it only allows that French/Dutchspeaking persons govern in French/Dutchspeaking communes) and to stop using the argument that Dutchspeaking (Flemish) people are the majority of the country's population.
(This argument is being used by Dutchspeaking people to point out that the French community gets more money to spend par person, then the Dutch community does...). The Flemish politicians didn't agree with this argument cause this will lead to an expansion of the French community (and so a loss of the Flemish territorium) and an expansion of the French-spoken region while French-speaking people are already moving to Dutch communes, suppressing the Dutch language in this communes because most of them are unilingual, making it hard for Flemish people who also are unilingual to live their because their entry to certain facilities is hindered.



This made it impossible for the government to form a consensus, subsequently Leterme was leaven no choice: betraying the people that voted for him by giving the Walloon people what they wanted, even if this importance was totally contrary to Flemish importances and making the most important things he wanted to ask subsequently impossible (because he would be inable to use the argument of the fact that the Flemish people are in the majority), or ... just stop with the negotiatons and resign...
He chose to stand up for the rights of the people he defended, and resigned honourably...

From the beginning it was clear: nevertheless the fact that Leterme was chosen by the majority of the people to govern the country and his very brave intentions, somewhere behind the scenes he was being totally sabotaged. Leterme could impossibly succeed. And no-one with this demands at the Walloon people would ...

Political crisis, possible roots

I will try to give a summary of the situation and my opinion about it.





For years we have issues on our political diary that are dealing with the fundamental structures of the country, but they have been postponed till today because no politicians were able to form a satisfying agreement for all groups of interests.
This themes were essentially about tensions between the regions belgium exists about. The fact that they were postponed for such a long time leaded to dissatisfaction of an Someone found an original solution for the crisis.
non-ignorable and growing Buyers were advised to buy the land in pieces.
proportion of the population.

The two, at least in my opinion, main issues are: although in Flanders there is a bigger population, the Belgium parliament gives a bigger amount of the national money to Walloon. Futhermore, according to a study there is an enduring stream of money from the north of the country (Flanders), to the south (Walloon). This creates tensions in the population.

The other issue is the fact that a voting district, Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, forms an inunderstandable exception in the belgium country structure because it constitutes of two regions and communities: the officially bilingual Brussels one, and a part of the Flanders one, where Dutch is spoken. Some inhabitants of Flanders even went to court with this problem and the judge declared they were right. Politicians got the time till 2007 to change this, otherwise subsequent votings would be illegal.

Especially the civilians of Flanders were fed up with this situation, leading to an increase of votes for the party "Vlaams Belang" (earlier called "Vlaams Blok") with frontleader Filip De Winter. This party advocates strongly Flemish cultural traditions. More concretely, it insists that immigrants should adapt our culture and, more importantly for my account, that Flanders should go independent.


Separation of Flanders (represented with a lion) & Walloon (cock).


In answer, other politicical parties formed a cordon sanitaire, preventing the Vlaams Belang from being part of a governmental coalition for ethical reasons. But the votes for the party only raised. So some other parties investigated the cause of the success of this party and adopted some viewpoints of this, making it more moderately right. This also led to the origin of new parties such as LDD (Lijst De Decker) (Dutch) and "Nee" (Dutch) and to a different approach in CD&V, the Christen Democratic Party.

How is Belgium governed ?

I will try to give a view of the present Belgian political crisis. In order to do that, I will give a bit background about the way Belgium is governed.

In Belgium, there are three national languages: in order of the quantity of the population speaking it: Dutch (mainly spoken in Flanders and somehow differing from the Dutch spoken in Holland), French (mainly spoken in Walloon) and German (spoken in the eastern-Walloon site of Belgium).

Belgium divided by the three languages

speaking, which are the basis for the three

communities. (Orange: dutch-speaking,

red: french-speaking, green: german-

speaking.)

We have six separated governments [these are: the federal government (national level), the Walloon regional one, Walloon community one, the Flemish one (where community and regional are put together), the regional Brussels government and the government of the German community. They are being controlled by parliaments, of which we have seven: the chamber of representants and the senate, the Flemish - and the Walloon parliament, the parliament of the Brussels region, the parliament of the German-speaking community, the parliament of the French-speaking community. The communities have the task to defend the interests of language-related aspects of the community they govern. The regional governments are charged with more economical aspects of the regions they govern.

