NORTH KOREA CAN KILL 90% OF AMERICANS BY SATELLITE EX-CIA DIRECTOR WARNS

ALMOST 4 YEARS AGO, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE CIA, JAMES WOOLSEY, BEGAN SAYING IN INTERVIEWS THAT NORTH KOREA ALMOST CERTAINLY HAS A NUCLEAR DEVICE ATTACHED TO A SATELLITE THAT ORBITS OVER AMERICA TWICE A DAY.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA DID NOT RUN FAR WITH THAT BALL OF INFORMATION.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, OF ALL MEDIA, GAVE HIS CONCERNS A PIECE OF A PAGE IN 2014.
DO AN ONLINE SEARCH AND YOU WON'T FIND HIS WARNINGS IN OTHER MAJOR MEDIA.

James Woolsey and Peter Vincent Pry: The Growing Threat From an EMP Attack..
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Aug 12, 2014
"...until recently little attention has been paid to the ease of generating EMPs by detonating a nuclear weapon in orbit above the U.S."

WOOLSEY HAS REPEATEDLY STATED QUITE SUCCINCTLY THAT ALMOST CERTAINLY NORTH KOREA HAS THE CURRENT CAPABILITY TO HIT AMERICA WITH AN EMP (ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE) WHICH WOULD PERHAPS TAKE OUT 90% OF OUR POPULATION DUE TO LACK OF WATER, ELECTRIC POWER AND FOOD. AFTER ALL, WE NEED THE GRID TO PUMP WATER AND GAS AND OIL AND WE NEED FUEL TO DELIVER FOOD TO AMERICAN CITIES.

ON SEPTEMBER 16 THIS YEAR, HE REITERATED THESE WARNINGS ON 'VOICE OF AMERICA'.

Q: How likely is it that the Kim regime has developed a functional ICBM and a miniaturized warhead?

A: Probably not fully yet. But it doesn’t matter because they don’t need an intercontinental ballistic missile in order to attack directly the United States. They can do so with a satellite launch and [they] have nuclear weapons contained in the satellite that continues to circle the Earth a couple of times a day. ... So it does not take an intercontinental ballistic missile to reach the United States. You can do it fine with a weapon on a satellite.

Q: You seem to be describing a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. Could you describe how it works, and do you think the North Koreans currently have the capacity to carry out such an attack?

A: I think it’s likely that they do. The destructive mechanism would be, it would not go directly against people, but would destroy the electric grid. It uses a detonation up above the Earth. It would not be targeted at a specific location, a specific building or an ICBM silo or something. It would knock out the grid generally. That means there would be no food, no water, no telecommunications and no hospitals. It would be a hideous situation. So that could be even more devastating than a nuclear attack that was targeted on individual locations.

Q: Do you think North Korea is posing a serious threat at this point in time?

A: I think it’s quite serious because it’s relatively easy to do. Orbiting a satellite is the easiest thing ... and a simple nuclear weapon that is about the size of a golf bag ... is not hard to fit on a small satellite like that. With a satellite you don’t have to worry about re-entry, re-entry shields, accuracy and a lot of other things that you have to worry about with ICBMs.

Q: The Trump administration is spearheading the effort to expand sanctions against North Korea and thereby isolate the country diplomatically and economically. Do you think they are sufficient to rein in the regime’s nuclear weapons program?


A: It probably won’t get the job done, but they should do as much as they can....

DOES ANYONE ELSE WONDER WHY WE HAVEN'T BLOWN THAT SATELLITE INTO FAIRY DUST?
WE HAVE THE CAPABILITY, HAVE HAD IT FOR YEARS, JUST AS CHINA AND RUSSIA HAVE HAD IT.
WHY NOT TARGET THE SATELLITE AND OBLITERATE IT?

WOOLSEY ISN'T THE ONLY ONE ISSUING THIS WARNING.
APRIL 5, 2017

"Of course, most Americans may consider North Korea (DPRK) a mouse that roars. But according to former CIA director (1993-’95) R. James Woolsey and Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, chief of staff of the Congressional EMP Commission, this is a fatal mistake.

Writing at The Hill last week, they lament the “false assurance” by the media and certain officials that North Korea lacks the capacity to develop two crucial aspects of nuclear-ICBM technology: “[A]ny nation that has built nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, as North Korea has done, can easily overcome the relatively much simpler technological challenge of warhead miniaturization and reentry vehicle design,” the two men write.

As to the DPRK’s technological prowess, note also that it’s one of only 12 entities worldwide to have sent satellites into space with their own indigenously developed launch vehicles.
Yet North Korea could do great damage even without nuclear missiles. For instance, write Woolsey and Pry, it “could deliver an atomic bomb hidden on a freighter sailing under a false flag into a U.S. port, or hire their terrorist allies to fly a nuclear 9/11 suicide mission across the unprotected border with Mexico.”

Woolsey and Pry also mention how in 2008, “the CIA’s top East Asia analyst publicly stated North Korea successfully miniaturized nuclear warheads for delivery on its Nodong medium-range missile.

The Nodong is able to strike South Korea and Japan or, if launched off a freighter, even the United States.”

Other officials have sounded similar alarms.
Former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. General Ronald Burgess echoed the above in 2011, warning of the DPRK’s ability to arm missiles with nuclear warheads.
Going further, Admiral William Gortney, then commander of North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD), twice warned in 2015 that North Korea could strike the US with a nuclear-armed ICBM.

Yet while an attack with an H-bomb nuclear monster would involve millions of casualties, even it couldn’t wipe out 9 in 10 Americans. Wreaking such carnage with one device, say Woolsey, Pry and many others, would require a less well known approach: a high-altitude electromagnetic-pulse (EMP) attack.

An EMP device is a low-yield H-bomb (one to 10 kilotons) that emits an unusually high amount of gamma rays; the resulting pulse of electromagnetic radiation would, it is said, disrupt the entire electric grid. It would take out not just television, telephones and the Internet, but electronics nationwide—disabling food and water supply chains, banking systems, fuel manufacturing and production, hospitals, 911 call centers, post-1970 vehicles (which rely on electronics) and everything else associated with modern life.
In fact, the only debate among the most pessimistic doomsayers is, apparently, whether an EMP attack would bring us back to the 1800s…or the 1300s.

Regardless, we’d be reduced to medieval-level population, say Woolsey and Pry, with 90 percent of Americans dying due to “starvation and societal collapse.”

A device with the characteristics of a “super-EMP weapon” is precisely what the North Koreans have been testing, Pry stated last year.

In addition, Woolsey and Pry tell us, “Two North Korean satellites, the KMS-3 and KMS-4, presently orbit over the U.S. on trajectories consistent with surprise EMP attack.”

FROM ONE WHO WAS CLOSE TO KIM:
According to a high-level North Korean defector, Thae Yong Ho, Kim would [attack America] if he sensed an imminent threat from the US. Thae told NBC on Sunday that the tyrant is capable of “anything”—he’s a “man who can do anything beyond the normal imagination,” Thae warned.

As for Kim’s motivation, Thae says the leader “is obsessed with obtaining nukes because he saw what happened to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, both of whom abandoned their countries’ weapons of mass destruction programs and then were overthrown by Western-backed forces,” NBC News wrote.

Woolsey and Pry theorize that officials have downplayed Kim’s dangerousness because no administration “wants to acknowledge that North Korea is an existential threat on their watch.” Yet the Trump administration has taken a more aggressive stance vis-à-vis the DPRK, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson saying military action is “on the table.”

Woolsey and Pry certainly endorse this, recommending the neutralization of North Korea by any means necessary.

WHY HAS MAINSTREAM MEDIA REFUSED TO HEADLINE THESE URGENT WARNINGS FROM SO MANY WHO KNOW THE REAL SCORE?
THEY'VE BEEN ISSUED REPEATEDLY SINCE AT LEAST 2008.

WOOLSEY WROTE AN ARTICLE ON MARCH 29, 2017 WHICH SHOWS HOW LONG WE'VE KNOWN OF THIS NORTH KOREAN CAPABILITY.
"Eight years ago, in 2008, the CIA's top East Asia analyst publicly stated North Korea successfully miniaturized nuclear warheads for delivery on its Nodong medium-range missile. The Nodong is able to strike South Korea and Japan or, if launched off a freighter, even the United States.

In 2011, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lt. General Ronald Burgess, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea has weaponized its nuclear devices into warheads for arming ballistic missiles.

On April 7, 2015, at a Pentagon press conference, Admiral William Gortney, then Commander of North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD), responsible for protecting the U.S. from long-range missiles, warned that the intelligence community assesses North Korea's KN-08 mobile ICBM could strike the U.S. with a nuclear warhead.

And on October 7, 2015, Gortney again warned the Atlantic Council: "I agree with the intelligence community that we assess that they [North Koreans] have the ability, they have the weapons, and they have the ability to miniaturize those weapons, and they have the ability to put them on a rocket that can range the [U.S.] homeland."

In February and March of 2015, former senior national security officials of the Reagan and Clinton administrations warned that North Korea should be regarded as capable of delivering by satellite a small nuclear warhead, specially designed to make a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the United States.
According to the Congressional EMP Commission, a single warhead delivered by North Korean satellite could blackout the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures for over a year—killing 9 of 10 Americans by starvation and societal collapse.

