James Cameron, the Hollywood producer responsible for blockbuster films like Terminator, Titanic and Avatar, is reportedly preparing to exit stage left. While the move for the Canadian born Cameron may initially be perceived as a rejection or denouncement of American policies and ideals, Cameron, who has made campaign donations to the Democrat Party in the past, most notably during the 2004 Presidential election where he supported democrat John Kerry, may have ulterior motivations, as evidenced by where he’s planning on moving and what he’s planning on doing once he gets there.

From time to time we get a glimpse into the goings on of the well connected. This may be one of those moments:

Cameron has successfully applied to buy 1,067 hectares (2,636 acres) of farmland in New Zealand. In an application filed with the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office, Cameron says he and his family “intend to reside indefinitely in New Zealand and are acquiring the property to reside on and operate as a working farm.”

Source: Associated Press, via Matt Drudge

As we’ve outlined before, farmland is one of the only reasonable physical assets to hold in the event of a major crisis, as you’ll be outside of highly populated metropolitan areas, you’ll have the ability to produce your own food, generate your own energy, and, more so than your urbanite and suburbanite counterparts, stay away from the chaos that will ensue during a major upheaval.

Liberty Media CEO James Malone, like director James Cameron, has also taken refuge outside of major cities at his ranch on the Quebec border, giving him and his family an immediate international bug out plan in the event of an emergency. Another sign from the elite is that large net worth individuals and investment managers are buying up and taking physical delivery of precious metals, which in our humble opinion, is a leading indicator that large in-the-know investors are preparing for a loss of confidence in the stability of the global economic, monetary, financial and/or political systems.

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett recently warned that Those Who Can, Should Move Their Families Out Of the City, and insiders are worried about game changing riots stemming from the Occupy movement.

The theory that elite members of society know something is amiss is further strengthened by comments such as those of financier George Soros who publicly declared in a recent interview with Newsweek that he expects violent riots on the streets of America in coming months and years.

Furthermore, we have federal agencies and local police departments actively training for urban conflict, and the Pentagon has been war gaming scenarios that include large scale economic breakdown and civil unrest.

The stories reported over the last several years point to a growing consensus among elite business leaders, politicians, and military generals that we’re headed into a situation that is wholly unpredictable. They know the system is on the brink, have said so repeatedly, and are actively taking steps to manage a crisis should it ever come to that.

Short of the mainstream media coming out and broadcasting to the American people that the system is about to destabilize and to expect nothing short of total meltdown and pandemonium, reading between the lines and watching the actions of those who are interconnected with the money and power structures on which the system is built will be our only warning signal for the difficult times we face in the near future.

The message is loud and clear. Are you listening?

First released in 2007, the “Earth at Night” layer remains a very unique way to view the earth. Captured on the “dark side” of the planet, depending on the time of day, the images are a striking visual of the more urbanized areas of the planet.

However, the images were not easy to capture. For years, astronauts would try to capture the bright lights and only have blurry photographs to show for it, as the earth travels beneath them at 4.4 miles/second.

In 2003, Don Pettit developed an innovative system for capturing these images and he went on to capture over 2,500 photos, with thousands more captured in subsequent missions. You can read more about Don and his technique in this article at Air & Space Magazine.

To see the lights for yourself, simply click on the [Layers] in Google Earth, open [NASA], then [Earth City Lights] and click the button in there.. For the best results, disable your other layers and places to get a nice clean view of the earth. You should likely disable the atmosphere as well (under [View] –> [Atmosphere]), but I kind of like the glow it gives. It’s a neat effect.

A big thanks to Don for pioneering this amazing technique, and hopefully as time goes on this imagery will become even higher-quality and more striking.

Host Adam Savage of Mythbusters tells how Visa, Mastercard, and Discover had the Discovery Channel put the kibosh on an episode that would have revealed just how “trackable and hackable” the RFID chips found in many credit cards are. It’s a telling example of how corporate advertisers serve as the gatekeepers of mainstream media/entertainment:

From AstroBiology Magazine:

The Earth is alive, asserts a new scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects — for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA — are animate, that is, alive.

Erik Andrulis, PhD, assistant professor of molecular biology and microbiology, advanced his controversial framework in his manuscript “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life,” published in the peer-reviewed journal, Life. His theory explains not only the evolutionary emergence of life on Earth and in the Universe but also the structure and function of existing cells and biospheres.

In addition to resolving long-standing paradoxes and puzzles in chemistry and biology, Andrulis’ theory unifies quantum and celestial mechanics. His unorthodox solution to this quintessential problem in physics differs from mainstream approaches, like string theory, as it is simple, non-mathematical, and experimentally and experientially verifiable.

The basic idea of Andrulis’ framework is that all physical reality can be modeled by a single geometric entity with life-like characteristics: the gyre. The so-called “gyromodel” depicts objects — particles, atoms, chemicals, molecules, and cells — as quantized packets of energy and matter that cycle between excited and ground states around a singularity, the gyromodel’s center. A singularity is itself modeled as a gyre, wholly compatible with the thermodynamic and fractal nature of life. An example of this nested, self-similar organization is the Russian Matryoshka doll.

By fitting the gyromodel to facts accumulated over scientific history, Andrulis confirms the proposed existence of eight laws of nature…

[continues at AstroBiology Magazine]

SumOfUs has launched a petition to get Apple to create the iPhone 5 in a fully ethical manner, and has already garnered over 40,000 signatures. The petition is particularly critical of Apple’s use of n-hexane, a harmful glass cleaner which can cause neurological damage over long-term exposure. Inhumanely-long working hours are also called into question.

Apple CEO Tim Cook remains adamant that the company is doing its best to ensure the well-being of manufacturing employees abroad. Even within the fast-paced technology sector, however, Apple is well-known for cultivating a high-stress culture, and those standards are imposed on just about everybody Apple works with. Under these conditions, it’s no surprise that basic humanitarian standards take a back seat to shipping a product. That said, I might agree with this petition, but I really doubt Apple or Foxconn will make any sweeping changes that hurt their bottom line.

If you’re interested in signing the petition, hit the link below.

[We'll post links to the petitions for HP, Dell, Sony, Nokia, Motorola, HTC, Amazon, Lenovo, Toshiba, Samsung, and every other technology company who operates in similar manners without enjoying the link-bait status that seems to drive online media attention. We want everyone held to the same, high standards. - ED]

Source: SumOfUs via The Register