So, every level of policy has his own elements to regulate, making it somehow a mess for the population to understand how their own country functions, let alone for outsiders…

Above some typical Belgian products: chocolates, 'Brusselse wafel' and beer.

famine due to climate change

CLIMATE CHANGE CONSEQUENCES



Only a few people, without the theoretical background relevant to climate science, realise that on the long-term we bring ourselves in danger because we are with 6 billion people needing food and fresh (sweet) water to survive.
When the climate will change further, the glaciers up the mountains providing our rivers with fresh water will melt. Consequently in the short term there will be floods at the fertil river side, destroying the harvests. On the long run, the consequences are even worser: the river's water level is going to shrink and one day it shall be dry which is devastating for the harvests.




Furthermore we lose fertile landscapes by the increasing sea level, which also increases the amount of salt in the bottom, making it unable to grow most food species.

Of course only the change of the climate itself is enough to do the trick...

So climate change will undoubtly raise pressures on our available food supply while our population is still raising.

In an interview to new scientists, James Lovelock states:

"

I think it's wrong to assume we'll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It's happening again."

Further in the article he gives, thank god, solutions to prevent the worst from happening.

But, I think this foodproblems can be solved partly by the vertical way of farming I wrote about in my previous post.

And as 67% (!) of the world fresh water amount was used by agriculture in 2005, vertical farming may be a solution here too.

Change the way we produce food

Since the moment people adapted a sedentary lifestyle, the way we produce food isn't dramatically altered. We have better machines, better techniques, and crops with better characteristics to survive plagues, extreme weather events and we were able to refine the tastes to our needs due selection. But fundamentally, the way we produce food is the same as it has always been in history.

Despite this, today our society is totally different. We have a far more greater population which is still raising almost exponentially and most people live concentrated in the big cities of our world. But this cities aren't suitable places for growing food because of loads of reasons: first, you need space to grow food and land is exactly the thing that is very scarce in the city. Second, there is a lot of pollution which is nefast for the growing of food and other green, thirdly, there also is a pressure on resources like for instance clean water, ... Ironically, these urban cities and metropoles are the places where food is most needed (speaking in terms of quantity). Most people live there and they of course don't have the space nor the time to grow food on their own. So the food has to come from the peripherial and other parts of the country with unbuilt land and other circumstances more suitable to grow food. This means that all this food, from everywhere over the world, has to be transported massively to all these cities, everyday or weekly over and over again... The quantities of energy we are just spilling by transporting all these food, are immense.

Happily, some people invented a solution for this and other problems and challenges associated with our agriculturing arises. The concept is called vertical farming. The idea is that you built a skycraper with diverse stores that instead of using for housing and organisations, can now be used to grow food! The advantages of this idea are enormous. First of all, this buildings can easily be integrated in the city without leading to a discomforting view of agricultural in the cities, because they won't pop-out between all skycrapres. Secondly, you may not have a lot of space, but you can multiply the amount of space you have because you built your farm in storages. Thirdly, the traffic for food transport from all over the world to the cities is no more necesarry since our vertical farm in the middle of the city can provide all the inhabitants, restaurants, hotels, magazines, markets, ... with food. Energy use and transport emissions can be reduced substantially this way. Figure: Possible outside view of a vertical farm, showing how benefits from a triangle piece of ground can be exponentially increased. Another advantage is undoubly the fact that our vertical farm can be hermetically closed from the outside influences, meaning that there is no chance of outside pollutions, organisms and other that can affect our destroy the harvest. Because the harvest is now unentrancable to viruses, bacterias and animals that can potentially have dramatic effects on the harvest, there is no more need to use agressive and toxic pesticides now! Which may drastically increase the health of the population and the environment. Figure: Inside, it may look like this. Even more important is that the ecologically negative consequences of our monocultural agriculture we use today can be disminished. I'm thinking of the salination of masses of land so they become unusable for most plants, the drying effect of the land by agriculture, the pesticides and other toxins coming into the water and polluting it, ... Because of course, when you have a totally hermetical farm, no drop of water has to get lost cause everything, energy and water can be recuperated and used again. This vertical farm can of course gets his energy from solar panels, making it green in all manners of speaking. Ultimately interesting, is that this way of agriculturing will make us, finally and for the first time since the existence of mankind, totally independent from the climatic and geographical circumstances for our food production. Meaning that every skycraper can ass well be planted in a country with water shortages and dry land such as is common in most African developing countries as in a country with a climate that's more suitable for food production. This implicates that this way of farming can be a giant step forwarth in finally banning food famine from the world.