The Chinese Government Is Buying Up Economic Assets And Huge Tracts Of Land All Over The United States

In 2011, America is for sale and the communist Chinese are eager buyers. The Chinese government is using sovereign wealth funds and Chinese state-owned enterprises to buy up economic assets and huge tracts of land all over the United States. Many of our politicians hail all of this 'foreign investment' as something that is 'good for America', while many others see something much more sinister going on here. In any event, this is a trend that is rapidly accelerating and that is causing great concern among patriotic Americans.

In my recent article entitled 'China Wants To Construct A 50 Square Mile Self-Sustaining City South Of Boise, Idaho', I examined a potential deal that Sinomach (a company controlled by the Chinese government) wants to do with the government of Idaho. There will be more on this deal in a minute.

But first it is important to note that this is a phenomenon that is happening all across the United States.

For example, a Chinese investment group is buying up a very large chunk of real estate in Toledo, Ohio. The following is a brief excerpt from an article in the Toledo Blade on May 26th, 2011....

Dashing Pacific Group Ltd., which has already purchased the nearby Docks restaurant complex for $2.15 million, put its $3.8 million offer to buy the southern 69 acres at the Marina District in East Toledo back on the table for approval by Toledo City Council. Additionally, Dashing Pacific Chairman Yuan Xiaohong, in a letter signed in Hangzhou, said the firm wants a two-year option to buy the decommissioned Toledo Edison power plant property on the site.

Even more disturbing is what has been happening down in Texas recently. The Chinese have been gobbling up our oil and gas fields. The following is a quote from one local Texas news source about one of these deals....

State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves.

With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent.

You can read much more about this particular deal right here.

CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Company) has been buying up oil and gas assets all over the globe. They seem to have an insatiable appetite for them.

There is not much we can do about what is going on in other countries, but when we allow foreigners to buy up our own precious oil and gas assets shouldn't that set off 'national security' red flags?

Not that our politicians are too concerned about real national security issues anyway. They just keep telling us that we will be just fine as long as we allow the TSA to grope our wives, our children and the elderly.

Getting back to the topic, shouldn't we be alarmed that someday soon we may be importing 'foreign oil' that is being pumped out of Texas land?

It is almost as if virtually all of our politicians have lost all common sense.

Of course one of the most insane projects was the one that Sinomach proposed to do in Idaho. The following is a description of that project from an article in the Idaho Statesman....

A Chinese national company is interested in developing a 10,000- to 30,000-acre technology zone for industry, retail centers and homes south of the Boise Airport.

30,000 acres is close to 50 square miles.

That is a huge chunk of territory.

Fortunately, it appears that the deal is stalled at least for the moment.

But that could change at any time, especially considering the fact that the governor of Idaho is pushing hard for Chinese 'investment'....

The following is a quote from Boise lobbyist Pat Sullivan....

“One thing these Chinese see is we have a governor here who has a great big open-door policy'

Doesn't that just sound wonderful?

A 'great big open-door policy'.

That just sounds so warm and fuzzy.

All of this is a part of 'Project 60' - a huge initiative to revitalize the economy of Idaho.

The following is an excerpt from an open letter from Idaho Governor Butch Otter about Project 60....

Project 60 is just a name. But it stands for a goal, and a way of getting there.

It means more than some abstract concept for increasing our gross domestic product. It means jobs and opportunity, hope and independence for the people of Idaho. That’s what I want you to think about when you hear about Project 60. This is an initiative in which we all need to be involved, to build Idaho’s economy together in a way that strengthens our businesses, people and communities.

No state or local agency, no government of any kind can successfully tackle this kind of goal alone. Project 60 belongs to all of us and it needs all of us to be champions of this effort. Today, I invite you to be a Project 60 Partner.

It all sounds so great until you learn that one of the primary pillars of Project 60 is 'Inward Foreign Direct Investment'.

So how do you promote 'Inward Foreign Direct Investment'?

Well, you do things like offer massive tax breaks to Chinese state-owned companies and you actively encourage immigration from China.

The following is a quote from an article on the New American website and it explains how a visa program known as EB-5 would help facilitate Project 60....

