Tech investment funding has hit a new peak. - x2-radio.com Web viewHe was forced to leave town when pro-European forces broke the prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, out of prison. Yanukovich

The Obamacrat Fine

An increasing number of Americans would rather pay the penalty to be uninsured than opt into a health care program, a Gallup poll released Friday revealed.

“A key to making the Affordable Care Act work as designed is for all Americans to carry health insurance. To ensure this happens, the law stipulates that Americans are subject to fines if they do not have health insurance. When Gallup reminds uninsured Americans of this requirement and asks what they are most likely to do, 56% say they plan to get insurance, while 34% say they are more likely to pay the fine.

In September, Gallup found a slightly larger margin in favor of getting insurance than is the case now, 65% to 25%.” The reasons the number of Americans who agree to get insurance is plummeting are very real and very strong.

1. The rollout of Obamacare has left many individuals frustrated. The government is believed to have spent more than $500 million on Healthcare.gov. Since launching October 1, the site has been taken down multiple times for repairs. Even so, many individuals continue to struggle to even access the enrollment forms. Additionally, the 85% of Americans who are healthy and do not require insurance to obtain the healthcare they need, realize that the $500 million Obama spent to capture them would have paid for years of free healthcare for the entire country in this group.

2. Insurance companies are now also reporting flawed enrollment data coming to them through the government site. Duplicate forms, missing fields and spouses being listed as children are just a few of the snags companies are struggling with. The polls show a staggering 92.5% lack of confidence in the government’s ability to keep their most private medical histories secure. These could include treatments for STD’s, depression, stress, sexual injuries, and prescription drugs taken over a lifetime.

3. Death Panels. Most Americans believe that if you have the money, you should be able to buy your healthcare any time and any place you want it. Well, Obamacare will deny you a kidney, a lung, a liver, or even treatment for cancer if you are deemed to be too old, too poor, or possessing the wrong DNA for full recovery.

4. In any free market society, it is the lure of wealth and financial security that attracts most people to the field of medicine. Obamacare takes those incomes and slashes them to that of VA staffers. In fact, the VA was the model for the healthcare system. And, we all see how well that is going.

Gallup tracking suggests Americans are not familiar with healthcare exchanges. Most States do not have exchanges. The vast majority of Americans do not need insurance to help them cover their heathcare. They eat well, exercise, control their weight, and have the genetics for health. Simple as that. Some say they are the lucky ones. “Good for them. Hope they live a long life.” Say many with some level of resent because those people never get a cold or miss a day of work. But, isn’t that the idea of Obamacare in the first place? To force the hundreds of millions of people who are healthy and/or need no such assistance to pay for the policy that will cover someone who sees themselves as sick and needing help?

Gallup’s poll also states:

“On the positive side, more than seven in 10 uninsured Americans are aware they need to get insurance. However, the same percentage say they are unfamiliar with the exchanges, the primary place uninsured Americans are supposed to be able to find insurance.”

Perfect — how comforting.

The bottom line is this. Obamacare will collect $15 billion this year in fines collected from people who would have received a refund check this year on their taxes. They will be owed another $20 billion from Americans who have to pay extra taxes to make up for a shortfall in collections throughout the year. There are at least 6 million Americans who will refuse to pay, believing that no one has the right to force them to buy insurance they could not possible use or need. What does a 60 year old male have to pay for maternity insurance? Why would someone who spends less than $500 a year on their entire family’s healthcare costs, be forced to pay $7 thousand or more a year for coverage they will never use?

Oh yeah, by the way. If you have Obamacare, and you needed care this year, there is a problem waiting for you at tax time. Let’s say your family of 3 earned $65,000 this year and claimed zero dependents. And let’s say the husband decided to have his knee repaired from an old high school football injury he never got fixed. And let’s say those three surgeries cost $2,700. Guess what? Come tax time, they will deduct $2,700 from your refund check. The truth is that Obamacare members are finding out that Obamacare is not insurance after all. It is a loan that is paid in full every year. You would be better off paying your own health care costs and claiming it off your taxes.

So, where is all the Obamacare money going? That is the right question. End of transmission.

Money for Nothing and our Chicks for Free.A new investigation into executive pay at the four largest Bay Area water districts revealed that many of the region’s top water managers take home massive paychecks, despite the onset of a fourth year of drought in California.

According to the Bay Area News Group, the top executives at each of the four largest Bay Area water districts–the San Francisco Public Utility Commission, Contra Costa Water District, East Bay Municipal Utility District, and the Santa Clara Valley Water District–each took home more than double the paycheck of California’s top government official, Gov. Jerry Brown.

Leading the way is EBMUD General Manager Alex Coate, who earned $445,000 in salary and benefits last year, according to the report. Meanwhile, Contra Costa Water District General Manager Jerry D. Brown earned $416,000 last year, and SFPUC manager Harlan Kelly raked in $411,000. Rounding out the top four is SCVWD CEO

Beau Goldie, who earned $388,o00 last year. Goldie was the only executive among the four districts whose pay did not exceed $400,000, but that recently changed when the District voted to reward Goldie with a $20,000 bonus and a $10,000 raise.

In comparison, the state’s top government official, Gov. Jerry Brown, reportedly earned $160,000 last year.

The analysis of executive pay comes as three of the four water districts consider customer rate hikes to combat falling revenue due to decreased water usage. Just one district, Contra Costa Water, will cut construction costs and dip into its own cash reserves to avoid raising customer water rates.

Both water district executives and customers alike are not happy about the bloated salaries.

“That’s absurd,” Contra Costa Water District customer John Ferrante told the San Jose Mercury News. “That’s totally out of control. They want us to bear the burden of using less water, the least the managers can do is bear some of the burden by taking less pay.”

Gary Kremen, chairman of the board at Santa Clara Valley Water District, said the district should consider re-examining the generous salaries during the drought.

“I just think it looks really bad, and we’re not leading during an increasingly bad drought,” Kremen told the Mercury News. He added that he was not present at the Board meeting in which CEO Goldie was rewarded $30,000 in bonuses and raises: “I think he should voluntarily give back the whole thing. Send a message. Show leadership.”

Yet it is not just the water district’s general managers who are taking home impressive salaries; according to the data, 86 employees at the EBMUD earned over $250,000 in 2014. Additionally, 19 employees at the SFPUC, 15 at SCVWD, and 14 at CCWD each earned over a quarter-million dollars last year.

Funding Another Enemy of our Enemy

A State Department media release described the assistance:

Nearly $30 million to enable opposition and local governance structures inside Syria to provide basic services to their communities, as well as ongoing support for civil defense workers who play a critical role in emergency first response in Syria.

$25 million in non-lethal support to vetted units of the armed opposition to help enhance their operational capabilities as they seek to protect their communities from the duel threat posed by the Assad regime and extremist groups.

Digital security training and tools to keep activists, civil society members, journalists, and other opposition actors safe as they seek to network with each other and share information, including about regime and other atrocities.

“As we have long said, Assad must go and be replaced through a negotiated political transition that is representative of the Syrian people,” explained Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

The announcement occurred on the fourth anniversary of the Syrian Civil War. Over 200,000 people are dead due to the conflict, while as many as 11 million left their homes. The war allowed radical Islamic groups, more extreme than al-Qaeda, to emerge on the front stage. The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) controls the majority of northern Syria, including the large city of Raqqa.

Blinken did not mention how the United States can keep the non-lethal aid out of the hands of the Islamic State or al-Nusra. The United States considers the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to be the moderate group, but Blinkin also did not specify if the aid is for them.

Obama Propaganda and the Evil Agency

WASHINGTON –  President Obama is under fire from The Washington Post’s fact-checker over a series of recent far-fetched gun claims, including suggesting the country’s homicide rate is higher than that of other industrialized nations “by like a mile.”

The comments, made during a stop in South Carolina last week, earned the president three out of four "Pinocchios" -- the fact-checker's scale for measuring inaccuracy. 

The first fact-check involved a comment Obama made -- at a town hall at South Carolina's Benedict College -- where he said, “What we have to recognize is, is that our homicide rates are so much higher than other industrial countries. I mean by like a mile.”

The president seemed to be telling students the U.S. had the highest homicide rate in the industrialized world, which isn’t true, according to the newspaper. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average homicide rate among the 36 countries is 4.1 per 100,000 people. Brazil tops the list with a homicide rate of 25.5. The U.S. and Chile tie for fourth. Both have a homicide rate of 5.2.

The president also told those attending the South Carolina event that “it’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable.”

“This is just a very strange comment that appears to have no statistical basis,” the Washington Post wrote. The paper added that some of its readers suggested Obama was talking about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “food desert” locator, which identifies areas in the country where fresh vegetables are hard to buy. 

The columnist acknowledged that some of the analysis in the fact-check "turns on what the listener believes the president was trying to say." 

Finally, the fact-check took the president to task after he told students he was “not exaggerating “when he claimed lawmakers are backing plans that would allow firearms in kindergarten and machine guns in bars.

While some states like Georgia allow firearms to be carried into bars and restaurants, they do not allow machine guns in bars. And while there have been proposals floated to allow guns in schools – mainly college campuses – none of the proposals specifically address kindergarten.

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., is leading a legislative charge to ban armor-piercing ammunition in the United States, saying “no compelling argument” exists for anyone outside the military or police to have access to it.