Two North Korean satellites, the KMS-3 and KMS-4, presently orbit over the U.S. on trajectories consistent with surprise EMP attack.

WOOLSEY ASKED IN HIS ARTICLE: "Why do the press and public officials ignore or under-report these facts?
Perhaps no administration wants to acknowledge that North Korea is an existential threat on their watch."

WELL, YES, MAYBE, BUT THEN AGAIN, THE ELITE, AMONG WHICH ARE THOSE 'PUBLIC OFFICIALS' HAVE BEEN DIGGING IN AND BUYING UNDERGROUND SHELTERS FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW, AND ALL OF THE BOYS ON CAPITOL HILL WILL HAVE SHELTER DEEP UNDERGROUND, AS WILL THOSE WHO OWN THE MEDIA.

IF WE COUNT ALL THOSE AS 'THE TOP 10% IN AMERICA', WEALTH-WISE, THAT LEAVES THE 90% WHO WOULD BE WIPED OUT, WOULDN'T IT?

"A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
--Ted Turner

"In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it is just as bad not to say it."
--Jacques Cousteau, 1991

"We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage."
--Mikhail Gorbachev

"World population needs to be decreased by 50%"
--Henry Kissinger

"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
--Prince Phillip

BILL GATES IMPLIED IN AN INTERVIEW WITH CNN AND ON A 'TED TALK' THAT GLOBAL POPULATION MUST SOMEHOW BE REDUCED BY THREE AND A HALF BILLION HUMANS FOR EARTH TO SUSTAIN THE POPULATION.

WELL, THAT BEATS TED TURNER WANTING TO ELIMINATE 5 BILLION, OR 95%, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST.

A FEW WELL-PLACED EMPs COULD SURELY ACCOMPLISH ALL THAT, RIGHT?










//WW

SEISMIC ACTIVITY INCREASING, SUPER-STORMS BECOMING COMMON

Unprecedented rapid strengthening of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria left scientists stumped.
They now predict that this is the "new norm" in 'superstorms'.

[BTW, READERS IN THE U.K, "Maria and Hurricane Lee could merge and HIT UK"
THE REMNANTS of Hurricane Maria are heading towards Hurricane Lee over the Atlantic and on towards Britain, the latest NOAA maps show.]

Volcanoes rumbling across the globe, AS SHOWN IN THIS MAP FROM YESTERDAY, some in Japan threatening nuclear power plants.

Above: Incredible underground rapidly moving "colossus" imaged beneath the Tibetan Range.


THE EARTH SEEMS VERY RESTLESS OF LATE.
There are 34 major-erupting active volcanoes as of 09/27/2017.
46 other volcanoes are currently showing minor to moderate activity with major eruptions possible at any time.
That's a total of 80, or 50%, of the 160 volcanoes that have erupted in the past decade. 

A UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA STUDY REPORTED IN
AUGUST OF 2011 THAT...
"The Frequency of Volcanic Eruptions Is on the Rise"

The study spanned the last 7,000 years.

Their findings, published this month in the journal Geology, provide a basis for assessing and planning for the risk of future eruptions.
The team, from Leeds University and the University of South Florida, determined the likelihood of volcanic ash impacting Northern Europe is at least 16 percent per decade, a rate based on geologically preserved evidence. Because some eruptions are too small to leave detectable ash deposits — but still large enough to pose a danger to aircraft — the actual rate is very likely higher, the researchers determined.
The study is the first comprehensive compilation of sedimentary and historical records of ash-fall events in northern Europe spanning the past 7,000 years. Scientists from USF worked with researchers at the University of Leeds and Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland in analyzing ash layers in peats and lake sediments from northern Europe.
The complete paper can be read <here>.

"The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History calculates that there are currently about 20 volcanoes actively erupting while you’re reading these words.
About 50-70 volcanoes have erupted over the course of the last year, and 160 have erupted during a single decade.
There are 550 volcanoes that have been active in all recorded history, and geologists have located an additional 1300 volcanoes that have erupted in the last 10,000 years.
But most of the actively erupting volcanoes are on the deep sea floor, where nobody is there to measure them.
If you assume that 3/4 of all eruptions were underwater volcanoes, you get a total of about 6,000 volcanoes that have erupted worldwide in the last 10,000 years.
So that’s the best estimate of how many many volcanoes there are."

UPSWING IN EARTHQUAKE ACTIVITY WORLDWIDE. 
A list of significant earthquakes during the 21st century, listing earthquakes of magnitude 7 and above, or quakes which caused fatalities.
- 31 IN 2001
- 37 IN 2002
- 40 IN 2003
- 39 IN 2004
- 29 IN 2005
- 26 IN 2006
- 30 IN 2007
- 40 IN 2008
- 32 in 2009
- 38 in 2010
- 37 in 2011
Number of magnitude 5.0 or greater Earthquakes Worldwide for 2002–2011
Year  2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Total 1310 1358 1672 1844 1865 2270 1948 2057 2136 2495

HOWEVER, 2011 SAW A RECORD NUMBER OF GREATER THAN 4.0 QUAKES, A TOTAL OF 15,798.

IN 2012 (Only quakes greater than 5.0 magnitude were counted) 1558 

IN 2013 (Again, only 5.0 and above were counted)  1546 

IN 2014  
9.0+ 0
8.0−8.9 1
7.0−7.9 11
6.0−6.9 144
5.0−5.9 1577
4.0−4.9 14,941

IN 2015 
9.0+ 0
8.0−8.9 1
7.0−7.9 18
6.0−6.9 124
5.0−5.9 1,413
4.0−4.9 13,239

IN 2016  
9.0+ 0
8.0−8.9 0
7.0−7.9 16
6.0−6.9 127
5.0−5.9 1,507
4.0−4.9 12,771

THROUGH MID-SEPTEMBER, 2017

8.0−8.9	1
7.0−7.9	4
6.0−6.9	70
5.0−5.9	1,070
4.0−4.9	6,434

[SOURCE FOR EARTHQUAKES, USGS "SHAKE MAP" DATA]   

A LITTLE-KNOWN SEISMIC HOT-SPOT.
Sept. 27, 2017
Northern New Jersey, which straddles a significant ancient crack in the earth's crust known as the Ramapo Fault, recorded 16 earthquakes last year, an unusually high number for the area.
It had been relatively quiet this year, until geologists recorded a 1.3 magnitude quake on Saturday afternoon in Morris Plains.

The Ramapo fault, Gates said, is the longest in the Northeast and runs from Pennnsylvania through New Jersey, snaking northeast through Hunterdon, Somerset, Morris, Passaic, and Bergen counties before coming to an end in New York’s Westchester County, not far from the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

The small area, Gates said, is considered the most seismically active region east of the Mississippi based on data gathered since 1974, when seismographs were installed.
"I'd be willing to bet that you'd have to go all the way to Canada and all the way to South Carolina before you'd get one that active," Gates said of the area which runs from the New York state line in the Ringwood and Mahwah area down to Butler and central Passaic County, Gates said.
Of last year's 16 earthquakes, 12 were directly associated with the faults around Butler, Gates said.

To put earthquake magnitudes in perspective, experts said each year there are about 900,000 earthquakes of 2.5 magnitude or less recorded annually by seismograph.
These mild tremors are usually not felt.

There are 30,000 that measure between 2.5 and 5.4, and these are often felt, but cause minor damage.
About 500 quakes worldwide are recorded between 5.5 and 6 magnitude per year and cause slight damage to buildings and structures.
The 100 that fall within 6.1 and 6.9 may cause much damage in populated areas.
The 20 or so which fall within the 7 and 7.9 magnitude per year are considered major and cause serious damage.
Those that measure at 8 or greater can totally destroy communities near the epicenter and average one every five to 10 years.

Washington D.C. experienced a 5.8 magnitude quake in 2011, which was felt in the Northeast, Gates said. That quake cracked the Washington Monument.
A similar quake was recorded in 1737 in Weehawken, Gates noted.
"Imagine putting a 5.5 magnitude earthquake in Weehawken, New Jersey next to the Bridge, next to the tunnel," Gates said. "Boy that would be a dangerous one."

In 2008 Columbia University's The Earth Institute posted an article titled: "Earthquakes May Endanger New York More Than Thought, Says Study."
“Today, with so many more buildings and people, a magnitude 5 centered below the city would be extremely attention-getting,” the article's co-author John Armbruster wrote. “We’d see billions in damage, with some brick buildings falling.The threat though, is not tangible to many," Armbruster wrote.

The Earth Institute's article did note New York City added earthquake-resistant building codes in 1995.
New Jersey also began to require earthquake-resistant standards in the 1990s. The state, following the 2011 Virginia quake, now requires lake communities to make dams able to withstand a magnitude 5 earthquake.
The issue, Gates said, is that many of the buildings were built before these codes went into effect. A "sizable" earthquake could cause much damage.
Then there's the prediction that every 3,400 years this area can expect a quake at 7 magnitude.