Specifically, “The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service administers an immigrant investor visa program called EB-5. The program grants foreigners permanent U.S. residency in exchange for helping create U.S. jobs.” This prong will facilitate the immigration of Chinese nationals into the United States for the purpose of establishing a Chinese industrial beachhead in Idaho, under the guise of creating U.S. jobs.

In fact, the state of Idaho is actually touting the EB-5 program on their website that promotes Project 60.

Yes, Chinese state-owned companies would probably hire a small number of Idaho citizens. But as I have written about previously, the idea would be for 'special economic zones' to be set up inside the United States that would be very similar to the 'special economic zones' inside China.

The following is how Wikipedia defines special economic zones....

A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a geographical region that has economic and other laws that are more free-market-oriented than a country's typical or national laws. 'Nationwide' laws may be suspended inside a special economic zone.

Apparently the government of Idaho believes that allowing the Chinese to set up a 50 square mile 'special economic zone' just south of Boise would be a grand idea.

But others are not so sure. Barbara H. Peterson recently posted the following on Farm Wars....

This is not a boom to Idaho, but a death knell for those who are rapidly losing jobs to overseas outsourcing, only this will be so much more convenient for the mega-corporations.

Today, the cost of transportation is rapidly going up. If state-owned Chinese companies can set up shop inside the United States and get massive tax breaks from state and local governments at the same time why wouldn't they want to do it?

The truth is that the Chinese can't believe how stupid we are.

30 years ago, the Chinese economy was absolutely pathetic compared to the U.S. economy.

But now they have almost surpassed us.

Why?

Well, we shipped them thousands of our factories, millions of our jobs and trillions of our dollars.

For much more on this, read my previous article entitled '40 Signs The Chinese Economy Is Beating The Living Daylights Out Of The U.S. Economy'.

It is insane what we are doing.

Now the Chinese are starting to colonize us.

Would we have ever allowed the Soviets to come in and buy up our companies and buy up huge tracts of land all over the country?

Yet somehow we have become convinced that it is okay for the communist Chinese to do it.

In fact, we even allow the Chinese to make many of the key electronic parts for our most advanced weapons systems.

It even turns out that some 'counterfeit electronics' from suppliers in China have gotten into some of our military hardware.

A recent AFP article noted that 'counterfeit electronics had 'infiltrated' the Pentagon's supply chain, including microprocessors for the F-15 fighter jet and microcircuits for US Missile Defense Agency hardware.'

Now China is even blocking an investigation into these 'counterfeit electronics'.

We have become dangerously dependent on China.

In fact, if our relationship with China went south, there would be a lot of weapons systems that we would suddenly not be able to get parts for.

The people that originally decided that it was a good idea for China to produce electronics for our planes and weapons systems should resign immediately.

We are allowing the Chinese to dominate us in hundreds of different ways.

As China becomes wealthier and as the United States becomes poorer, all of this is only going to accelerate.

China is going to become even more dominant in the years ahead.

Should we all start learning to speak Chinese?

#Radiation in Japan: Nosebleed, Diarrhea, Lack of Energy in Children in Koriyama City, Fukushima

Once a malicious 'baseless rumor' on the net, now it is written up in a regional newspaper with readership in Tokyo and Kanto area.

Tokyo Shinbun (paper edition only, 6/16/2011) reports that many children in Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture, 50 kilometers from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, are suffering inexplicable nosebleed, diarrhea, and lack of energy since the nuke plant accident.

(The photo of the page from this blog site, in Japanese.)

click to view

Quick translation of the article:

What's happening to children in Koriyama City in Fukushima right now? Nosebleed, diarrhea, lack of energy - 'Effect of radiation unknown' says the doctor

Report by Ao Ideta, Tokyo Shinbun, June 16, 2011

On June 12, a non-profit organization called 'The Bridge to Chernobyl' (チェルノブイリへのかけはし) held a free clinic in Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture, 50 kilometers [west] from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

Worried about the effect of radiation exposure, 50 families brought their children to see the doctor.

A 39-year-old mother of two told the doctor that her 6-year-old daughter had nosebleed everyday for 3 weeks in April. For 1 week, the daughter bled copiously from both nostrils. The mother said their doctor told her it was just a seasonal allergy from pollen. Her other child, 2-year-old son, had nosebleed from end of April to May.

The pediatrician from The Bridge to Chernobyl, Yurika Hashimoto, told the mother it was hard to determine whether the nosebleed was the result of radiation exposure, but they should have the blood test done for white blood cells. It was important to keep record, the doctor advised.