“Armor-piercing rounds like green tips should only be in the hands of military personnel or police officers, period,” Engel said, The Hill reported. “There is absolutely no compelling argument to be made for anyone else to have access to them.’

His bill, the Armor Piercing Bullets Act, would do what the Obama administration was not able to accomplish through a controversial proposal from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – to ban citizens from buying the green tip ammo.

“The out-of-touch gun industry lobbyists[are] fighting tooth and nail to keep cop-killing ammunition on the streets,” Engel said, in a statement posted on his government website. “We need to speak up on behalf of our police officers and say ‘stop the madness.’”

Critics of any proposed AR-15 ammunition restrictions say the ammunition is popular with hunters. But a spokesman for Engel disputed that claim.

“Deers do not wear body armor,” the spokesman said, The Hill reported. “No, I have never met a deer that walks around in Kevlar.”

The ATF, facing widespread pressure, dropped its proposal to prohibit ammunition companies from making or selling 5.56 mm projectiles for M855 cartridges. But Democrats in Congress are now pushing for the agency to reignite its proposal, even as they’re bringing forth legislation to do the same.

Engel also said of his legislation: “[This] would restrict the sale of small caliber, .223-derived, 5.56x45mm NATO ‘green tip’ rounds, cartridges commonly used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles that can penetrate the soft body armor often worn by police … As the ATF rightly pointed out, these rounds can easily be loaded into concealed pistols and other short guns, making them particularly dangerous to police officers. Police

agencies contacted for comment could not document any incidents where officers were killed by suspects using the M855 ammunition.

Advanced SmartGuns

Advancements in gun technology could soon increase safety by weapons responding only to authorized users, but Attorney General Eric Holder is embracing the innovation only as a means of declaring every other firearm illegal.

That’s the contention of Frank Miniter, author of “The Future of the Gun.” Miniter also shared how the media bias surrounding gun issues is perpetuated and why liberals and the media almost always lose the big national debates over guns.

In the book, Miniter explains how Americans may soon be able to purchase firearms that recognize their owners and only function in their hands.

However, he said it’s about to become the latest flash point in the battle over the Second Amendment.

“We’re starting to see electronics embedded into guns. The smart gun controversy is out there, where a gun can actually recognize a user and then not work for someone who’s not authorized through that gun to use it,” Miniter said. “The anti-gun movement wants to make that mandatory. By making it mandatory, it would make every gun available now illegal.”

He added, “Attorney General Eric Holder had a conversation with one of the makers of one of the smart guns, Bill Gentry of Kodiak Arms. Holder was going on about possibly using the government to authorize it and have that sort of control. Bill Gentry said, ‘Wait a minute, Mr. Holder. If you try to mandate my technology, I will burn it down.’

“This is the level that this is separating between gun owners and those who understand this topic and some on the government side who see this as an effort to control it.”

When this debate erupts, Miniter said he fully expects the mainstream media to dutifully align themselves with the gun-control movement. In the book, Miniter interviews longtime Washington Post movie critic Stephen Hunter and CNN co-founder Jim Shepherd. Both men discuss how they changed from endorsing gun control to embracing gun rights.

Miniter said Hunter in particular gave him valuable insight into why there is so little balance in coverage of gun issues.

“I asked why they think this way and what we should do. He said, ‘There’s a groupthink, especially with young reporters. They believe in consensus. They believe in conformity. Stepping outside that conformity puts an individual by themself. That would take them out of that pack, and they wouldn’t get the promotions in the newsroom,’” he explained.

Miniter said stories of Americans using guns to defend themselves from burglars and would-be attackers as they wait for police to arrive would seem to be a compelling case for gun rights, but not in the media.

“That sort of individualism is hard for a consensus reporter who is used to conformity and going along with a group’s values to stomach. [Hunter] said only the most brave can actually look at that and understand it,” he said.

While Democrats have successfully passed gun-control legislation in states where they control the legislature and the governors’ offices, gun-rights groups prevail the vast majority of the time at the national level. Gun-control advocates accuse the lawmakers of being servants of the National Rifle Association, or NRA.

Miniter tagged along with an NRA lobbyist working on Capitol Hill. He said the secret of the NRA’s success is not complicated at all.

“Over and over, what I found out is they only have sway because they have about five million NRA members, and there’s about a hundred million people in the United States of America that own a firearm and understand it is a practical right,” he said. “Many of them vote that issue on those means. Congressmen listen when you walk in with that size of a constituency.

“That’s the power of the NRA. It’s the American people. It’s not some other dark, mysterious thing.”

Another frequent argument from gun-control supporters is that only law enforcement should be armed. Miniter said the biggest opponents of that approach are law enforcement officials themselves, noting that many sheriffs in New York, Colorado and Maryland are refusing to enforce new laws they consider an infringement of the people’s right to bear arms.

According to Miniter, police cannot be everywhere, and responsible citizens deterring crime through the possession of firearms helps to keep a well-ordered society. He also relayed a conversation with Sheriff Mike Lewis of Wicomico County, Maryland, who long ago started the Baltimore Police Department’s drug interdiction movement.

“I asked him, ‘In all those years and all the bad guys you’ve arrested, have you ever arrested a good guy with a gun who used that gun illegally?’ He thought about it a minute and said, ‘Actually, I haven’t. Every single time I’ve arrested somebody that’s been prosecuted and found guilty, they always had that gun illegally,’” Miniter said.

In addition, he said the scant data that exists on gun owners authorized for concealed carry suggests those people are virtually never a problem.

“It’s rare to find someone who has a concealed carry permit using that gun in an illegal way,” he said. “In fact, there are some studies that show they actually use them less in crimes than police officers do. Those are small samples, so it’s hard to say that exactly. But that’s how really safe they are.”

Besides defending the track record of lawful gun owners, Miniter said gun restrictions never have the intended effect.

“Those gun bans won’t stop crimes. Rifles are used in less than three percent of murders as it is. An armed citizen just isn’t using those guns that way,” he explained. “It’s the unlawful person, the criminal, who is getting those through very different means. The only way to really fight the crime is to go after the bad guys, not the guns.”

Ultimately, Miniter contends that gun rights spawn more freedom, innovation and ensure that the military and police forces have top-of-the-line weapons. He said that can be seen as early as the American Revolution. Because of high civilian demand for guns, the quality of firearms in the colonies, and eventually in the hands of colonial soldiers, was vastly superior to those used by the British.

In fact, the minutemen could be as accurate from 300 yards as the British were from 75.

“Right there, they started off on the right foot, and that connection between freedom and American citizens and our private arms makers and the military and our police has always been a real connection,” Miniter said. “In fact, most of the firearms used over time and today were first used and made for civilians before it went to the military.

He concluded, “This has always been a connection between civilians and the military. Breaking that connection, a lot of special forces and other people have told me, would harm our ability to fight for freedom around the world.”

Gun Control Update

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has never been a favorite with gun rights groups or their champions on Capitol Hill. To put it mildly.

The departure of ATF Director B. Todd Jones this week was “to pursue other opportunities in the private sector,” as the official announcement declared – reportedly to a newly-created senior position with the National Football League (NFL).

But the real reason Mr. Jones’ tenure at the controversial ATF finally came to an end had to do with an attempt to ban certain armor-piercing bullets used in AR-15 assault-style weapons. For the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other pro-gun groups, controlling ammunition is just as objectionable as regulating gun ownership.

“Make no mistake, that so called ammo ban, proposed by the ATF that they're now shelving is nothing more than a gun ban by another name,” warns a video commentary

on the NRA website. “It takes nothing more than a two-second Google search to hear quotes of President Obama wanting to ban all AR-15s. And because his administration couldn't get that ban through the front door of Congress, they tried to get it through the back door with this ammo ban.”

The ammunition in question is the popular "M855 green tip" or "SS109" round with certain types of metal core projectiles. The rounds are commonly used in AR-15 rifles but can also be used in recent AR-15 handgun models.

When the ATF proposed a ban on such ammo, the reaction was swift and largely negative. Most of the more than 310,000 public comments about the proposal were critical of the plan, and nearly 300 members of Congress – majorities in both the House and Senate – also complained in letters to Jones. The effort was abandoned earlier this month.

Jones' departure was applauded by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte. The Virginia Republican has been critical of the agency's management and was among those lawmakers who objected to the ammunition rule change.

"It is clear the ATF needs a change in leadership to repair its tarnished image," Rep. Goodlatte said.

Although some Democrats sided with Republicans in publicly opposing the ammunition ban, others faulted Jones for mishandling the issue.

“This was sloppily handled and as a result the outcome was surprising, disappointing and even confusing,” Rep. Steve Israel, (D) of New York, told The Hill newspaper. “I hope under the new leadership the ATF can have a more transparent and responsive process.”

Rep. Israel and several other Democrats are backing legislation that would prohibit all forms of armor-piercing ammunition, including the type of bullets the ATF had proposed to ban, according to The Hill. Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, (R) of Wisconsin, is using Jones’ resignation as a platform to push legislation that would eliminate the ATF altogether.

Jones was the ATF’s first Senate-confirmed director in seven years. He also is a former US Attorney in Minnesota, corporate lawyer, and Marine Corps officer.