UNBELIEVABLE, BUT TRUE.
"Massive, fast moving structure seen beneath Tibetan Plateau in earthquake simulation study, 2015."
Three-dimensional high velocity structures beneath East Asia from 50 km to 1000 km depth viewed from the southeast.
The collision of plates at the Tibetan Plateau has caused devastating earthquakes, such as the recent 2015 Nepal earthquake at the southern edge of where the two plates meet.
Scientists hope to use earthquakes to model the substructure and better understand the origins of these earthquakes.
Besides a high velocity colossus beneath the Tibetan plateau and a deep mantle upwelling beneath the Hangai Dome in Mongolia, the work could potentially help find hidden hydrocarbon reserves underground.

Earth is now in a seismically active period according to quake cluster theory.
May 21, 2015
Experts like Sun Shihong, research fellow at the China Earthquake Networks Centre have in the past spoken of a 100-year cycle for earthquakes.
In the first 60 years of the 20th century there were seven earthquakes above 8.5 on the Richter scale. In the following 40 years there were no major quakes. Sun believes a new cycle began at the end of 2004 with a massive 9.1 magnitude quake in Indonesia.
More recently, Zhang Zhang Xiaodong, deputy director of an earthquake forecast research institute under the China Earthquake Administration told Xinhua that since 2004, the world has suffered a frequency of quakes above 8 magnitude not seen since the first half of the 20th century.

Data analysed from 1900 onwards based on the catalogue available with United States Geological Survey (USGS) indicate there have been three possible periods of clustering of magnitude 8.5 or greater, lasting 15 years, which can also be referred to as "periods of seismic activation" of great earthquakes, he told IBTimes UK.
The first was in the period beginning with 1905 till 1920 when there were six earthquakes exceeding magnitude 8.5 and several closer to 8.5.

Next followed the period between 1950 to 1965, when seven earthquakes exceeding magnitude 8.5 occurred which included three of magnitude 9.0 or greater. During this period, the greatest known earthquake of M9.5 occurred in Chile in 1960.

"The third clustering in time of great earthquakes seems to have begun with Sumatra earthquake of magnitude 9.3 in 2004 and till 2015, already six earthquakes exceeding magnitude 8.5 have occurred globally, after Sumatra, including one of magnitude 9.0 in Japan in 2011," points Chadha.

Going by this pattern indicating a "period of seismic activation" lasting for a 15-year cycle thrice in the last 115 years, we could now be in the third cluster, he says.
"This can continue till 2019 and earthquakes with magnitude 8.5 or greater can occur along any of the collision or subduction zones of the world."
As an example of this, Oklahoma has suddenly gone from having maybe 2 low-magnitude (magnitude 3.0 or less) earthquakes per year to 2 each day.

MOST VULNERABLE LARGE CITIES.
April 29, 2015
In earthquake-prone cities, mushrooming populations are occupying buildings that are in many cases unable to withstand the effects of large quakes. Efforts to make buildings—or whole cities—safer are being outpaced by even faster growth in those places

David Wald, of the National Earthquake Information Center at the U.S. Geological Survey stated, "You can pretty much pick a continent, and find a city or a country" at high-risk for damage. All things being equal, those vulnerable countries are 100 to 1,000 times, even 10,000 times, more vulnerable than a place like California."

The seismologist and research geophysicist named a handful of places relatively close to Nepal, but pointed to other regions as well. Wald mentioned, in no particular order:

- Islamabad, Pakistan
- Jakarta, Indonesia
- Manila, Philippines
- Tehran, Iran
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Quito, Ecuador
- Lima, Peru

I WAS TRULY SHOCKED WHEN THE USGS DENIED THAT EARTHQUAKES OF MAGNITUDE 7.0 AND LARGER HAVE INCREASED IN THE PAST 10 YEARS.
WHY WOULD THEY DENY THEIR OWN DATA?

AS NBC NEWS REPORTED...
Oct 25 2014
"Worldwide Surge in ‘Great’ Earthquakes Seen in Past 10 Years."    
The annual number of “great” earthquakes nearly tripled over the last decade, providing a reminder to Americans that unruptured faults like those in the northwest United States might be due for a Big One.
Between 2004 and 2014, 18 earthquakes with magnitudes of 8.0 or more rattled subduction zones around the globe.
That's an increase of 265 percent over the average rate of the previous century, which saw 71 great quakes, according to a report to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America this week in Vancouver, British Columbia.

THE CASCADIA SUBDUCTION ZONE OFF THE CALIFORNIA/OREGON COAST 
One of the researchers scoping out Cascadia’s history of ancient earthquakes is Benjamin Horton, a professor in the department of marine and coastal science at Rutgers University.
Horton has trenched and cored in the muds along the the coasts of British Columbia and the northwest United States looking for evidence of earthquakes big enough to trigger massive tsunamis. And he’s found evidence of 12 major earthquakes over a 6,000-year period, an average recurrence interval of 500 years. But that’s just an average, he says, adding that the time between big quakes could be anywhere from 350 to 1,000 years.

“Cascadia is a really interesting story because there are no written records of a large earthquake there,” Horton says. “The last time it ruptured was January 26, 1700 A.D., over 300 years ago. The European colonizers hadn’t reached the West Coast yet. We know about it because of the tsunami that resulted from it hit Japan, where historical records of samurai talk about an orphan tsunami, which means a tsunami without a parent earthquake.”

“It’s not like you can say they occur every 500 years so the next one won’t be till 2200 and we don’t need to worry.”

Those records helped scientists figure out that the 1700 earthquake was a whopper.
“It was somewhere between 8.9 and 9.2” and may have ruptured along a 600-mile span of the western U.S. and Canada, Horton says. “It’s very analogous to the Sumatra event of 2004.”
AS WE CAN SEE, DESPITE CALMING MEDIA REPORTS SINCE FUKUSHIMA, WE ARE IN A HIGHER SEISMICALLY ACTIVE PERIOD OF TIME AND CAN EXPECT THAT FOR ANOTHER 2 TO 5 YEARS.

BUT QUAKES AND ERUPTIONS AREN'T THE ONLY THINGS INCREASING. SO ARE WHAT IS COMING TO BE CALLED "SUPER-STORMS".

From NASA's Earth Observatory:
Storms are Getting Stronger.
March 5, 2013

In 2010, an epic winter storm dubbed “Snowmageddon” dumped more than half a meter (2 feet) of snow across many parts of the U.S. East Coast.
And in April 2011, tornadoes killed more than 364 Americans—the most ever in a month.
The rash of twisters etched scars of destruction on the landscape so long and wide that they could be seen from space.
The United States set records in 2011 and 2012 for the number of weather disasters that exceeded $1 billion in losses; most were storms.

What exactly does it mean for storms to get “stronger”? Does it mean faster winds? A larger wind field? Lower pressure at the center? More rain and snowfall? Higher storm surges?

Already, there is evidence that the winds of some storms may be changing.
A study based on more than two decades of satellite altimeter data (measuring sea surface height) showed that hurricanes intensify significantly faster now than they did 25 years ago.
Specifically, researchers found that storms attain Category 3 wind speeds nearly nine hours faster than they did in the 1980s.
Another satellite-based study found that global wind speeds had increased by an average of 5 percent over the past two decades.

There is also evidence that extra water vapor in the atmosphere is making storms wetter.
During the past 25 years, satellites have measured a 4 percent rise in water vapor in the air column.
In ground-based records, about 76 percent of weather stations in the United States have seen increases in extreme precipitation since 1948.
One analysis found that extreme downpours are happening 30 percent more often.
Another study found that the largest storms now produce 10 percent more precipitation.

William Lau, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, concluded in a 2012 paper that rainfall totals from tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic have risen at a rate of 24 percent per decade since 1988.
The increase in precipitation doesn’t just apply to rain.
NOAA scientists have examined 120 years of data and found that there were twice as many extreme regional snowstorms between 1961 and 2010 as there were from 1900 to 1960.

Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developed a method to measure the total energy expended by tropical cyclones over their lifetimes.
In 2005, he showed that Atlantic hurricanes are about 60 percent more powerful than they were in the 1970s. Storms lasted longer and their top wind speeds had increased by 25 percent.
An article published in 2010 by a group of the world’s leading storm experts concluded that the average intensity of tropical cyclones will likely increase by 2 to 11 percent by 2100, but the overall frequency of storms will decrease between 6 and 34 percent.

James Elsner of Florida State University and his colleagues studied the wind-speed data from a 25-year satellite record of storms across the globe. They found that warmer ocean temperatures matched up with an increase in the highest wind speeds achieved by storms.

The North Atlantic and north Indian Ocean basins showed the strongest intensification signals in wind speed with increasing ocean temperature.
Elsner said that this is expected because these basins are colder and would show a stronger response to any warming, whereas basins that are already warm are optimized for storm formation. 

WHEN I MENTIONED TO A GROUP OF FRIENDS A YEAR OR TWO AGO THAT IT APPEARED THAT EARTHQUAKE ACTIVITY INCREASED IN JAPAN FOLLOWING OR CONCURRENTLY WITH MAJOR TYPHOONS, MOST LAUGHED.
WELL, GUESS WHAT....
Can an active hurricane season lead to an increase in earthquakes?
With Mexico still reeling from devastating earthquakes and aftershocks that occurred around the time that major hurricanes plowed through the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, some might wonder whether the two natural disasters are somehow related.