The family move out temporarily from Koriyama City to Saitama Prefecture after the March 11 earthquake, but came back to Koriyama at the end of March.

The mother said about 10% of pupils at the elementary school have left Koriyama. Each school in Koriyama decides whether to have the pupils drink local milk that the school provide, which tends to concentrate radioactive materials. In her daughter's school, it is up to the parents to decide. But the mother said she let the daughter drink milk with other children because the daughter didn't want to get excluded by other children for not drinking milk with them.

A 40-year-old father of a 4-month-old baby daughter was so worried that he never let the daughter go outside, even though she didn't exhibit any ill effect of radiation so far. He said, 'I'm so worried. I don't know how to defend ourselves.'

I [the reporter of the story] used the radiation monitoring device over the low bush near the place where this event was being held. It measured 2.33 microsieverts/hour. As I raised the device higher, the radiation level went down to 1 microsievert/hour. The highest air radiation measured in Koriyama City was 8.26 microsieverts/hour on March 15. Since middle of May, it has been about 1.3 microsievert/hour.

If you live one year in a place with 1.3 microsievert/hour radiation, the cumulative radiation will exceed 11 millisieverts. [And that's only the external exposure.]

A 40-year-old mother with a 6-year-old son was angry, and said 'Doctors, researchers, they all say different things. I don't understand how the evacuation areas are determined. Take Iitate-mura, for example. They just let the villagers get exposed to high radiation for a month, and when the air radiation level got lower they told them to move out. We can't trust the national government, we can't trust Fukushima prefectural government.' Her family just built a new house, and she was not sure how they could survive economically if they moved. If they moved, when would they be able to come back? What about cost of moving, or the psychological effect on her child? She just couldn't decide what to do.

Operation Payback - Hacker Group Anonymous Issues A Digital Call To Arms

A Filmmaker Explains Why Copyright Sucks Today: An Excerpt From 'Sell Your Own Damn Movie!

Written by Lloyd Kaufman with Sara Antill. Lloyd Kaufman is founder of Troma Films. His most recent book, “Sell Your Own Damn Movie!” is now available in paperback.This article is cross-posted from IndieWIRE.

I met a Troma fan in Florida a few years ago who told me how he used to get eight Netflix DVDs at a time, keep them for a day or two while he downloaded them to his computer and then return them for eight more. Once he had the digital files, he would make copies for his friends, asking about $2 for the cost of the blank DVD and the effort.

One night, while extremely high, he had figured out that, based on the number of movies he had copied and the penalty for each one, if caught, he would owe the government about $2.5 million in fines and face the rest of his life in prison.

Now, for someone who had already sold himself to the government in the form of federal student loans for film school, the prospect of an extra $2.5 million was pretty frightening. He gave up the pirate DVD business and started selling weed instead, as there were fewer risks involved. That was how we met. Last I heard, he was in jail for selling drugs, but he’ll be out sooner than if he had been caught selling $2 DVDs of “I Know Who Killed Me” to his friends.

Thomas Jefferson would have been appalled at this story. And not just because I think he would have liked trashy Lindsay Lohan movies. But because Thomas Jefferson believed that all art should belong to the public. For him, public domain was a large, thriving democracy, while copyright was a fat king thousands of miles away eating puddings and meat pies.

Unfortunately, we have reversed this with current law. Now copyright is king, while public domain has been relegated to obscurity. Thomas Jefferson, who was against copyright and said himself, “Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property,” finally agreed to compromise and include the issue of patents (and, by interpretation, copyright law) in the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power … To promote the Progress of Science
and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors
the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

First of all, let’s understand that authors meant writers. No heavy metal singer or filmmaker was assumed to be covered under this law. And by “limited times,” Jefferson meant 14 years. That meant that if you invented something or wrote a book, you had 14 years to make back the money that you spent and make a profit. After that, the invention or work would become part of the public domain and other people would be able to improve on it.

That’s exactly what happened when Edison didn’t secure an international patent for his early film projector! Everyone in Europe, including those smarter and more passionate than Edison, had the opportunity to improve on his design and create the film industry that we know and love today!