His job at ATF was going to be a tough one from the beginning. The agency had already come under fierce political fire for the failed “Operation Fast and Furious” that tried to track weapons but ended up with some US-funded guns in the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

At the same time, public attitudes in the wake of terrorist attacks, school shootings, and the impression that President Obama had a strong interest in regulating privately-owned firearms did little to advance the cause of stricter gun control

By a margin of 52 percent to 46 percent, Americans say protecting the rights of gun owners is more important than gun control, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center released in December. The survey, which came just two years after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was the first time Pew found more support for gun ownership than gun control in more than two decades of surveys on the issue.

While Disarming the US, Obama seeks to Arm Ukraine: War or BustEx-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said his efforts to persuade the U.S. administration to arm Ukraine are bearing fruit as cross-party pressure intensifies on President Barack Obama.

“I believe the U.S. will supply the weapons,” Saakashvili, who’s working as an adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, said in an interview in Kiev. “What gives me hope is the fact that the opinion of U.S. society and the political elite is firm on this idea. Almost everyone in Congress as well as in the Senate supports it, and the Pentagon and intelligence community want it.”

The issue of arming Ukraine hasn’t gone away amid a shaky truce in the nation’s border regions with Russia, which denies stoking a yearlong insurgency there. U.S. lawmakers from both parties spoke out last week in favor of lethal aid to Ukraine. Saakashvili, who struck an alliance for his Black Sea country with the U.S. and sought NATO membership, provoking a 2008 war with Russia, has been lobbying lawmakers in Washington.

Senator Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe, said there was “no question” among Republicans and Democrats on the panel that the U.S. should do more.

“I want to begin by sharing the frustration” on the committee “about the slowness with which we’re providing assistance to Ukraine,” Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said.

Urgent Need

Saakashvili complained in 2008 of an “inadequate” response by the U.S. and its allies to Georgia’s five-day conflict with Russia, which he accused of provoking hostilities by

amassing troops nearby. In Ukraine, he predicts the collapse of a peace accord brokered last month by Germany and France, and a renewed offensive by pro-Russian rebels.

“Russia will hit the south of Ukraine soon and the weapons must be given soon as there is no peace agreement,” said Saakashvili, whose relationship with Russia has never recovered. He left office in 2013 and is wanted in Georgia on charges he says are driven by the nation’s new leaders.

While Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry have been willing to give the cease-fire struck Feb. 12 in the Belarusian capital of Minsk a chance, members of Congress and military officials in the U.S. have stepped up demands to bolster support for Ukraine with “lethal defensive weapons.”

‘Bloody, Short’

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Washington last week in an effort to counter the growing U.S. pressure to ship weapons to Ukraine, arguing that the cease-fire with Russian-backed rebels needs time to take hold.

While fighting in eastern Ukraine has subsided since the truce that took effect Feb. 15, there have been continual violations, with new casualties nearly every day. Poroshenko on Monday sought parliamentary support for an appeal to the United Nations on deploying an international peacekeeping force.

A U.S. weapons build-up in Ukraine would sabotage peace efforts and risk triggering renewed hostilities, opening the road for a deadly, decisive Russian victory, a multimillionaire supporter of President Vladimir Putin said.

“The Americans and Ukrainians are preparing for a new spark of confrontation,” Konstantin Malofeev, who was sanctioned by the U.S. and the European Union last year for his role in the pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine, said in an interview. “If the Americans, using the Kiev regime, try to drag Russia into war, it will be bloody, short and will of course end in Russian victory.”

Ukraine’s conflict triggered U.S. and EU measures that have helped push Russia’s economy to the brink of recession. The fighting has left at least 6,000 people dead, the United Nations estimates.

The Bear Does not Sleep TonightMarch 19th of last year, Russia annexed Crimea. Or, the proper way to say this, Crimea voted to become an official part of Russia. Crimea is Russia. They are Russian people. They speak Russian. It is a large peninsula that sticks out into the Black Sea to the Southeast of Ukraine.

Crimea has long been a disputed territory, according an explainer on the region's history in the blog Marc to Market. Though it was annexed by Russia in 1783, it was the subject of numerous wars in the 1700s and 1800s.

In 1954, after years as part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (the largest state of the USSR), Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea to Ukraine, another Soviet state at the time.

After the USSR fell, Ukraine became a sovereign nation. It was decided then that Crimea would become an “autonomous republic” inside Ukraine, essentially giving it more autonomy over local issues while still being subject to the Ukrainian government. The Ukrainian president Yanukovich was Crimean. He was forced to leave town when pro-European forces broke the prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, out of prison. Yanukovich took to television airwaves, saying he had been forced to leave Kiev because of "vandalism, crime and a coup."

"I don't plan to leave the country. I don't plan to resign. I am the legitimate president," he said in an interview from Kharkiv, a pro-Russian stronghold near Ukraine's border with that nation.

"...What I am going to do next is to protect my country from the split, to stop the bloodshed. I don't know how to do it yet. I am in Kharkiv and I don't know what I am going to do next."

The Ukraine you Didn’t Know About

A 20-minute drive from Kiev takes you to a neighborhood that feels more like Beverly Hills than central Ukraine.

In a quiet oasis, huge mansions sit on lush lawns behind gilded gates. Private security guards stand watch over quiet, tree-lined streets.

You'd never know you're in a country in the midst of a violent conflict, with near daily reports of intense battles killing soldiers, pro-Russian separatists, and civilians -- including children.

These are the mansions that rose when the Soviet Union fell. And this is where many of Kiev's new rich are riding out the crisis, far from the front lines of eastern Ukraine.

Here, we find Kiev millionaire Vyacheslav Konstantinovsky sitting nervously on his grandiose outdoor patio. He is surrounded by the spoils of a successful construction business and restaurant chain.

Konstantinovsky --shaved head, tattoos, and muscled physique -- doesn't look like your stereotypical fat cat millionaire. He looks tough, rugged -- and fearful for his country. "If we sit and enjoy life here the [the war] will come to us also," he tells me.

Konstantinovsky worries about the struggling Ukrainian military. For years it had been ill equipped, untrained, and underfunded. Now, he and his twin brother are part of a growing group of Ukraine's mega rich making massive military contributions.

Konstantinovsky has donated $450,000 -- a figure funded, in part, by the sale of his Rolls Royce Phantom -- to the military to supply soldiers with weapons, uniforms, and supplies. "I can live without [my] Rolls Royce. But now it's difficult to live without enough arms," he says.

According to Forbes, seven of Ukraine's 100 richest people have publicly donated to the military. Prosecutors are investigating others on the Forbes list for financing pro-Russian rebels.

The United Nations says more than 2,000 people have died in eastern Ukraine since mid-April. Many are civilian volunteers, who left their families and jobs to join the fight.

What sets Konstantinovsky apart from other wealthy Ukranian donors is the 53-year-old's background as a Soviet soldier. Now, he is a member of Ukraine's volunteer battalions.

"If we don't fight, than we will be humiliated and we will live in the same country as it was before, when there was corruption. [The old government] was robbing businesses, they were putting people in jail for nothing," he says.

He's already done one rotation in Donetsk, and plans to return to the front lines. He knows that each day, volunteers like him die -- yet is ready to send his wife and children abroad, leave his mansion and join the fight.

"Of course I worry. But I hope for good luck," he says. He hopes for a fast end to the fighting and the birth of a new, stronger Ukraine. He hopes for a country with more jobs, and more millionaires like him. "First we have to finish the war. Then we will look at what to do," he says.

Ukraine's supporters are also crowd-funding, raising $12 million for the country's defense ministry in the latest campaign. The support comes despite the country's fragile economy, falling salaries and weak currency.

So, why did Russia agree to annex Crimea? Simple. Warm water ports in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov; cross that sea, and you’re in Russia.

Why would he be interested in Ukraine? Ukraine is rich beyond measure in many ways. They have the strongest gene pool on Earth. They are smarter, faster, richer, and have access to best and most diverse minerals, and technology on the planet. They have so much power that nearly every European war started right there.

There was only one issue. It was broke through mismanagement after the Soviet breakup. Yanukovich was flamboyant and loved to spend money, on himself. Here is how they became the victims of the Putin-Obama Plan:

In 2004 Hungary joined the EU, expecting streets of gold.  Instead, four years later in 2008 Hungary became indebted to the IMF.  The rock video by the Hungarian group, Mouksa Underground sums up the result in Hungary today of falling into the hands of the EU and IMF.

The song is about the disappointing results of leaving socialism for capitalism, and in Hungary the results are certainly not encouraging.  The title is “Disappointment with the System Change.” Here are the lyrics:

Over twenty some years nowWe’ve been waiting for the good lifeFor the average citizenInstead of wealth we have povertyUnrestrained exploitationSo this is the big system changeSo this is what you waited forNo housing No food No workBut that’s what was assured wouldn’t happenThose on topPrey upon usThe poor suffer everydaySo this is the big system changeSo this is what you waited for(Repeat)When will real change occur?When will there be a livable worldThe ultimate solution will ariseWhen this economic system is forever abandonedSo this is the big system changeSo this is what you waited for(Repeat)There is no solution but revolution

Perhaps if the Kiev students had listened to the Hungarian rock group instead of to Washington’s NGOs, they would understand what it means to be looted by the West,  and Ukraine would not be in turmoil and headed toward destruction.

As Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland made clear in her speech last December and in the leaked recording of her telephone conversation with the US ambassador in Kiev, Washington spent $5 billion of US taxpayer dollars engineering a coup in Ukraine that overthrew the elected democratic government.

That it was a coup is also underlined by the obvious public lies that Obama has told about the situation, blaming, of course, the overthrown government, and by the total misrepresentation of Ukrainian developments by the US and European presstitute

media.  The only reason to misrepresent the events is to support the coup and to cover up Washington’s hand.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the coup is a strategic move by Washington to weaken Russia. Washington tried to capture Ukraine in 2004 with the Washington-funded “Orange Revolution,” but failed.  Ukraine was part of Russia for 200 years prior to being granted independence in the 1990s. The eastern and southern provinces of Ukraine are Russian areas that were added to Ukraine in the 1950s by the Soviet leadership in order to water down the influence of the nazi elements in the western Ukraine that had fought for Adolf Hitler against the Soviet Union during World War 2.

The loss of Ukraine to the EU and NATO would mean the loss of Russia’s naval base on the Black Sea and the loss of many military industries.  If Russia were to accept such strategic defeat, it would mean that Russia had submitted to Washington’s hegemony.

Whatever course the Russian government takes, the Russian population of eastern and southern Ukraine will not accept oppression by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and neo-nazis.

The hostility already shown toward the Russian population can be seen in the destruction by Ukrainians of the monument to the Russian troops that drove Hitler’s divisions out of Ukraine during World War 2 and the destruction of the monument to Russian General Kutuzov, whose tactics destroyed Napoleon’s Grand Army and resulted in the fall of Napoleon.

The Obama Crime Syndicate has been working with and funding the neo-nazis for years.  There is one thing Russia will never tolerate on their Southern border; Nazis.

Music often tells the story the best. Zoltan Teglas stressed that Hungary's future depends on young people; people should never give up fighting for truth because if they do, the enemies of the nation will win. The Hungarian-American rock musician sees lack of solidarity as Hungary's biggest problem. This is why Hungary was partitioned after the First World War, and this is why soon after the communist takeover succeeded. Tomorrow, we can begin to change ourselves, if we want to. It's not OK to complain all the time about what's wrong, and I have no money! “When I talk about communism -- how people's possessions have been stolen -- many people say 'forget it, that's already history!' Then, I say to them 'give me your house, your car keys, your bank card and forget about it!' We should not forget what happened in the secret service headquarters in the Andrássy compound, the way people have been tortured and killed by Bolshevik henchmen. The ones who want to forget are people whose families participated in some of the atrocities, and became rich stealing others' properties. Those who have suffered, do not want to forget... There has been no justice for the Hungarian people. The Nazis were punished, but the communist criminals were not.”

1956 Link

The Dollar Collapse Begins in June

The Federal Reserve opened the door to an interest-rate increase as soon as June, while also indicating it will go slow once it gets started.

The new signals were contained in a policy statement that ended an era by dropping an assurance that the Fed will be “patient” in raising rates, and in a fresh set of estimates that lowered the median for the federal funds rate the end of 2015 to 0.625 percent compared with 1.125 percent in December.

“Just because we removed the word patient from the statement doesn’t mean we are going to be impatient,” Chair Janet Yellen said in a press conference Wednesday in Washington.

The Federal Open Market Committee said it will be appropriate to tighten “when it has seen further improvement in the labor market and is reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent objective over the medium term.”

“An increase in the target range for the federal funds rate remains unlikely at the April” meeting, it said in its statement.

Yellen is preparing for an exit from the most aggressive easing in the Fed’s 100-year history as the job market overcomes the damage wrought by the deepest recession since the 1930s. At the same time, inflation and wage growth that remain too low are giving her reasons for caution.

Stocks rose, erasing earlier losses, after the FOMC announcement. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 0.9 percent at 2,091.92B as of 2:31 p.m. in New York. Ten-year Treasury notes yielded 1.96 percent, down nine basis points.

Guidance Change While Fed officials lowered their estimate for the federal funds rate at the end of 2015, they said in their statement that “this change in the forward guidance does not indicate that the Committee has decided on the timing of the initial increase in the target range.”

Dropping the pledge to be “patient” marks a shift away from the explicit guidance on the future path of policy that the Fed has used since late 2008 to keep longer-term borrowing costs low. The Fed will now set policy at each meeting based on the latest economic data, making its actions less predictable.

The Fed repeated that it sees “strong job gains” and that labor-market conditions have “improved further.”

Still, the committee lowered its assessment of the economy, saying growth has “moderated somewhat.” In January, it said the economy was “expanding at a solid pace.” Export growth has weakened and the housing recovery remains slow, according to this month’s statement.

Two Meetings Yellen has said the promise to be “patient” means the FOMC would probably wait at least two meetings before raising rates. The next FOMC meetings are scheduled for April and June.

The Fed is preparing to tighten even as stagnant growth elsewhere prompts central banks in Europe, China and Japan to ease policy. That has put upward pressure on the dollar, which has jumped more than 4 percent since Fed policy makers last met on Jan. 28, posing a potential headwind to growth as American exports become more expensive.

Fed officials confront conflicting signals from their dual mandates for full employment and price stability as they weigh when to tighten policy for the first time since June 2006.

Job Gains Surging job gains pushed unemployment down to 5.5 percent in February, the lowest level in almost seven years, suggesting the economy is strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs.

Payroll gains have averaged more than 200,000 workers for 12 straight months, the longest streak of such increases since March 1995.

“No matter how you cut the cake, you still have an economy running above trend,” said Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas SA in New York. Absent a threat of deflation, “the economy can handle higher rates.”

Among companies boosting payrolls is Omaha, Nebraska-based Union Pacific Corp. The largest publicly traded railroad in North America plans to hire about 5,700 employees this year amid an improving economy, Chief Financial Officer Rob Knight said this month in an investor conference.

“That’s a big number,” Knight said. “A lot of those are high-paying union jobs, so these are very good jobs in our industry.”

The economy grew at a 2.2 percent annualized rate in the three months ended December after a 5 percent jump in the third quarter that was the biggest in 11 years. The truth is that according to the GAO, the growth rate fell to 0.2% in one quarter as

soon as the QE ended. What does tell you about the source of growth they were reporting, and whether you can believe it or not.

Housing, Production Even so, recent data on housing, industrial production and consumer spending have been weaker than forecast, prompting some economists to mark down their estimates for growth this quarter.

Inflation and wage growth also haven’t been as strong as many Fed officials would like, suggesting that there’s more slack left in the economy than low unemployment alone suggest.

Prices as measured by the Fed’s preferred gauge rose just 0.2 percent in January from a year earlier, and inflation has languished below the central bank’s 2 percent goal for 33 straight months.

Yellen last month said it would be appropriate to raise rates if the labor market continues to improve and officials are “reasonably confident” that inflation will move back up toward their goal.

Low inflation expectations are depressing 10-year Treasury yields, which hit a 20-month low of 1.64 percent in January. The yield was at 2.05 percent late yesterday.

One reason for declining inflation: the plunge in oil prices. That gives Fed officials reason to believe consumer prices will recover as the impact of cheaper oil dissipates.

Bond investors aren’t buying that argument. Traders are betting prices will rise at a 1.37 percent annual rate over the next five years, down from a 1.67 percent estimate on March 3, according to break-even rates on Treasury Inflation Protected Securities.

Wages present more of a puzzle. Average hourly earnings rose 2 percent in February from a year earlier, matching the average since the end of the recession in June 2009.

Eighty nine-percent of 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg this month forecast that the Fed would drop “patient” from its statement. Sixty-nine percent predicted the phrase would be replaced by some other form of guidance.

In December, the FOMC dropped a clause from its statement that it would hold rates low for a “considerable time” and instead said it would be “patient” in weighing an increase.

Cost of Borrowing:  The rise in interest rates question assumes that the cost of borrowing also increases. As the Fed’s bond buying slows, it becomes more expensive to borrow money, creating an increase in interest rates. This affects a business owner in a myriad of ways. To the extent your business is dependent on credit, your costs are likely to go up. There doesn’t appear to be an expectation that credit will become anymore available in the near term so you may want to factor in a net increase in costs.

Effect on Prices: It is overly simplistic to assume that with an increase in interest rates, there is a concomitant increase in prices. Sure, if a business owner’s costs go up because of borrowing, some or all of that cost may be passed on to the customer. But the economy doesn’t work in a linear way. Take  a farmer, for example. Crops are a commodity, and commodity prices may actually fall with an increase in interest rates. Investors may start moving from commodities to financial instruments, generating a decline in crop prices, even as the farmer’s borrowing costs increase. The bottom line is a business owner should assess whether his or her business will allow for a related increase in prices to reflect higher interest rates.

Savings and Investments: Part of the current concern over bond prices is related to the expected increase in interest rates. As interest rates go up, the normal consequence is a drop in bond prices.  Beyond this connection, it becomes more tenuous determining how savings and investments will trend.  While some may argue that an increase in returns on fixed yield products will generate a flight to these kinds of savings vehicles, others would argue that the very reason the Fed is backing off on bond buying is because the economy is improving.  With an improving economy, investors become more willing to invest in equities.  Now is a particularly important time to discuss your savings and investment strategies with your financial advisor.