As Irma battered Caribbean islands with heavy rainfall and powerful winds, an 8.1 magnitude earthquake struck Mexico’s southern coast on Sept. 7. Meanwhile, Katia also lashed the country’s eastern coast.
Weeks later, Mexico was again rattled by powerful 7.1 and 6.1 magnitude earthquakes as Maria pounded Puerto Rico and several other islands in the Caribbean Sea.

While it’s not uncommon for tropical cyclones to occur in seismically active regions, research is limited on whether the two events are linked or if one event directly causes the occurrence of the other.
However, there is some evidence that some effects of a hurricane can contribute to seismic activity. 
“Changes in air pressure, even extreme ones due to hurricanes, can generate seismic waves, but those seismic waves are typically very much smaller in magnitude than the seismic waves from big earthquakes,” said Dr. Raymond Russo, geophysics professor at the University of Florida.

Researchers from the University of Miami and Florida International University also found that significant rain events, such as hurricanes, could possibly lead to earthquakes.
The 2011 study analyzed information from magnitude 6-and-above earthquakes that occurred in Haiti and Taiwan and discovered that major earthquakes tended to happen within four years of extremely wet tropical cyclone seasons.

According to Dr. Shimon Wdowinski, the research associate professor who led the study, severe erosion and landslides can occur after heavy rainfall, especially in mountainous regions.
“When the erosion removes the material from the mountains, it changes the crust beneath the mountains and reduces what we call normal stressing ability of the crust to hold on faults,” Wdowinski said.
This activity can promote an earthquake, he said. 

In 2010, Haiti endured a 7 magnitude earthquake a year and a half after being pummeled with heavy rain from two hurricanes and two tropical storms in a short timeframe.
“If you go back and look at when Haiti had some of their major hurricanes, it’s not the hurricanes that caused the earthquake, it’s the excessive rainfall,” said Bill Kirk, chief executive officer of Weather Trends International.
“You’re adding heavy weight that is normally not there on a given geography,” Kirk said.

When excessive rainwater seeps down into the Earth’s fault lines and into the crevices, it could take weeks or months for the water and added weight to impact those faults, Kirk added.
“You could argue that the rain in earthquake-prone areas is kind of like oil – it helps slip up the fault lines where the two could actually slip, and that’s what causes the earthquakes: fault lines slipping and merging against each other,” he said.
Kirk also said that due to the large distance between Maria, Irma and the earthquakes in Mexico, the events were not related.

OBVIOUSLY, KIRK HASN'T LOOKED AT THE PLATE TECTONICS OF THAT REGION AND SEEN QUITE CLEARLY THE CONNECTION OF PLATES FROM THE GULF OF MEXICO TOWARD THE YUCATAN PENINSULA.

SEE ALSO "Tectonic evolution of the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and northern South America in the mantle reference frame: an update"

THE GULF OF MEXICO PLATE, THE YUCATAN RIFT AND BASIN IS DIRECTLY LINKED TO WHAT IS CALLED THE TRANS-MEXICAN VOLCANIC BELT.
IT'S RATHER LIKE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE SEISMIC ACTIVITY IN THE ALASKAN RANGE AFFECTING YELLOWSTONE WHICH ALSO AFFECTS OUR NEW MADRID FAULT.
TOO BAD THE "EXPERTS' DON'T STUDY THE EARTH'S MOVEMENTS MORE.
PLATES SHIFT. THINGS SLIDE. IT'S ALL INTERRELATED.

THE "CLIMATE CHANGE" ARGUMENTS ARE COMPLETELY OUT OF HAND, WITH SOME AMERICANS APPROACHING A RABID STATE OF OUTRAGE OVER THE VERY MENTION OF THOSE TWO WORDS TOGETHER.

DEAR AMERICA, CLIMATE CHANGES EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY.
WINDS BLOW, RAINS FALL, DROUGHTS HAPPEN, EARTHQUAKES, VOLCANOES, TYPHOONS, TSUNAMIS, THUNDERSTORMS, BRIGHT SUNLIGHT, CLOUDY SKIES, ALL OF THAT SHOULD SHOW YOU THAT EARTH IS NOT A DEAD CHUNK OF COAL....SHE IS ALIVE, SHE MOVES, SHE MAKES CHANGES ALL AROUND US EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY.

SHE HAS CYCLES, YES, ALWAYS HAS, ALWAYS WILL, BUT SOMETHING HAS SET IN MOTION AN ENTIRELY NEW LIST OF CHANGES AND IT WOULD BEHOOVE ALL MANKIND TO FIND OUT WHAT IS CAUSING THIS.
IT'S MORE DRAMATIC AND HAPPENING FASTER THAN BEFORE.
WHY?
IF WE CAN CHANGE THE RATE THINGS ARE GOING, SLOW IT DOWN, WHY WOULDN'T WE?
IF WE COULD REVERSE THE UPSWING IN SEISMIC ACTIVITY OR SUPER-STORMS OR  ANYTHING THAT HARMS HUMAN BEINGS, WHY WOULDN'T WE?
IF HUMANS ARE PART OF THE CAUSE, WHY NOT CHANGE THE WAY WE LIVE ENOUGH TO REVERSE THINGS, IF WE CAN?

WE KNOW BLOODY WELL THAT FRACKING CAUSES EARTHQUAKES.
WHY KEEP FRACKING?

WE KNOW THAT OVERUSE OF FRESH WATER SUPPLIES DRAINS AQUIFERS, WHY NOT MANAGE WITH LESS WATER, DEVELOP NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR FARMING?

WE KNOW THAT WE USE FAR MORE ENERGY THAN WE TRULY NEED TO USE TO BE COMFORTABLE.
WHY NOT CUT BACK ON ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND MOVE AWAY FROM TH FOSSIL FUELS?

I RECKON THAT THE ONLY HONEST REASON WE DON'T WANT TO CHANGE HOW WE LIVE IS GREED AND SELF-CENTEREDNESS.

CORPORATIONS WANT BIG PROFITS FOR ANTIQUATED TECHNOLOGIES SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO PAY TO DEVELOP NEW TECHNOLOGY.
MOST AMERICANS SIMPLY PREFER TO NOT CUT BACK ON ANYTHING, JUST CONSUME MORE UNTIL THERE IS NO MORE AND FACE THAT WHEN WE GET THERE.  


WE'RE VERY CLOSE TO THERE.
AND THE EARTH IS PROTESTING.

WE LEARN OR WE PERISH. 

TIME TO PICK ONE OR THE OTHER BECAUSE THINGS ARE GETTING VERY SERIOUS HERE. 








//WW

RUSSIAN PHISHING HAPPENED BEFORE THE ELECTION. PHISHING IS NOT HACKING.

The CIA might be the most untrustworthy institution in the entire American government..

The American history of foreign electoral manipulation — most of it far, far worse than what happened to Clinton — is a mile long.
The actual election procedures were not compromised; the ballot boxes were not stuffed, the counts were not falsified, and people were not prevented from voting.

This has been affirmed by all election officials of the United States. Nor was the electoral College affected, and that is who put Trump in office, after all.

ASK THE MAN/WOMAN ON THE STREET WHAT THE DIFFERENCE IS BETWEEN HACKING AND PHISHING AND MOST CAN'T TELL YOU THE ANSWER.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS AWARE OF THIS AND THAT IS HOW THEY ARE KEEPING THE FAIRY TALE OF RUSSIAN "HACKING" ALIVE.
HERE ARE THE TWO DEFINITIONS:

PHISHING:
FROM MERRIAM-WEBSTER:
-a scam by which an e-mail user is duped into revealing personal or confidential information which the scammer can use illicitly.
Such scams can be thought of as "fishing" for naive recipients.

FROM QUORA:
Phishing is like a mouse trap , you wait for the mouse to come for the cheese and when they do as you desired , you catch the mouse.
Phishing requires stupidity from a victim to execute.


HACKING:
-to gain illegal access to (a computer network, system, etc.).
TO ACTUALLY, LITERALLY GAIN ACCESS TO THE COMPUTER AND ITS CONTENTS.

FROM QUORA:
Hacking on the other hand is simply exploiting a weakness in a network or a computer. It may require extensive programming knowledge which may not be a prerequisite in case of performing a successful phishing attack.

SO, FIRST YOU GO "PHISHING" AND IF SOMEONE IS DUMB ENOUGH TO FALL FOR THAT , IF THEY GIVE UP INFORMATION THAT GIVES A POTENTIAL HACKER ACCESS TO A COMPUTER AND THAT PHISHER/HACKER HAS THE SKILL TO TAKE OVER THAT COMPUTER, THEN AND ONLY THEN CAN WE SAY A PERSON HAS BEEN HACKED.

ONE CAN FALL PARTIALLY FOR A PHISHING SCAM OR COMPLETELY.
MOST PHISHING IS DONE FOR MONETARY GAIN.