In fact, while Edison was shooting his films in New Jersey, some bright folks had the idea to get out of New Jersey and New York and head to California to make their movies. It wasn’t because they loved the beach; it was because they wanted to be farther away from Edison so he would have a harder time enforcing his patents.

And there’s the irony—the entire Hollywood studio system was based on evading patent law, yet now they are the strictest enforcers! They are the ones suing sweaty prepubescent fanboys (and their parents) for downloading copies of “The Hurt Locker”!

Once patent and copyright law had been written into the Constitution, it was decided that everything created before the law would be considered public domain. That’s why the writings of Plato and Homer are free for anyone to use.

But considering that the ancient Greeks created democracy and civilization, you would think they would have created copyright law if they had wanted to. The fact that they didn’t makes me think they would have supported truly independent art. In fact, I may start calling myself a modern-day Socrates!* (Like Socrates, I want to drink poison and die. But unlike Socrates, I am a chicken. Or at least a (Night of the) Chicken (Dead). (Shameless plug.)

So with Jefferson’s 14-year copyright, everything seemed fine. But then a man named Walt Disney created a little shit named Mickey Mouse, and everything changed.

HOW MICKEY MOUSE BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THOMAS JEFFERSON

In 1928, Mickey Mouse appeared in the first sound-synchronized cartoon, Steamboat Willie , which was a parody (in Disnenglish, a copyright infringement) of a Buster Keaton film, “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” Mickey Mouse became an instant star and Walt Disney’s meal ticket. By 1956, when “Steamboat Willie” was all set to enter the public domain, Disney had become a powerhouse corporation, and it interceded on little Mickey’s behalf:

Disney Executive: You see, Senator, if “Steamboat Willie” were to belong to the public, they would pretty much own Mickey Mouse, too. And we can’t let that happen.

Senator: No, no. We must protect Mickey.

Disney Executive: What we need, Senator, is an extension of the copyright law. That way, we can keep Mickey safe.

Senator: Yes, yes. We must protect Mickey.

Disney Executive: Yes, Senator, we must protect Mickey.

The Disney executive puts away his hypnotist materials, leaves a pile of cash on the table, and leaves. The hypnotized senator wakes up with the overwhelming urge to protect Mickey Mouse. Days later, copyright law is extended.

Buster Keaton, however, continues to receive food stamps.

This scene is repeated in 1984 and 2003. “Steamboat Willie” will remain the intellectual property of Disney until 2023, almost 100 years after it was created and many, many years after the last person who worked on it became snail food. And at some point before 2023, I’m guessing the copyright laws will be extended once again.

An interesting little twist to this whole story, which was sent to me by steamboat4eva@hotmail.com, is that someone at Disney discovered in the 1990s that “Steamboat Willie” may actually be in the public domain already. This was due to a mistake in the wording of the original copyright. A law student at Arizona State University investigated this claim and agreed. Then another law student at Georgetown wrote another paper confirming the claim. At this point, Disney threatened to sue the student and the claim hasn’t been uttered since.

I’m not advocating breaking the law. I can’t, because then if you do break the law, you can come back and say, “Kaufman told me to,” and that would be a gigantic goiter in the ass for me.

So I’m not telling you to become a pirate and break the law. What I am saying is what we need is to once again make public domain the Earth and demote copyright to a dwarf planet.

Japan: three months after the quake

Vehicles drive through the tsunami-hit area, three months and two days after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on June 13, 2011 in Natori, Miyagi, Japan. Japanese government has been struggling to deal in the aftermath of the disaster and the problems affecting the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Authorities are preparing for an increased risk of viral and infectious disease as delays in the clearing the debris combine with the arrival of Japan's humid, rainy season. (Kiyoshi Ota/Getty Images)

Airbus reveals transparent plane to revolutionize air travel

Revolution in air travel: Airbus reveals the transparent planeRevolution in air travel: Airbus reveals the transparent plane

Airbus has always been the first choice for the luxury flyers. Be it the Airbus A350 that has BMW interior or leisure travelers with facilities as luxurious as mini-hotel suites, the company has never disappointed its flyers. So, to continue with the luxury ritual, Airbus has come up with a futuristic design for 2050 travelers.

Picture Gallery

Transparent Airbus plane of 2050

The futuristic concept for travel in 40 years time has been unveiled in London by planemakers Airbus-it’ll terrify those who already have a fear of flying.Passengers will be able to see everything to the sides and in front of them.