Overall Business Issues:  An increase in interest rates can have a variety of business consequences  that may affect your operations, including:

Receivables - Your cost of carrying credit for your customers may increase. It may be time to reconsider your receivables pricing policy.

Sales – How might a change in interest rates affect your sales? You may actually experience an increase in sales as customers try to access credit while it is still comparatively inexpensive. This may be particularly noticeable with capital purchases this year, as companies seek to access cheap credit AND utilize the current higher expensing rules under IRC 179. On the flip side, increased borrowing costs may cause a longer term slowing of purchases. More costs, less buying. This is an opportunity for you to consider a pricing strategy aimed at timing an anticipated change in rates.

Purchases - For the same reason your customers may change their buying habits, consider your own purchasing strategy. Is now the time to consider capital purchases or buying a large supply of goods needed for your manufacturing? Or, should you consider a cutback on purchases to reflect an anticipated dry spell in profits?

Marketing - The fact I’m being asked about interest rates is an indicator that this is an issue both on business owners’ and consumers’ minds. If you believe interest rates are on the rise, consider how you can build this into your marketing plan. Perhaps you should target customers who are most likely to be affected by this change. A “fire sale” approach for some; an easy credit approach for others.

New Data Show The Tech Boom Is Looking More And More Like A BubbleTech investment funding has hit a new peak.

PricewaterhouseCoopersAnother record year for internet investment. (Click to enlarge.)

If you think tech IPO data suggests a bubble of over-investment, then you'll be reassured/terrified by the new report on tech startup investment funding from PricewaterhouseCoopers: In 2013, the

software industry received 37% of all venture capital for the year, the highest percentage since PwC began tracking investment since 1995.

Internet-specific companies got more than $7 billion in new funding in 2013. In 2007, the peak year before the credit crunch recession, those same types of companies received just over $5 billion.

It's worth remembering that at the height of the dot-com bubble in 2000, internet venture investment peaked at over $41 billion, according to PwC. So we may have a way to go before the bubble bursts. There is something else to keep in mind. The last tech bubble was mostly fueled by Microsoft as the main investor in thousands of small programmers who writing software. There were no apps. Games were memory hogs, and the machines were getting faster by the month. Add to that the limit that fiber optic cable presented to the internet industry, which was just beginning to get its legs. Suddenly, Clinton announced that the Justice Department was being mobilized to split what it perceived to be a Microsoft monopoly. Bill Gates simply said, “We know our way to the courtroom. Take your best shot.” All well and good, but Microsoft stopped buying software. The crash was hear around the world. Tens of thousands of millions were made in only 4 years, and the entire 401k industry lost 25% in 24 hours thanks to Clinton’s Justice Department full assault…which it lost.

Then, when the software was developed that would allow up to ten and then 100 times the data to travel along the same fiber optic cables that were already in the ground, the Corning empire collapsed. The bubble was gone. It took nearly 10 years for the tech industry to recover.

Having said that ...

We've exceeded the level of software deal volume we saw in 1999.

There were 1,523 software company funding deals in 2013, up 10% from 1,384 in 2012, according to PwC. The peak, during the dot-com boom was 2,167 in 2002. However, bubble-watchers should note that the 2013 peak EXCEEDED the number of deals made in 1999, the year the bubble really began to pop.

The number of tech deals is largely flat, but in 2013 values were suddenly inflated.

This box shows that the number of tech companies who were acquired or merged stayed mostly flat, rising from 225 in 2012 to 236 in 2013 for the first nine months of each year, according to BIA/Kelsey (see left column). But note that the value appended to those deals rocketed 65% from $6.1 billion to $10.1 billion.

BIA/Kelsey

According to Digi-Capital, both the number of funding deals for video game companies and the value of mergers and acquisitions in the game sector have hit peaks at the same time. Note that the value of those investments (the dark blue bars) is actually now in decline. That's evidence that more money is chasing declining value. 

The main thing to understand here is that nothing is actually made here. The writers get stock, and enough money to stay in the chair and keep writing. There are no buildings. No one is really hired, only contracted. An investor putting in $300,000 will usually grab 60-80% ownership of the software, give the writer some rent operating cash and will make a return of $7.5 million, if he exits at the right time. A video game lifespan is about one year to two years, while the investors profit take. One hardware change, like X-Box or Playstation, and there is a flurry of new scenes that require blazing processing speeds to utilize are written into the game.

Whereas a video game might cost $60 a copy, a single copy (called a seat) of software that manages invoicing, purchase orders, and customers costs more than $250,000. With manufacturing at a 37 year low in the USA, you can imagine how few copies of that software are being sold.

The real low hanging fruit now is mobile App games. Full scale, CG TV ads sell the game, but the actual experience is boring and sees a 95% drop rate after less than 90 days, or as soon as the player has to buy more gold or more chips or more lives with real money. One App in ten thousand makes $500 million, and it of course is used as the poster child for all future investors.

When more people are receiving a welfare check than are receiving a paycheck, people have nothing better to do with their time that play video games. Sooner or later, the gravy train will stop running. A whole generation of gamers is about to be turned out into the desert without the skills to get a single glass of water.

The smart money is heading for the exits.

Whether we’re talking about Elon Musk exiting PayPal, or Senator Maria Cantwell selling her dot com to run for office, the smartest investors know when to sell. The percentage of all IPOs

that were from venture-backed companies declined in 2012 and 2013. By the way, less than 0.1% of IPO’s, usually done with reverse mergers into shell corporations (another booming industry), actually made money in the last 5 years. Then there is the process called the pump and dump. The software is pre-marketed, or even pre-launched, while press releases or piggyback samples are tagged to existing software. The stock jumps up from 1 penny to perhaps $30, and then the investors well their stock. The stock crashes back to a penny, and the writer gets nothing while the investor walks away with a 25 to 1 return.

The overall trend, however, remains up. when VCs want their IPO exits it's a sign they want to cash out of their investments — a bearish sign for a market at its peak. The typical VC exits after 12 to 18 months. The SEC has done nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, to stop the fleecing of smaller investors and entrepreneurs who are the ponzie victims as the original investors smartly market their way out of the deal and on to the next 500% profit.

And note three things: 1. These numbers don't yet include Square, Box, AppNexus, and Dropbox, all expected to be huge IPO exits for VC funders in the coming year or so. 2. That peak in 2011 is pretty close to the pre-burst peak of 1999. 3. The accompanying explanation from The Information is, basically, "this time it's different," which is what everyone says right before a collapse.

The 'late' money is arriving.

Justin Bieber is an investor in a $1.1 million funding round for Shots of Me, a social networking app based on selfies. Path, the quirky social network that limits the number of friends you have, took a $25 million funding round from a group of investors that included Indonesia's Bakrie Group. Bakrie is best known for its gas and drilling business, which back in 2006 rendered 14,000 people homeless after its activities caused a devastating mudslide in Java. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia bought $300 million of Twitter stock on the pre-IPO private market.

In a bubble, everyone can make money, regardless of their expertise — or lack of it.

Programmers don't want to take jobs even when the salary is $500,000.

The hiring market is incredibly tight. We previously mentioned that engineers and programmers in Silicon Valley are able to make ridiculous compensation demands, such as Tesla cars. Twitter's SVP/technology gets paid more than the chairman of the board. Facebook's vp/engineering, Mike Schroepfer, got $24.4 million in 2011. And now we hear that a Google programmer turned down a $500,000 job at a startup because he's already being paid the equivalent of $3 million in stock and benefits.

A virtual currency that has no assets behind it trades at $1,000 a unit.

We're talking about Bitcoin, of course. Sure, you can make international transactions for very little money using Bitcoin, but at the end of the day it is an intangible asset — it only has value

because a bunch of people agree it has value. If something goes wrong with Bitcoin, none of its users or investors have any recourse — and its value falls to zero.

Everyone wants to live in San Francisco.

We recently pointed out that real estate prices in Silicon Valley have gotten so bad that anyone who wants to live there needs to make at least $100,000 a year in order to not be "poor." Yet people keep pouring into the area. By the numbers, the population of San Francisco County barely even noticed the dot com bubble of 2000 (see chart below). Fourteen years later, more people live there than ever before. Serious people are starting to question whether it is sustainable to have cities where only the rich can live. Kevin Starr, a professor specializing in California history at the University of Southern California, told the New York Times, “If you leave it to the free market alone, the system will collapse because you won’t be able to run a city.”

FRED

A lot of companies that don't have real revenue are trading on 'vanity metrics.'

Snapchat has told people that its service handles 400 million "snaps" per day.

Similarly, Pinterest touts its 1.5 million travel related "pins" per day.

Those stats make the companies sound huge. But how big are they really? Business Insider recently discovered that Snapchat's monthly active user base is only 30 million people.

And yet the company has been valued at $2 billion.

Graybeards who lived through the 2000 dot-com bubble are seeing the same things today.

Here, verbatim, are a couple of quotes from the New York Times on the subject of Twitter's stock price. The background is that Twitter does not make a profit but its stock has hit $62 at the time of writing:

"I just haven't seen something like this in a long time," said Robert S. Peck of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, who had set a price target of $50 before the I.P.O. but cut his rating to hold two weeks ago when shares reached $59." They don't have earnings. They don't have free cash flow."