A RECENT ARTICLE BY THE HUFFINGTON POST TOLD US THE TRUTH, 21 STATES WERE PHISHED, NOT HACKED, AND NO VOTES WERE AFFECTED BY THAT, BUT THEN WENT RIGHT ON WITH RE-IMPLANTING THE LIE THAT THE AMERICAN 2016 ELECTION WAS HACKED.

The Department of Homeland Security told told election officials in 21 states on Friday that Russian hackers attempted to access their voting systems in the 2016 election.

ATTEMPTED, ATTEMPTED, ATTEMPTED, GOT IT?

NOW, PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING AND PASS THIS KEY INFORMATION ON TO ALL YOUR LITTLE FACEBOOK AND OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA FRIENDS:

Election officials in most of those states were quick to note the hackers were unsuccessful. In some states, the suspicious activity amounted merely to seeing if there was a vulnerability in the system. Only Illinois said hackers had successfully accessed voter information, according to AP. DHS has said there’s no evidence any votes, anywhere in the country, were changed by the attempted intrusions.

DID YOU GET THAT, WORLD, AMERICA?
THEY WERE UNSUCCESSFUL!
THEY DIDN'T DO IT!
THERE WAS NO HACKING, ONLY PHISHING.
WHOEVER IT WAS THAT TRIED TO PHISH FOR DATA FAILED.
HUFFPOST ADMITS THIS!

DHS SHOWS ITS LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF PHISHING BY CALLING IT "SCANNING".
TO BE ABLE TO SCAN, ONE MUST HAVE ACCESSED THE SCANNABLE DATA AND THEY ALREADY SAID THAT WHOEVER THIS WAS FAILED.
YOU CAN'T SCAN WHAT YOU CAN'T ACCESS.

THEY ADMIT THAT NOT ONE VOTE WAS AFFECTED, THAT NO VOTES WERE CHANGED BECAUSE THIS WAS ALL PRIOR TO THE ELECTION WHEN THE PHISHING, NOT HACKING AS NO ONE WAS HACKED, SOMETHING MOST OTHER MSM ARTICLES HAVE ALSO STATED, BUT LIKE OTHER NEWS AGENCIES, HUFFPOST ALLUDES TO THE 'POSSIBILITY' THAT THE RUSSIANS SOMEHOW HELPED TRUMP WIN.

NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.
REMEMBER, ALL THIS WAS EXPOSED IN AUGUST AND AMERICAN VOTERS OULD HAVE SEEN IT IN A WAY THAT CAUSED MORE OF THEM TO VOTE FOR HILLARY, SINCE RUSSIA WAS NOT HELPING HILLARY.
THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN, BUT I IMAGINE THE LEFT-WING SCREAMERS WERE DEVASTATED THAT SAYING RUSSIA HELPED TRUMP DID NOT THROW THE ELECTION IN HILLARY'S LAP.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

EVEN WITH MANY AMERICANS BUYING INTO THIS, TRUMP STILL WON.
TRUMP WON BY MEANS OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE, JUST AS BUSH JUNIOR DID WHEN HE WON AGAINST AL GORE, AND NO ONE EVER SAID THAT WAS "HACKED".

COULD IT BE THAT ALL THAT PHISHING WAS "AN INSIDE JOB"?
AFTER ALL, THE FBI STOOD FIRM FOR QUITE SOME TIME THAT IT WAS NOT A RUSSIAN HACK, AND A FEW FROM TH NSA ALSO STATED TO THE PRESS THAT IT WAS MOST LIKELY AN INSIDE JOB.
HILLARY HERSELF ALLUDED TO THAT AFTER THE ELECTION.
10 Times The U.S. “Hacked” Foreign Elections and Democracies. Foreign Policy, Dec 22, 2016.

YES, AMERICA, OUR AGENCIES HACKED OTHER NATIONS' ELECTIONS IN SOME VERY VIOLENT WAYS.

Over a month after the conclusion of the 2016 presidential election, politicians, and unnamed sources quoted in various media outlets continue to raise the specter of Russian interference in the elections.

As TIME pointed out last week, this is a fear that goes back to the time of America’s Founding Fathers, with Alexander Hamilton, for instance, concerned about, “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.”

Yet, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out throughout the controversy, there is not yet any substantive evidence that has been brought to the public’s attention, proving or strongly evidencing Russian interference in the election:
“To begin with, this is a second-hand report so you have somebody whose identity is being shielded describing what the CIA supposedly concluded, laundering that through the Washington Post. These are assertions that are being made completely unaccompanied by any evidence whatsoever, let alone evidence that we can touch and rationally review.

There’s all kind of reasons to suspect the CIA statements, including the fact that they’re wrong all the time, they’re programmed in a lot of cases to disseminate disinformation and there’s lots of reasons to view them as political actors.” – Glenn Greenwald, Co-Founding Editor of The Intercept

The United States has a storied record of interference in foreign elections, and while that does not justify foreign intervention in our elections, it does legitimize it as a geopolitical tactic, endangering the integrity of our own democratic process.

JUST LAST YEAR, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WAS BUSTED FOR INTERFERING IN ISRAEL'S ELECTION, USING TAXPAYER MONEY TO TRY TO DEFEAT NETANYAHU.
IT IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT OBAMA VERY MUCH DISLIKED BOTH NETANYAHIU AND RUSSIA'S PUTIN.
"Some $350,000 was sent to OneVoice, ostensibly to support the group’s efforts to back Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement negotiations.
But OneVoice used the money to build a voter database, train activists and hire a political consulting firm with ties to President Obama’s campaign — all of which set the stage for an anti-Netanyahu campaign, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a bipartisan staff report.

In one stunning finding, the subcommittee said OneVoice even told the State Department’s top diplomat in Jerusalem of its plans in an email, but the official, Consul General Michael Ratney, claims never to have seen them.

He said he regularly deleted emails with large attachments — a striking violation of open-records laws for a department already reeling from former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s handling of official government records. 
Mr. Netanyahu survived the election, and the U.S. spending was not deemed illegal because the State Department never put any conditions on the money.

THINK ABOUT THAT.
THINK CAREFULLY.
OBAMA HAD THE FBI, CIA, NSA ALL AT HIS DISPOSAL.

WIKILEAKS BUSTED THE CIA FOR USING RUSSIAN SOFTWARE TO HACK OTHER COMPUTERS.
DID THE CIA STEAL THAT SOFTWARE TO USE IT HERE TO MAKE THE RUSSIANS LOOK LIKE THE GUILTY PARTY, HOPING THAT WHEN AMERICA THOUGHT THE RUSSIANS WERE HELPING TRUMP THAT WOULD DEFEAT HIM?
IT WOULD BE VERY, VERY SIMILAR TO TACTICS AMERICA'S SPY AGENCIES HAVE USED BEFORE.

OBAMA DID WANT HILLARY TO WIN.
IT WAS OBAMA AND FBI DIRECTOR COMEY WHOM HILLARY BLAMED FIRST FOR HER LOSS.

DID OBAMA DIRECT COMEY TO "HELP HILLARY WIN" AND HE FAILED?  

NONE OF THAT MATTERS.
NOBODY FELL FOR THE PHISHING ATTEMPTS, NOBODY.
WERE OUR FEDERAL ELECTION OFFICIALS STUPID ENOUGH TO FALL FOR A PHISHING ATTEMPT?
NO.

ALL 21 STATES THAT EXPERIENCED PHISHING ATTEMPTS HAVE REPORTED NO, THEY DID NOT TAKE THE BAIT,
NO, NO VOTES WERE AFFECTED, NO, THERE WAS NO HACKING,. NO, IN 21 STATES, NO, NOTHING HAPPENED TO CHANGE A SINGLE VOTE.

ILLINOIS AND ARIZONA EVEN SHUT-DOWN, PRE-ELECTION, FOR A FEW DAYS TO MAKE SURE.
LOOKS LIKE SOME OF THEIR "OFFICIALS" WERE TOO DUMB TO REALIZE WHETHER OR NOT THEY HAD TAKEN THE BAIT.
THEN THEY DETERMINED THEY HAD NOT AND ALL WAS WELL.
ON WITH THE SHOW!

THOSE 21 STATES HAVE POSTED THIS "NO, WE WERE NOT HACKED" ON THEIR OWN WEBSITES.
THE 'NOTHING WAS CHANGED' HAS APPEARED TIME AND TIME AGAIN IN THE "NEWS", BUT ALWAYS WITH THAT PUSH TO GET AMERICANS TO WONDER IF SOMEHOW, BY SOME FORM OF COMPUTER WIZARDRY, SOME ULTRA-GENIUS FOUND A WAY TO CHANGE AMERICAN VOTES, EVEN THOUGH CLINTON APPARENT;LY WON THE POPULAR VOTE.

THE MSM KEEPS LEAVING THAT OUT; CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!
HAD THE ELECTION TRULY BEEN HACKED, CLINTON WOULD NOT HAVE WON THE POPULAR VOTE.