Airbus has unveiled the futuristic design of a transparent plane that will come around 2050 for panoramic views. The plane is designed in such a way that the flyers would be able to see through the cabin and the roof. With this futuristic travel option, the business class and economy class will be replaced with custom-made sectors that offer space for relaxation, interaction and working.

The see-through aircraft cabin will come with various options that will allow the rider enjoy panoramic views outside the aircraft. The comfortable seats could be made to take up any size and shape for each passenger. If we talk about entertainment, the boring small TV screen will be replaced by a larger Interactive zone together with virtual holographic golf courses or virtual clothes shopping.

According to the Airbus engineering executive vice-president Charles Champion say,

Our research shows that passengers of 2050 will expect a seamless travel experience while also caring for the environment. The concept cabin is designed with that in mind, and shows that the journey can be as much a voyage of discovery as the destination.

Via: TheAge/TheAustrian/UberGizmo

Acer responds to market challenges, cutting tablet shipments by 60 percent

After total sales dropped by 29.2 percent last month, Acer has re-evaluated their tablet plans for the year with a 60 percent decrease in proposed shipments. The massive drop-off comes after missing their previous three quarterly forecasts and losing chief executive Gianfranco Lanci earlier this year. While the reduction in numbers seemingly comes as a bad omen, Chairman J.T. Wang expects Acer to rebound beginning in the third quarter.
Acer had already reduced its shipment forecasts for the second quarter, dropping figures by 10 percent. The company now expects second quarter results to come in slightly higher than forecast. The PC manufacturer hopes to sell 800,000 tablets in both the second and third quarters. Total shipments for the year are no pegged at 2.5-3 million units, down from the 5-7 million initially forecast.
[via Reuters]

$6.6 Billion Stolen in Iraq

Remember the billions the Bush administration sent to Iraq just after they started the war there? 12 billion dollars or so was flown into Iraq in cash to facilitate the recovery, or so they said.

Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency—much of it belonging to the Iraqi people—was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. Following a trail that leads from a safe in one of Saddam's palaces to a house near San Diego, to a P.O. box in the Bahamas, the authors discover just how little anyone cared about how the money was handled.

The LA Times has a new report on that cash, and incredibly, it seems that $6.6 billion has just been...stolen.

This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.

For the first time, federal auditors are suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an office created by Congress, said the missing $6.6 billion may be 'the largest theft of funds in national history.'

In yet another example of stunning incompetence on the part of the Bush administration:

The U.S. cash airlift was a desperation measure, organized when the Bush administration was eager to restore government services and a shattered economy to give Iraqis confidence that the new order would be a drastic improvement on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The White House decided to use the money in the so-called Development Fund for Iraq, which was created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to hold money amassed during the years when Hussein's regime was under crippling economic and trade sanctions.

And because it is technically Iraq's money, they are threatening lawsuits to recover it, despite indications that Iraqis probably made off with the bulk of it.

The whole cash drop was just an incredibly stupid idea. What did the Bushies expect? That they could drop $100 bills on Iraq and they'd just stay there in the street until authorized personnel picked them up and used them in altruistic ways?

Or were they actually hoping that money would be stolen and unrecoverable? I'd love to know how much of it went into Dick Cheney's pocket. Or Erik Prince's.

How do you 'lose' nearly $7 billion dollars?

News From The Future: Genetically Altered Cows Produce Human Milk

The scientists have successfully introduced human genes into 300 dairy cows to produce milk with the same properties as human breast milk. Human milk contains high quantities of key nutrients that can help to boost the immune system of babies and reduce the risk of infections. The scientists behind the research believe milk from herds of genetically modified cows could provide an alternative to human breast milk and formula milk for babies, which is often criticised as being an inferior substitute. They hope genetically modified dairy products from herds of similar cows could be sold in supermarkets. The research has the backing of a major biotechnology company.

Hyper Crush iPhone / Android Game

Shouts out to Michael Wagner and Voxel Software for workin on what looks to be an amazing 8-Bit iPhone game for us. Should be done Very soon! If the game does well in the App store we’ll bring it over into the Android Market. We have been big time Android users since day one and would love for it be available to everyone. Baby steps… Oh and heres a newer screen shot!