As Barron's, an investment advisory publication, put it over the weekend, "At $45 billion, the company may have the highest market value of any firm that isn't generating any earnings since the dot-com bubble of 1999-2000."

The New York Times quoted one tech investor:

"We all know how this plays out," said Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and entrepreneur. "There is no question that this is fueling some kind of bubble."

Secession: Arizona, Missouri Blaze the Trail this TimeOVERVIEW

HB 2368 prohibits the state from funding executive orders issued by the President of the United States and policy directives from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) unless affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.

HISTORY

The Arizona Constitution, Article Two, Section Three provides that to protect the people's freedom and to preserve the checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution, this state may exercise its sovereign authority to restrict the actions of its personnel and the

use of its financial resources to purposes that are consistent with the constitution by doing any of the following: passing an initiative or referendum, passing a bill, pursuing any other available legal remedy.

Executive orders are legally binding orders given by the President to federal administrative agencies. Executive orders are generally used to direct federal agencies and officials in their execution of congressionally established laws or policies. Executive orders do not require congressional approval to take effect but they have the same legal weight as laws passed by Congress. The President's source of authority to issue executive orders is found in the Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution, which grants to the President certain specified executive powers.

PROVISIONS

1.      Prohibits this state or any of its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with an executive order issued by the President of the U.S. that has not been affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.

2.      Prohibits this state or any of its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with a policy directive issued by the U.S. DOJ to law enforcement agencies in this state that has not been affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.

The DC Crime Syndicate may be Going to Jail

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a powerful U.S. Senate investigative committee, has officially initiated a probe into Obama’s connections with OneVoice Movement, a Washington-based group whose subsidiary, Victory 15, is actively involved in  efforts to oust Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The committee’s investigation is significant for several reasons. First, the committee is bipartisan. The collaboration of Democrats and Republicans can accurately be taken as a rebuke to Obama who has not tried to hide his disdain for Netanyahu.

Secondly, Obama’s State Department gave OneVoice numerous taxpayer-funded grants.  If the grants are proven to have financed anti-Netanyahu efforts in Israel, Obama would be an accomplice to criminal acts.

OneVoice is forbidden by U.S.law to specifically target Netanyahu. They have denied working with Obama in the upcoming Israeli election.

However, in OneVoice’s 2014 annual nonprofit statement, it admitted its Israeli branch would be “embarking on a groundbreaking campaign around the Israeli elections.” (H/T FoxNews.com)

Obama’s questionable partnership has not gone unnoticed.

Netanyahu has made open and directed statements that other governments are actively campaigning against him.

In a television interview, Netanyahu said the coalition against him is funded by foreign donors who are attempting to encourage voter turnout among left-wing Israeli voters.

Calling the move against him “unprecedented,” Netanyahu pointed the finger at “European countries and left-wing people abroad.”

Furthermore, recent polls show that a large majority of  Israelis believe the Obama administration is interfering in the election, set for March 17.

According to the Fox News report, the State Department grants constituted indirect administration funding of the anti-Netanyahu campaign.

The grants provided OneVoice with the $350,000 — even though State Department officials said the funding stopped in November, ahead of the announcement of the Israeli election.

Americans are DumbAs Americans, we tend to be pretty full of ourselves, and this is especially true of our young people.  But do we really have reason for such pride?  According to a shocking new report from the Educational Testing Service, Americans between the ages of 20 and 34 are way behind young adults in other industrialized nations when it comes to literacy, mathematics and technological proficiency.  Even though more Americans than ever are going to college, we continue to fall farther and farther behind intellectually.  So what does this say about us?  Sadly, the truth is that Americans are stupid.  Our education system is an abysmal failure, and our young people spend most of their free time staring at the television, their computers or their mobile devices.  And until we are honest with ourselves about this, our intellectual decline is going to get even worse.According to this new report from the Educational Testing Service, at this point American Millennials that have a four year college degree are essentially on the same intellectual level as young adults in Japan, Finland and the Netherlands that only have a high school degree…Americans born after 1980 are lagging their peers in countries ranging from Australia to Estonia, according to a new report from researchers at the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The study looked at scores for literacy and numeracy from a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, which tested the abilities of people in 22 countries.

The results are sobering, with dire implications for America. It hints that students may be falling behind not only in their early educational years but at the college level. Even though more Americans between the ages of 20 to 34 are achieving higher levels of education, they’re still falling behind their cohorts in other countries. In Japan, Finland and the Netherlands, young adults with only a high school degree scored on par with American Millennials holding four-year college degrees, the report said.How in the world is that possible?I can tell you how that is possible – our colleges are a joke.  But more on that in a moment.Out of 22 countries, the report from the Educational Testing Service found that Americans were dead last in tech proficiency.  We were also dead last in numeracy and only two countries performed worse than us when it came to literacy proficiency…Half of American Millennials score below the minimum standard of literacy proficiency. Only two countries scored worse by that measure: Italy (60 percent) and Spain (59 percent). The results were even worse for numeracy, with almost two-thirds of American Millennials failing to meet the minimum standard for understanding and working with numbers. That placed U.S. Millennials dead last for numeracy among the study’s 22 developed countries.It is in this type of environment that Coca-Cola can be marketed to Americans as “a healthy snack“.

This is a national crisis.  Parents should be screaming bloody murder about the quality of the education that their children are receiving.  But because very few of them actually know what is going on, they just continue to write out huge tuition checks all the time believing that their kids are being prepared for the real world.To show how “dumbed down” we have become, I want to share with you a copy of an eighth grade exam from 1912 that was donated to the Bullitt County History Museum in Kentucky.Would eighth grade students be able to pass such an exam today?Would college students?As you look over this exam from 1912, ask yourself how you would do on it…

In addition, I find it very interesting that the reading level of the State of the Union addresses delivered by our presidents has steadily declined since the inception of this nation.And it should be no surprise that Barack Obama’s State of the Union addresses have been some of the dumbest of all.But could it be possible that I am being too harsh?After all, scientists are now discovering that our diminishing intellectual capabilities are actually the consequence of natural processes.For example, a Stanford University biology professor named Gerald R. Crabtree has published two papers in which he detailed his conclusion that humans have been getting dumber for thousands of years…Are humans becoming smarter or more stupid? Comparing our modern lives and technology with that of any preceding generation, one might think we are becoming increasingly smarter. But, in two papers published in Trends in Genetics, Gerald R. Crabtree of Stanford University claims that we are losing mental capacity and have been doing so for 2,000–6,000 years! The reason, Crabtree concludes, is due to genetic mutations—which are the backbone of neo-Darwinian evolution.Why is this happening?Professor Crabtree believes that this loss of intellectual capability is due to the accumulation of errors in our genes…Based on data produced by the 1000 Genomes Project Consortium and two recent papers in Nature, Crabtree estimates in the first article that, in the past 3,000 years (approximately 120 generations), about 5,000 new mutations have occurred in the genes governing our intellectual ability. He claims most of these mutations will have no effect, while about 2–5 percent are deleterious and “a vanishingly small fraction will increase fitness.” Crabtree bases his conclusion that humankind is losing mental capacity on the ratio between the deleterious and the beneficial mutations.Our DNA is mutating, and it has been for thousands of years.  And no, those mutations are not helping us.  Each one of us has tens of thousands of errors in our DNA that we have inherited, and we will add even more errors which we will pass on to future generations.Given enough time, many scientists believe that humanity would eventually degenerate into a bunch of gibbering idiots incapable of rational thought.Or could it be possible that a large segment of the population has already arrived at that state?

The Mind Control TestReading through articles about mind control and how pervasive it's become and is embedded and applied throughout our society today...I paused in stride.  Although I thought, "this applies to everyone else...not me".  But as I thought a while longer on it, it occurred to me maybe, "I too have become an unknowing victim of this insidious technology". 

How would one really know for sure if they have become an unknowing pawn and player?  Is there a test I could give myself?  A test that would account for all the hidden agenda type responses built into these mind control/social conditioning programs... thereby, cluing me into how much I may have been infiltrated.

MK-Ultra, a name we are all familiar with by now, was an invidious program masterminded by the scariest of dark souls ever to walk this earth.  Since MK-Ultra inception the program has devised more sophisticated and subtle means of mind control throughout the years.  Examples might include, HD TV and Alpha wave light flickers that within a minute put the viewer into a mind numbing hypnotic suggestive state.  Or just the way a question is formed to give the perception of being a question when in reality it is an end statement.  Or how even when an inquiry news story is published, it's concluded with the anchors commentary. So you confuse his/hers opinion and adopted it as your own before you even had a change to mull the options over from your expertise or knowledge base. 

It occurs to me people don't even have the ability or know how to go about breaking out their own answers within any situations or subjects they confront now-a-days and coming to their own conclusions anymore.  I could go so far as to say, they unconsciously fear it. 

If you took a news story the way they did 60 years ago and reported on a subject, gave the standard who, what, when, where and why... Leaving it for the listener or viewer to mull over and settle it in their own mind as to what was right about it, or wrong with it, or how they would have handled it...I doubt seriously many people could adopt their own opinion or feelings about the matter. 