CLINTON LOST THE ELECTION, WHICH WAS NOT HACKED, AS THAT ELECTION WENT TO THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE TO DECIDE THE WINNER.
THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WAS NOT HACKED.
NO PHISHING AND NO HACKING TOOK PLACE DURING THE ELECTION DAY NOR DURING ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTING.

BALLOTS WERE CAST, CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE BY A SLIM MARGIN (THOUGH WE NEVER SAW A RECOUNT IN CALIFORNIA, FLORIDA, OR NEW YORK, OR NUMEROUS OTHER STATES WHERE ALLEGATIONS AROSE THAT HILLARY STOLE VOTES FROM BERNIE SANDERS AND THAT THE DEMOCRATS WITHHELD SOME VOTES FROM AMERICANS OVERSEAS, RIGGED A FEW COUNTIES' VOTE-COUNTS AND PERHAPS LIED ABOUT RESULTS OF EXIT POLLS).

ELECTION OFFICIALS SAID THEY DIDN'T FALL FOR THE PHISHING ATTEMPT.
IF THERE WERE ANY REAL CASES OF ATTEMPTED HACKING, THEY FAILED, AS ALL STATES HAVE REPORTED.

THE NEWS MEDIA WHO MAY HATE TRUMP MORE THAN CNN, THE WASHINGTON POST, REPORTED THE FOLLOWING ON NOV. 28, 2016:

U.S. cybersecurity officials think Russia has tried to influence other parts of the election, like leaking damaging Democratic emails or helping spread fake news.

But hacking the actual election is a different animal entirely.
Here's a reminder why it's almost impossible for anyone -- Russian or not -- to hack our elections system.
If 100 votes are cast but only 90 counted, the system breaks down.

The FBI warned state elections officials in August of possible attempts to hack state election systems after breaches in Arizona and Illinois...

"POSSIBLE ATTEMPTS" IS NOT HACKING.

FROM PBS: 26 Oct 2016, BEFORE THE ELECTION:
Why Russia Wants the U.S. to Believe the Election Was Hacked

In August, two election databases in Arizona and Illinois were hacked. Arizona responded by shutting down voter registration for nearly a week, and in Illinois, the breach resulted in the compromise of more than 200,000 voter records.
Hackers breaching databases has become so commonplace that the loss of personal information barely raises an eyebrow for most Americans. This hack, like so many others, received little attention at first.  

While these breaches have helped sow the seeds of distrust, in reality, hacking the election remains technically challenging, even for state actors like Russia. But in this election, perceptions may overtake reality, and even if Russia fails in its attempts to hack the election, the doubt it raises can still bring them a strategic victory over their American rivals.

The goal is simple: break American confidence in democracy by either directly disrupting the democratic process or eroding its integrity. By sowing doubt among voters and raising questions about the authenticity of a candidate’s appointment, Russia can create internal American dissent that distracts U.S. policymakers, permitting Russia to move more aggressively towards its foreign policy goals.
Today’s concerns over elections can be largely traced back to 2000, when paper ballot counting complications due to “hanging chads” resulted in exhaustive recounts and legal battles involving the Supreme Court. In that case, both political parties claimed victory and it was weeks before Vice President Al Gore conceded defeat.

Crisis was averted because there was physical evidence for a recount and vote complications were limited to only one state and a few precincts. Still, the debate over who won this election and conspiracies about vote manipulation continue 16 years later.

THESE FOLLOWING PREDICTIONS CAME TRUE, EVEN THOUGH THERE WAS NO HACKING OF THE VOTE.
Now, if Russian hackers were able to disable voting machines—an unlikely but possible scenario—compromise voter rolls, or alter the integrity of the results on a wide scale, the highly polarized U.S. electorate might well break into destabilizing bickering. It’s possible that violence could break out. Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has for months ominously echoed Russian media in suggesting that the election is rigged against him, that voter rolls are fraudulently filled with illegal voters, and that, should he lose, second amendment supporters might take matters into their own hands. For Russia, whether they disable election systems or compromise voter rolls, they’ve already partially achieved their goal.  

THAT WAS IN AUGUST, OVER 3 MONTHS BEFORE ELECTION DAY, 3 MONTHS IN WHICH STATES COULD AND DID CHECK THEIR SYSTEMS, NETWORKS, COMPUTERS AND MAKE SURE THEY WERE SAFE.
THREE MONTHS.

Could hackers change the numbers to change our elections?
The Fix spoke by phone and email with Merle King, executive director of the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State University to get an answer.

In summary: It would be harder than we think — in part because we tend to conflate a number of very different election systems.
"When I hear about a hack, and it's attributed to a Russian IP address, my first reaction is it's identity theft," King said. "They're looking for large lists of critical information that can be used to create identities for credit card theft, etc. I don't instinctively think it's an attack on our election system."

"One of the challenges the public has in sorting through the various threads of the current election cycle's stories is understanding the differences between a campaign system, an election system and a voting system," King told us.

The campaign system is the tool set used by candidates or parties to get people elected.
The election system covers voter registration systems and other data centralization and is specific to jurisdictions.
The voting system is the actual process of voting: the machines, the ballots and the designations of who votes where and on what. [THERE ARE SEVEN CHECKPOINTS TO CERTIFYING AN ELECTION.]
Only once those [SEVEN] checks are complete is the result certified.
That's the process that needs to be hacked to directly change the results of the election, not a hack of the voter registration database. There are hundreds of similar setups in all 50 states that similarly flow upward to state agencies. That distribution is an asset, not a flaw.

Information flows between these systems, but not always in two directions: Campaigns, for example, use voter registration data from the elections system but don't send information back to it.

So if a campaign is hacked (or if the Democratic National Committee is), there's no risk to the voter registration database.
Confusing these systems can mean misunderstanding the threat — and the intent of the hackers.

NO RISK TO THE VOTER DATABASE...GOT IT?

"But most importantly, you could not alter the outcome of the election by hacking those systems. That would have to occur in the voting system" — the actual process of casting ballots. And that's harder than it seems.
Voter fraud is far, far harder than it seems, requiring a lot of people to break federal law for it to approach any sort of meaningful scale.

ALL STATES HAVE CERTIFIED THEIR ELECTION RESULTS.
IT'S BEEN OFFICIAL FOR ALMOST A YEAR NOW.
NO VOTES WERE CHANGED BY RUSSIANS.
NO, THE ELECTION WAS NOT HACKED, JUST PHISHED UNSUCCESSFULLY.


NOT A SINGLE COMPUTER HAS BEEN SHOWN BY THE FBI OR ANY OTHER AGENCY TO PROVE EVEN THAT!
IF THEY HAD SUCH A MACHINE, SURELY THEY WOULD TROT IT OUT TO THE PUBLIC OR TO THE SENATE AND SAY, "LOOK, WE HAVE HARD EVIDENCE, LOOK AT THIS! HERE IS THE VISIBLE PROOF!"

ANY GOOD COMPUTER EXPERT CAN TELL YOU, SO FIND ONE AND GO ASK, IF A COMPUTER IS HACKED, THERE IS A TRAIL LEADING TO THE HACKER. IT MAY TAKE SOME TIME, BUT THE SOURCE OF THE HACKING CAN BE TRACED BY SOMEONE WHO REALLY KNOWS WHAT TO LOOK FOR, HOW TO FIND IT.

ANOTHER THING MOST AMERICANS DON'T SEEM TO BE AWARE OF: HOW MANY TIMES THIS HAS HAPPENED IN THE PAST AND NO RUSSIANS WERE BLAMED.

[THIS IS A VERY WELL-DOCUMENTED ARTICLE BY THE WAY AND I HOPE YOU GO READ IT ALL <HERE>.]  

Your voter information is sometimes stolen by burglars. Sometimes it gets hacked, sometimes leaked. Occasionally employees take it home. Sometimes it gets lost, and sometimes it gets found by someone else.

Certain basic voter list information must be accessible to the public so any citizen can check to see that election results are true. We need to be able to verify who was eligible to vote, who did vote, and make sure there are not more votes than voters. Elections cannot be accountable to the public without this election arithmetic.

Voter lists now live on networked computers; they are bought and sold (without you knowing who bought your data), they include unnecessary but sensitive information, they end up on private companies’ computers. They are massaged, merged with other information, such as what you bought at the store, and yes, your location on a map and who your friends are. When the juiced up version is sold, you certainly aren’t consulted about it.

ACTUAL BURGLARIES with theft of devices holding political data — and in this day and age that almost always includes voter information in some form — happens at all levels.

At the local level, the mayoral campaign office of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer was broken into in June 2012. They stole two laptops containing “sensitive campaign and donor information.”

At the state level, the campaign office of South Carolina state senate candidate Deedee Vaughters was burglarized in July 2012. Just about everything of value was ignored but they stole the campaign’s laptop computer.

IN 2014, A burglar stole a laptop from Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin’s campaign office, along with other politically related offices including former Senate president pro tem Glenn Coffee, and left telltale signs on computers in Coffee’s office.

Nearly 163,000 data-containing items were stolen in the UK over just a 12-month period, and 17 percent of all thefts were found to involve data storage devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones, and desktop computers).

HIRE A HACKER.
BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES ARE KNOWN TO HAVE DONE SO IN THE PAST.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, hacker communities sometimes solicit online, and will “penetrate a passworded system in 48 hours or less for as little as $150.” One method, reports the Journal, is to spoof the e-mail of someone you know. You will likely open that message, which then installs malware which hands over your passwords. That’s exactly what happened in 2011, potentially exposing information for nearly a million Maine voters.

A voter data hacking incident was investigated by the Miami Herald in 2013, resulting in prosecution of an aide to Congressman Joe Garcia, A DEMOCRAT FROM FLORIDA. The aide had hacked voter data to counterfeit requests for absentee ballots, at first using an easily traceable Miami IP address, later wising up to conceal his computer’s identity with various foreign IP addresses.

THE FBI DID IT...AND GOT BUSTED.
Peter Camejo, a Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate in 1976 and Ralph Nader’s running mate in 2004, found out just how real political infiltration is.
Kevin Zeese, one of Nader’s staffers at the time, filled me in on how pervasive the infiltration was: According to FBI court testimony, out of 400 Camejo staffers 66 were FBI agents who had infiltrated the campaign.
“It turns out they included some of Camejo’s best and most effective people,” Nader said.

Campaign infiltration is certainly not limited to FBI agents. In depth reporting by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward in their book “All the President’s Men” describes a process called “ratf_king” — strictly political and executed by political operatives, in which they infiltrate a campaign, or dummy up documents, or otherwise disrupt or spy on opponents.

LEAKS, INTENTIONAL AND OTHERWISE.

It’s really very difficult to know whether a leak is a hack wearing a cloak of plausible deniability. In 2006, 780,000 Chicago voters’ information was exposed. In 2012, more than twice as many Chicagoans were put at risk with a data breach of 1.7 million voter records. Also exposed were drivers license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers for 1200 poll workers. 

In December 2015, data security researcher Chris Vickery discovered the granddaddy of them all, the information on 191 million voters exposed on the Internet for anyone to see. Ahem. That’s about everyone of voting age in the USA.
That’s about everyone of voting age in the USA.
A day later, Vickery found another Internet location with data from 56 million voter records exposed.

The list with 56 million records included 18 million records which had been “enhanced” with information not found on any voter registration list, such as information about the voter’s enthusiasm towards guns and religion. Markers in the enhanced portion of the list led researchers to a company called Digital Smart Technology, Inc.
So this list was Republicanesque in character, though how it became open to public viewing is a mystery.

ONE OF THE FAVORITE PASTIMES OF THE TWO MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES IS TRYING TO STEAL VOTER INFORMATION FROM THE OTHER PARTY, KNOWN FACT, REPORTED ON SINCE COMPUTER HACKING WAS MADE KNOWN TO THE PUBLIC, OLD NEWS, COMMON, COMPLETELY EXPECTED BY BOTH PARTIES.

REMEMBER THESE?
THE WASHINGTON POST MADE IT HEADLINES..
Two other voter database situations cropped up in 2015, but neither involved public exposure of voter data. Both involved leaks of analyses and strategic profiling of voters, used internally by candidates.

The first took place in October, when Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders discovered other campaigns could see political information developed by his campaign.
The second took place in December, when Sanders campaign workers could see other campaigns’ work.
A few techs for the Sanders campaign couldn’t resist the bait; they peeked, the tech leader was fired, and much political hay was made of the situation by all. The two breaches involved different databases but the DNC (Democratic National Committee) had some connection with both. Individual voter information was not exported back and forth, nor was it publicly released.

PLEASE DO TAKE NOTE THAT WHERE THE LEAKS, HACKS, BURGLARIES AND INSTANCES OF WORKERS TAKING DATA HOME WITH THEM ORIGINATED WAS DISCOVERED, WITH HARD EVIDENCE, PROOF, AND AN ARREST OR TWO NOW AND THEN.

ALSO NOTICE THAT THE HACKERS TRIED TO COVER THEIR TRAIL BY USING FAKE IP ADDRESSES. ALMOST EVERY HIGH SCHOOL KID IN AMERICA CAN DO THIS.

THE RUSSIANS WERE NOT BLAMED IN 2004, 2007, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 FOR ANY OF THESE INCIDENTS.
IT WAS ONLY WHEN TRUMP WON, AGAINST ALL ODDS AND MEDIA PREDICTIONS THAT THE RUSSIANS WERE TARGETED AS THE SCAPEGOATS.
BEFORE TRUMP, THE MEDIA ALWAYS SEEMED TO BLAME THE ACTUAL DISCOVERED AND/OR CONVICTED PERPETRATORS.
WITH NO PHYSICAL PROOF, NO ACTUAL MACHINES TO SHOW THE TRAIL, THE MEDIA, BECAUSE OF THE LOSERS, DECIDED TO BLAME SOMEONE WHO CAN'T DEFEND THEMSELVES, WHO WON'T BE INVITED TO PROVE THEY DIDN'T DO IT IN AN AMERICAN COURT OF LAW.

THAT'S VERY CONVENIENT.
IT ALSO HELPS HILLARY DEAL WITH HER LOSS.
THE RUSSIANS MAY HAVE JOINED THE CHINESE, THE IRANIANS, THE NORTH KOREANS, THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS WHO HAVE PLAYED "PHISH OR HACK AMERICA'S POLITICAL PARTIES", BUT AS ELECTION OFFICIALS HAVE LEGALLY SWORN, THE ELECTION DAY VOTES WERE NOT CHANGED, THE VOTES WERE NOT MANIPULATED.
THERE WAS NO RUSSIAN HACK THAT GAVE TRUMP THE PRESIDENCY.
HE SIMPLY GOT LUCKY.
MORE PEOPLE HATED HILLARY THAN HATED TRUMP.
AFTER ALL, IT WAS SOMEONE ON THE INSIDE WHO LEAKED ALL THOSE EMAILS TO WIKILEAKS.
LOOKS LIKE WIKILEAKS HATED HILLARY, TOO.

AND, AS CAMPAIGN STAFF HAVE BEEN REVEALING IN INTERVIEWS EVER SINCE THEY BROKE FREE OF HILLARY, SHE SEEMED TO HATE ALMOST ALL WHO WERE WORKING FOR HER, STAFF, DONORS WHOM SHE ACCUSED OF  NEVER GIVING ENOUGH, THOSE WHO REFUSED TO VOTE FOR HER, ESPECIALLY BLACKS, LATINOS AND WOMEN, HER HUSBAND, EVERYBODY.

EVEN THE LEFT-LEANING, CLINTON-SUPPORTING NEW YORK TIMES PAINTED A DARK PICTURE OF HER TANTRUMS.
THE POOR WOMAN IS OBVIOUSLY BOTH PHYSICALLY SICK, MENTALLY ILL, WITH SEVERE BRAIN DAMAGE. 
SHE NEEDS PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP AND A PHYSICAL RE-EVALUATION BY NEW PHYSICIANS.
AS GRANDMOTHERS IN THE SOUTH OFTEN SAY OF THOSE THIS ILL, "POOR OLD THING, BLESS HER HEART."

ALAS, THEY PROBABLY SAY THE SAME OF TRUMP....


SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF PHISHING FOR VOTER DATA?

“Solutions” may be over-optimistic. Let’s call them mitigations.

1. Don’t require Social Security number for voter registration.

A federal court ruled in 2006 that Georgia cannot require Social Security numbers on voter registration documents because it violates federal law. Section 7(a) of the Privacy Act prohibits any “state or local government agency to deny to any individual any right, benefit, or privilege provided by law because of such individual’s refusal to disclose his Social Security account number.36

2. Prohibit putting voter lists online with unrestricted access. It puts victims of spousal abuse and public safety officials, like policemen and district attorneys, at exceptional risk. Opt-out procedures do exist, if you can show “cause,” if you know about it, if you go through the rigamarole, and if no one makes a mistake in redacting your information. Keep the opt-out, but also, to protect all voters, ban posting of voter databases online.

3. Prohibit commercial use or sale of voter lists. We should not have to submit to commercial exploitation in order to exercise civil rights.

Example – South Dakota law: “In accordance with SDCL 12-4-41, I understand that the voter registration data obtained from the statewide voter registration database may not be used or sold for any commercial purpose and may not be placed for unrestricted access on the internet.”37

4. Remove visible signatures from absentee envelopes. For example, Pitney Bowes has patented a system to obscure envelope signatures. Basically, the signature is under a small privacy flap so it’s not visible to the naked eye but is readable with a special scanner that can see through the flap.38

5. Require secure storage and disposal of data storage devices and documents.


6. And as for connecting voter registration to biometric information, like fingerprints and facial recognition data (used for surveillance) … are you kidding me?


________________________________________

Sources not cited above:

LawNewz reported:

A new report states categorically that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was not hacked by Russians–or anyone else–as frequently alleged by the mainstream media, liberal intelligentsia and anti-Trump politicians.

The Nation‘s Patrick Lawrence wrote a lengthy review of the findings made by various computer experts formerly with the NSA. Published this week, the left-wing magazine’s report notes two bases for their conclusion: (1) hard science shows that a remote hack of the DNC servers resulting in the breach that actually occurred would have been technologically impossible; (2) forensic review of the initial Guccifer 2.0 documents proves that they are poorly-disguised cut-and-paste jobs–forgeries–intended to finger Russia.  