So is there an exercise out there that would test one for being afflicted or infected? Well, this is a great question. The quick and easy test is simply stopping for a moment, after you hear or see or “feel” something that is urging you to do something or to stop doing something you wanted to do half an hour ago. Ask yourself the question, “What’s going on?”

I can tell you that the Holy Spirit tries to influence us through a system of feedback. If you decide to do something, and you check with the Spirit, there may be a confirming feeling that comes to you. This feeling in the body is in the chest or throat area. It can often cause the eyes to well up with tears as well. The Spirit will never urge you to violence and encourages the soft answer. The other form of communication is through inspired ideas. This is personal and is seen through your own skills and abilities and always leads to benefit others and closer to Christ. It is known by a theme of longsuffering, charity, mercy, and to the betterment of all mankind. The good of the Spirit is to draw you closer to Christ and to become more like Him.

Mind control is not open to interpretation or personal abilities. It often incites to violence, makes one think of suicide or murder. It also provides excuses for behavior and can even have an overwhelming theme of paranoia. The area of the body that is affected is the groin or lower gut. It feels a little like going over a hump in the road really fast or dropping from a roller coaster. It can have a thrilling kind of tone to it. It may also have a mantra type of repeating message that feels like an assault on your brain or your dreams. It may even feel like a spell being cast over you. The good of mind control is to make you all the same, and to make you feel unworthy or angry at some certain group, individual, or idea.

You must be able to self-assess on a daily basis. Christians call this prayer. More Gnostic traditions call it meditation. You are evaluating your own shortcomings and making adjustments to your will and your ability to follow through and finish things. If you don’t do this type of activity at home at the side of your bed, then do it while you are driving or taking a shower. Get better every day by putting your thoughts to the test. Then comes the hard part. Choosing the right.

If you like thrills, casual sex, risky behavior, or violence then you have a challenge on your hands. My advice is to learn to make the right choice on your own. If God has to compel you to make the right choice, it will not be pleasant. You may find yourself handed over to your enemies.

Nazi ReparationsGermany faces paying billions to Greece in compensation for wartime atrocities after Merkel's senior advisers warn her Athens DOES HAVE a valid claim to reparations

Germany did pay some £50million in compensation to Greece after WW2However, the new government in Athens says it was never enough Greece is demanding up to £250bn in reparations for the Nazi occupation Senior figures in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition partner in government - the SPD - have united with the Green Party to declare Germany should compensate Greece to the tune of billions of pounds for wartime Nazi atrocities.The demands come as parliamentary lawyers warned her cabinet that Greece may have a valid claim which Germany might lose if it chose to fight it all the way to the European Court of Justice.The solidarity move threatens the united front Berlin has presented to Athens as it tries to keep the struggling country both in the eurozone and the EU. Now high-profile politicians from the SPD and the Greens have thrown their weight behind Greece to say they deserve reparations money 70 years after the end of the conflict.

Senior figures in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition partner in government have united with the Green Party to declare Germany should compensate Greece to the tune of billions of pounds for wartime Nazi atrocitiesGesine Schwan, a two-time SPD candidate for the office of president, said: 'It would be good for us Germans if we put our own house in order relating to the past. It is about recognizing that we have committed serious wrongs in Greece.'

Deputy party leader Ralf Stegner said: 'We should not link the question of compensation with the current debate on the euro crisis. But I am of the opinion that we need to discuss compensation regardless. It is part of dealing with our own history.'And Green parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter added; 'Germany can not simply wipe the demands from Greece off the table. Neither morally nor legally is this chapter complete. The government would be well advised to open conversations about the reappraisal of German crimes and an amicable solution with Greece.'Mrs Merkel is said to be furious at the schism in a hitherto united front. She - and most Germans - view the Greek demand for up to 250 billion pounds in reparations for the Nazi occupation as a ploy to gain Some senior German politicians view the Greek demand for up to £250billion in reparations for the Nazi occupation as a ploy to gain more time and money to settle its chronic debt crisis. Pictured is an anti-austerity and pro-government demonstration in Athens that took place in February

Germany did pay some £50million in compensation to Greece after WW2 but the new government in Athens said it was never enough. It has begun mentioning the surviving relatives of massacre victims as a way of humanising the debate beyond the euro crisis.Spiegel news magazine reported on Tuesday that lawyers for the government have warned Mrs Merkel that the Greeks may have a case - and that indeed the country might end up paying out massive sums. It says that a two billion pound loan which the Third Reich secured from the Greek National Bank in 1942 was never repaid: this alone, in today's money, amounts to around ten billion pounds.Greece is also demanding compensation for a massacre at the village of Distomo where Waffen-S.S. troops killed 218 men, women and children on June 10 1944.

Dark of the SunCoronal holes are regions of the corona where the magnetic field reaches out into space. Particles moving along those magnetic fields can leave the sun rather than being trapped near the surface. A Polar coronal hole can remain visible for five years or longer, although constantly changes shape 

Nasa has spotted a  pair of huge 'holes' on the solar surface.The larger coronal hole of the two, near the southern pole, covers an estimated 6 to 8-percent of the total solar surface, 142 billion miles - making it one of the largest polar holes scientists have observed in decades.The smaller coronal hole, towards the opposite pole, is long and narrow, covering about 3.8 billion square miles on the sun - only about 0.16-percent of the solar surface.

WHAT IS A CORONAL HOLE Coronal holes are regions of the corona where the magnetic field reaches out into space rather than looping back down onto the surface. Particles moving along those magnetic fields can leave the sun rather than being trapped near the surface. In the parts of the corona where the particles leave the sun, the glow is much dimmer and the coronal hole looks dark.'Coronal holes are lower density and temperature regions of the sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona,' explained Nasa. 'Coronal holes can be a source of fast solar wind of solar particles that envelop the Earth.'The magnetic field in these regions extends far out into space rather than quickly looping back into the sun’s surface. Magnetic fields that loop up and back down to the surface can be seen as arcs in non-coronal hole regions of the image, including over the lower right horizon.The bright active region on the lower right quadrant is the same region that produced solar flares last week.It is the second time Nasa has spotted a huge hole on the sub. The sun has started 2015 with a mysterious event - a huge hole has appeared.Known as a coronal hole, the phenomenon occurred near the south pole - and is seen as a dark area covered all of its base in these stunning images.Coronal holes were first seen in images taken by astronauts on board NASA's Skylab space station in 1973 and 1974. They can be seen for a long time, although the exact shape changes all the time. 

The polar coronal hole can remain visible for five years or longer. Each time a coronal hole rotates by the Earth we can measure the particles flowing out of the hole as a high-speed stream, another source of space weather.Charged particles in the Earth's radiation belts are accelerated when the high-speed stream runs into the Earth's magnetosphere. The acceleration of particles in the magnetosphere is studied by NASA's Van Allen Probes mission. 

Coronal holes are regions of the corona where the magnetic field reaches out into space rather than looping back down onto the surface - and eject solar winds far faster than other parts of the sun.The incredible image was  captured on Jan. 1, 2015 by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows the coronal hole as a dark region in the south.Coronal holes are regions of the corona where the magnetic field reaches out into space rather than looping back down onto the surface. Particles moving along those magnetic fields can leave the sun rather than being trapped near the surface. Those trapped particles can heat up and glow, giving us the lovely AIA images. In the parts of the corona where the particles leave the sun, the glow is much dimmer and the coronal hole looks dark. As Solar Cycle 24 fades, the number of flares each day will get smaller, but the coronal holes provide another source of space weather that needs to be understood and predicted.Coronal holes are a typical feature on the sun, though they appear at different places and with more frequency at different times of the sun's activity cycle.

The holes are important to our understanding of space weather, as they are the source of a high-speed wind of solar particles that streams off the sun some three times faster than the slower wind elsewhere. While it's unclear what causes coronal holes, they correlate to areas on the sun where magnetic fields soar up and away, failing to loop back down to the surface, as they do elsewhere.The material constantly flowing outward is called the solar wind, which typically 'blows' at around 250 miles (400 km) per second. When a coronal hole is present, though, the wind speed can double to nearly 500 miles (800 km) per second. Late last year one of Nasa's most powerful space telescopes has turned its gaze on the Sun for the first time to capture this stunning image.Nasa's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has produced the most sensitive solar portrait ever taken in high-energy X-rays.The mission is primarily designed to look at black holes and other objects far from our solar system.  

WHAT IT SHOWS The NuSTAR data, seen in green and blue, reveal solar high-energy emission (green shows energies between 2 and 3 kiloelectron volts, and blue shows energies between 3 and 5 kiloelectron volts). The high-energy X-rays come from gas heated to above 3 million degrees.The red channel represents ultraviolet light captured by SDO at wavelengths of 171 angstroms, and shows the presence of lower-temperature material in the solar atmosphere at 1 million degrees.This image shows that some of the hotter emission tracked by NuSTAR is coming from different locations in the active regions and the coronal loops than the cooler emission shown in the SDO image. 'NuSTAR will give us a unique look at the sun, from the deepest to the highest parts of its atmosphere,' said David Smith, a solar physicist and member of the NuSTAR team at University of California, Santa Cruz.Solar scientists first thought of using NuSTAR to study the sun about seven years ago, after the space telescope's design and construction was already underway, but before the telescope launched into space in 2012. Smith had contacted the principal investigator, Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who mulled it over and became excited by the idea.'At first I thought the whole idea was crazy,' says Harrison. 'Why would we have the most sensitive high energy X-ray telescope ever built, designed to peer deep into the universe, look at something in our own back yard?' Smith eventually convinced Harrison, explaining that faint X-ray flashes predicted by theorists could only be seen by NuSTAR.While the sun is too bright for other telescopes such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, NuSTAR can safely look at it without the risk of damaging its detectors. The sun is not as bright in the higher-energy X-rays detected by NuSTAR, a factor that depends on the temperature of the sun's atmosphere.This first solar image from NuSTAR demonstrates that the telescope can in fact gather data about sun. And it gives insight into questions about the remarkably high temperatures that are found above sunspots -- cool, dark patches on the sun. Future images will provide even better data as the sun winds down in its solar cycle.'We will come into our own when the sun gets quiet,' said Smith, explaining that the sun's activity will dwindle over the next few years.With NuSTAR's high-energy views, it has the potential to capture hypothesized nanoflares -- smaller versions of the sun's giant flares that erupt with charged particles and high-energy radiation. Nanoflares, should they exist, may explain why the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona, is sizzling hot, a mystery called the 'coronal heating problem.' The corona is, on average, 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1 million degrees Celsius), while the surface of the sun is relatively cooler at 10,800 Fahrenheit (6,000 degrees Celsius). It is like a flame coming out of an ice cube. Nanoflares, in combination with flares, may be sources of the intense heat.

NASA'S NEW TELESCOPE - 100 TIMES MORE SENSITIVE THAN ITS PREDECESSORS

The new telescope (right) offers deeper, crisper images of the sky - and will help Nasa hunt down 'hidden' objects such as black holes which could help unravel the mysteries of the universe.  The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, NuSTAR X-Ray telescope is 100 times more sensitive than any previous telescope operating in the same energy range'We will see the hottest, densest and most energetic objects with a fundamentally new high-energy X-ray telescope that can obtain much deeper and crisper images than before,' said Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who first conceived of the mission 20 years ago. The telescope has more than 10 times the resolution, and more than 100 times the sensitivity, of its predecessors operating in a similar energy range. Studying black holes that are big and small, far and near, NuSTAR will endeavor to answer questions about the formation and physics behind these wonders of the cosmos. The observatory will also investigate how exploding stars forge the elements that make up planets and people, and it will even study our own Sun's atmosphere. If NuSTAR can catch nanoflares in action, it may help solve this decades-old puzzle.'NuSTAR will be exquisitely sensitive to the faintest X-ray activity happening in the solar atmosphere, and that includes possible nanoflares,' said Smith.What's more, the X-ray observatory can search for hypothesized dark matter particles called axions. Dark matter is five times more abundant than regular matter in the universe. Everyday matter familiar to us, for example in tables and chairs, planets and stars, is only a sliver of what's out there. While dark matter has been indirectly detected through its gravitational pull, its composition remains unknown.It's a long shot, say scientists, but NuSTAR may be able spot axions, one of the leading candidates for dark matter, should they exist. The axions would appear as a spot of X-rays in the center of the sun.Meanwhile, as the sun awaits future NuSTAR observations, the telescope is continuing with its galactic pursuits, probing black holes, supernova remnants and other extreme objects beyond our solar system. 

HOW SOLAR FLARES AFFECT EARTHSolar flares can damage satellites and have an enormous financial cost.Astronauts are not in immediate danger because of the relatively low orbit of this manned mission. They do have to be concerned about cumulative exposure during space walks.The charged particles can also threaten airlines by disturbing the Earth's magnetic field.Very large flares can even create currents within electricity grids and knock out energy supplies.A positive aspect, from an aesthetic point of view, is that the auroras are enhanced.Geomagnetic storms are more disruptive now than in the past because of our greater dependence on technical systems that can be affected by electric currents.The images comes weeks after warnings that Earth could be hit by a series of damaging solar flares after the largest sunspot to be seen on the star for 24 years aligns with our planet.

The sunspot, previously known as Active Region 12192, began facing Earth in October but did not produce any coronal mass ejection (CMEs).CMEs are the most energetic events in our solar system, involving huge bubbles of plasma and magnetic fields being spewed from the sun's surface into space. The region, renamed Active Region 12192, has now rotated around to face Earth again, and is likely to create CMEs, Nasa scientist Holly Gilbert told Space.com during a video interview.'This time around, it's more likely to have some coronal mass ejections associated with it, even though the solar flares might be smaller,' she said.'We have a good idea, based on the structure of that magnetic field and the sunspot, that it's very possible that it will create some mid-level flares.'Magnetic fields in sunspots can store vast amounts of energy, but looping magnetic field lines can get tangled up and snap, releasing their energy as explosions called flares. According to Dr Gilbert, the sunspot is still large enough for 10 Earths to fit inside it, and is believed to be the 33rd largest of 32,908 active regions recorded since 1874.The Jupiter-sized sunspot produced six eruptions in October and early November, before disappearing for two weeks.Earlier this year, Ashley Dale, who is a member of an international task force, dubbed Solarmax, warned that solar 'super-storms' pose a 'catastrophic' and 'long-lasting' threat to life on Earth.A solar superstorm occurs when a CME of sufficient magnitude tears into the Earth's surrounding magnetic field and rips it apart.

Earth could be about to be hit by a series of damaging solar flares as a huge sunspots aligns with the planet Such an event could induce huge surges of electrical currents in the ground and in overhead transmission lines, causing widespread power outages and severely damaging critical electrical components.Mr Dale, carrying out doctoral research in aerospace engineering at Bristol University, said it is only a 'matter of time' before an exceptionally violent solar storm is propelled towards Earth.He says such a storm would wreak havoc with communication systems and power supplies, crippling vital services such as transport, sanitation and medicine.Without power, people would struggle to fuel their cars at petrol stations, get money from cash dispensers or pay online,' he said.'Water and sewage systems would be affected too, meaning that health epidemics in urbanised areas would quickly take a grip, with diseases we thought we had left behind centuries ago soon returning.'

The largest ever solar super-storm on record occurred in 1859 and is known as the Carrington Event, named after the English astronomer Richard Carrington who spotted the preceding solar flare.This massive CME released about 1022 kJ of energy - the equivalent to 10 billion Hiroshima bombs exploding at the same time - and hurled around a trillion kilos of charged particles towards the Earth at speeds of up to 3000 km/s.However, its impact on the human population was relatively benign as our electronic infrastructure at the time amounted to no more than about 124,000 miles (200,000 km) of telegraph lines.Mr Dale says these types of events are not just a threat, but inevitable.Nasa scientists have predicted that the Earth is in the path of a Carrington-level event every 150 years on average.This means that we are currently five years overdue - and that the likelihood of one occurring in the next decade is as high as 12 per cent.

The Inner Earth According to USGS

Scientists are mapping Earth's mantle between crust and outer coreTeam hope to create a 3D map of the entire mantle by end of the yearThe resulting map could reveal the precise locations of tectonic plates Speed of tremors reveals what type of material is beneath the surface. Slower waves are red and orange, while faster ones are green and blue

Scientists are listening in on earthquakes to create stunning marble-like simulations of Earth's interior.By recording seismic tremors, researchers are able to build a 3D picture of Earth's mantle - the layer between the crust and outer core.They do this by analysing the speed of the tremors, which travel rapidly through solid rock and slowly through molten magma.

In these images, slower waves are in red and orange, while faster vibrations are in green and blue.The 3D models were created by Princeton University's Professor Jeroen Tromp who is aiming to create a map of the entire mantle - down to a depth of 1,865 miles (3,000km) - by the end of the year.His team have been using the number-crunching capabilities of the Titan computer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which can handle 20 quadrillion calculations per second.Professor Tromp has so far looked at seismic waves from 3,000 quakes of magnitude 5.5 and greater, which were recorded at thousands of seismographic stations worldwide.These stations make recordings, or seismograms, that detail the movement produced by seismic waves, which typically travel at speeds of several miles per second and last several minutes.

The Princeton team fed data from seismograms into a computer model, which then simulated each wave as it moves out from the epicenter. The resulting "synthetic seismograms" were compared to real seismograms, and the differences fed back into the model to improve it. The researchers do this repeatedly, comparing data with simulations and extracting differences. With each pass, they improve their model.

'We are specifically interested in the structure of mantle upwellings and plumes,' said Professor Tromp, 'but much of it will be investigating the images for unusual features.'The resulting map could reveal the precise locations of tectonic plates, which can cause earthquakes when they move against each other.

The maps could also reveal the locations of magma that, if it comes to the surface, causes volcanic activity, the researchers said.Previous research on this has only used three types of seismic waves: primary or compressional waves, secondary or shear waves, and surface waves.Professor Tromp technique uses both waves that travel from the quake epicentre to the detector as well as those that travel from the detector to the quake – described as adjoint waves.The Titan computer simulates each wave as it propagates from the epicenter, and the resulting data is compared to real seismograms.The differences are then used by Titan to improve its model.Professor Tromp said: 'You don't know what it is you are looking for…that is the wonderful part of this project - waiting to see what we will discover.'