Edward Klein’s book “Unlikeable: The Problem with Hillary”


Leaked emails show how Democrats screwed Sanders

Obama State Dept: $350K For Campaign Infrastructure Used Against Netanyahu In Israel Election


An influential reporter at Politico made an apparent "agreement" with the Democratic National Committee to let it review a story about Hillary Clinton's fundraising machine before it was submitted to his editors, leaked emails published by WikiLeaks on Friday revealed.


Trump associate Stone said he had contact with alleged DNC hacker


Report: DNC 'Hack' Was an Inside Job - thenation.com








//WW 

IS YELLOWSTONE ABOUT TO ERUPT?

THE CALDERA BENEATH YELLOWSTONE IS MASSIVE.

ABOVE: HOW THE U.S. WOULD BE IMPACTED BY A YELLOWSTONE ERUPTION.



3,057 EARTHQUAKES SINCE JANUARY INSIDE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK AND COUNTING (30 in the past 7 days).
The ongoing swarm is now one of the longest and largest on record. The largest swarm ever recorded was in October 1985; it lasted for three months and included more than 3,000 earthquakes. There was another large swarm in 2010, when more than 2,000 events were recorded over a month.

WHILE EARTHQUAKE SWARMS HAVE BEEN NOTED IN YELLOWSTONE SINCE MAN FIRST BEGAN RECORDING THEM, THE UPSWING SINCE JANUARY MAY BREAK ALL PREVIOUS RECORDS FOR A YEARLY COUNT.

JANUARY,2017
During January 2017, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, responsible for the operation and analysis of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, reports 53 earthquakes.

FEBRUARY, 2017
During February 2017, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, responsible for the operation and analysis of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, reports 48 earthquakes.

March 30 (Reuters) - Yellowstone National Park, which sits atop one of the world’s largest super-volcanoes, was struck on Sunday by a magnitude 4.8 earthquake, the biggest recorded there since February 1980, but no damage or injuries were immediately reported.
The latest earthquake struck at 6:34 a.m. near the Norris Geyser Basin and was felt about 23 miles (37 km) away in two small Montana towns adjacent to year-around entrances to the park - Gardiner and West Yellowstone.

Sunday’s quake occurred near the center of an area of ground uplift that geologists have been tracking for several months, University of Utah seismologists said. Elevated seismic activity was also found in the area during a previous period of uplift from 1996 to 2003.

The recent spike in earthquake activity at Yellowstone is linked to the uplift, which in turn is caused by the upward movement of molten rock beneath the Earth’s crust, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
[NOTE: March 2017, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, responsible for the operation and analysis of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, reports 63 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone National Park ]
The super-volcano’s most cataclysmic eruption occurred 2 million years ago, covering half of North America with ash and killing prehistoric animals as far as away as modern-day Nebraska, according to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

APRIL, 2017
During April 2017, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, responsible for the operation and analysis of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, reports 61 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone National Park (YNP) region. The largest event was a microearthquake of magnitude 2.4 that occurred on April 21, 01:35 AM MDT

MAY, 2017
During May 2017, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, responsible for the operation and analysis of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, reports 94 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone National Park (YNP) region. The largest event was a microearthquake of magnitude 2.9 that occurred on May 7, 07:03 AM MDT

JUNE, 2017
During June 2017, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, responsible for the operation and analysis of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, reports 1171 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone National Park (YNP) region, a light earthquake of magnitude 4.4 on June 16, at 06:48 PM MDT.

The largest quake in the JUNE swarm was recorded on June 15, a magnitude 4.5 earthquake, according to the statement issued June 19.
At that time, 464 events had been recorded since June 12.
“This is the highest number of earthquakes at Yellowstone within a single week in the past five years..."

JULY, 2017
During July 2017, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, responsible for the operation and analysis of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, reports 528 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone National Park (YNP) region. The largest event was a minor earthquake of magnitude 3.6 on July 18, at 02:31 PM MDT

AUGUST, 2017
During August 2017, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, responsible for the operation and analysis of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, reports 1029 earthquakes were located in the Yellowstone National Park (YNP) region. The largest event was a minor earthquake of magnitude 3.3 on August 20, at 09:00 PM MDT
Uplift north of the caldera, centered near the Norris Geyser Basin, continues at a low rate (a few millimeters per month), similar to what has been occurring since late 2015.

HUNDREDS OF QUAKES IN NEARBY LINCOLN, MONTANA (56 in the past 7 days), AND OVER 260 IN JUST 9 DAYS IN/NEAR SODA SPRINGS, IDAHO.
IN THE PAST 30 DAYS, THE SODA SPRINGS AREA HAS SEEN 317 QUAKES OF MAGNITUDE 2.5 OR GREATER, ACCORDING TO THE USGS WEBSITE.


An earthquake swarm in southeastern Idaho is rattling windows across parts of the state and Wyoming and Utah. There have now been over 260 earthquakes since September 2, in the Soda Springs area and many have been over a magnitude of four or even higher on the scale.

The earthquake swarm in Southeast Idaho looked like it might be ending or at least slowing down on Thursday and Friday. But then Saturday arrived and by the day's end, 19 quakes had struck.

Dr. David Pearson, an Idaho State University geologist who studies earthquakes, said scientists who have researched some of the faults in Southeast Idaho have concluded that the 7.0 quake is possible at some point in the region's future, but the current earthquake swarm is not necessarily an indication that it will occur anytime soon.

All 260 plus of the quakes were reported by University of Utah Seismograph Stations.

So far, the most powerful temblor in the swarm was the second quake to occur. It was a 5.3 magnitude earthquake and struck at 5:56 p.m. September 2.

Many are afraid that these swarms could trigger the Yellowstone super volcano's eruption, as the caldera lies just northeast of the Soda Springs area, a mere 170 miles away.

"When a volcano starts 'acting up' prior to an eruption, one of the typical signs is increased seismicity," research professor at University of Utah Jamie Farrell told Newsweek. Should the Yellowstone supervolcano erupt, thousands of people would die instantly from the explosion.


In the event of a full-scale eruption of Yellowstone, virtually the entire northwest United States will be completely destroyed.

Basically everything within a 100 mile radius would be immediately killed, Salt Lake City would literally be toast, and almost everyone and everything in Denver would be dead in short order.

Further away, volcanic ash would rain down continually for weeks. Those foolish enough to step outside would quickly discover that the ash turns into a substance similar to cement in the lungs, and many would die from suffocation.

The amount of volcanic ash released by Yellowstone would be almost unimaginable. In fact, it has been estimated that a full-blown eruption would dump a layer of volcanic ash at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away.

Food production in America would be almost totally wiped out, and the "volcanic winter" that would result from a Yellowstone eruption would dramatically cool the planet. Some have projected that global temperatures would decline by up to 20 degrees.

In the end, the death, famine and destruction that we would experience would be vastly greater than anything that we have ever seen in the history of western civilization.

OF COURSE THIS CAN MEAN NOTHING AT ALL, JUST RUMBLINGS OF AN IMMENSE VOLCANO.
WHAT IS MOST DISTURBING, PERHAPS, IS THAT THERE WILL BE NO ACTUAL WARNING IF/WHEN YELLOWSTONE BLOWS.

SOME SCIENTISTS SAY TO BEWARE WHEN THESE TREMORS SUDDENLY STOP, BUT MOUNT ST. HELENS DIDN'T STOP SENDING UP TREMORS IN SWARMS BEFORE IT BLEW.

OTHERS SAY THIS IS, INDEED, A WARNING OF THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ERUPTION, BUT EVEN THEN WE CAN'T POSSIBLY DETERMINE WHEN TO EXPECT AN ERUPTION BASED ON SWARMS.

WE WON'T GET A 15-MINUTE WARNING, OR EVEN A 5-MINUTE WARNING...IT WILL SIMPLY BLOW.

HOW COULD ANYONE "PREP" FOR SUCH AN EVENT?
ONE WOULD HAVE TO HAVE A FOOD SUPPLY THAT WOULD SUSTAIN LIFE FOR PERHAPS YEARS AND A SOURCE OF FRESH DRINKING WATER THAT WOULDN'T BE AFFECTED BY VOLCANIC ASH.

IF THE GRID WENT DOWN OVER MOST OF AMERICA, EVEN HALF OF AMERICA, WE'D COME TO A STANDSTILL.
HOW WOULD THOSE WHO NEED MEDICINES, DOCTORS TO TREAT THEM FIND THOSE?

WITHOUT ELECTRICITY, PUMPS AT GAS STATIONS WOULDN'T WORK, ATMs WOULD BE USELESS, IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO FIND NEWS, DISASTER INSTRUCTIONS AS MANY NEWS MEDIA WOULD JUST 'GO DARK' AND HOSPITALS WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO REMAIN OPEN FOR LONG.

IT WOULD BE A VERY DIFFERENT WORLD FOR THOSE NOT KILLED BY THE ERUPTION THOSE FIRST FEW DAYS.










//WW