Welcome to “Freely Speaking”, it is my hope you will speak your mind, as free speech is perhaps one our most treasured virtues as US American citizens.

- Ginna Lewis

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdbqjiIiQLQ

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael C. Ruppert is the founder and former editor of From The Wilderness, a newsletter and website dedicated to investigating political cover-ups. He is now CEO and President of Collapse Network, Inc.

On August 16, 2006 Ruppert announced that he was leaving the United States, citing years of harassment for his ongoing dissident activities.

After returning to Los Angeles, Ruppert started writing again. Jenna Orkin continued running the blog, with occasional commentary from Ruppert, until the launch of his Collapse Network in June 2010.

Ruppert was the subject of the 2009 documentary film Collapse, in which he was interviewed about his theories, writings and life story. He is now dedicated to his weekly show on Progressive Radio Network, and his music, writing and playing songs with the band “New White Trash.”

From The Wilderness

From The Wilderness was a newsletter published from 1998-2006 by the media company From The Wilderness Publications, which claimed to be ahead of the mainstream media by as much as one year. The newsletter covered a range of political and governmental issues. It was published eleven times per year but featured weekly updates online. It was started by Michael Ruppert in 1998. Critics such as David Corn[4] and Norman Solomon argued that Ruppert on occasion veered off into making unsubstantiated conspiracy theory claims. Ruppert has claimed that his sources are documented, even going so far as stating it as “conspiracy fact”.

Their website says that the newsletter was about “the publication of documented truth and the letting go of fear through education” and claimed to distribute to “16,000 subscribers in 40 countries including 35 members of the United States Congress and professors at 30 universities around the world” before being shut down.

History

Michael Craig Ruppert was born in Washington, DC. His father was an Air Force officer and later an aerospace executive who worked on projects which included the Titan III. His father’s cousin, Barbara Burges and her husband Sam, are both retired from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Mr. Ruppert’s mother was a cryptographer for Army Intelligence at Fort Meade, MD, during the Second World War.

Ruppert was raised a Republican. He has jokingly said that from 1969 to 1973, he was one of two “living” Republicans on the UCLA campus. During that time, Ruppert was chosen, as an honors student in political science, to intern for Chief Edward M. Davis of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).

After graduation from UCLA, he was assigned to Wilshire Division patrol, and excelled at patrol work and was subsequently sent on detective assignments, including burglary and homicide. He was later recommended by the narcotics officer-in-charge to attend a two-week DEA training school held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Narcotics was Ruppert’s chosen specialty, and he has given expert court testimony on the subject 27 times.

In 1977, Ruppert discovered an extensive drug trafficking operation run by the CIA and went on record about this ongoing criminal activity. He resigned from the LAPD in 1978 despite earning the highest rating reports possible, over the tolerance of continued CIA drug dealing activities.[5] Ruppert’s personal experience with death threats, 3 shooting attempts on him, aggressive intimidation over his attempted exposure of these illegal drug activities within Los Angeles, and his ethical conflict with tolerance of these activities, was the catalyst for the resignation.

Ruppert filed an official complaint with FBI Special Agent Stan Curry of the LA Field Office on December 4, 1978. This was after Ruppert left the LAPD on November 30, 1978.

In 1996 Ruppert achieved some justice through his comments at a televised visit of then Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch to South Central Los Angeles. Deutch had made the trip to Los Angeles to dispel rumors in the black community that followed the publication of Gary Webb’s series in the San Jose Mercury News which made claims of CIA connections to cocaine dealers in the United States, particularly Los Angeles. Webb was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist, best known for his 1996 Dark Alliance investigative report.[7] In Webb’s three-part series (later published as a book titled Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion), Webb investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had allegedly distributed crack cocaine into Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Contras. Webb alleged that this influx of Nicaraguan supplied cocaine sparked and significantly fueled the widespread crack epidemic that swept through urban areas.

On November 15, 1996, Ruppert stood at the town hall meeting at Locke High School in Los Angeles and said to Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch, “I am a former Los Angeles Police narcotics detective. I worked South Central Los Angeles and I can tell you, Director Deutch, emphatically and without equivocation, that the Agency has dealt drugs in this country for a long time.”  He then referred Deutch to three specific CIA agency operations known as Amadeus, Pegasus and Watchtower. At the meeting, Ruppert publicly confronted Deutch, saying that in his experience as an LAPD narcotics officer he has seen evidence of CIA complicity in drug dealing for a long time.[8]

Michael Ruppert quoted one entry from Oliver North’s diary dated July 5, 1985, which said that $14 million to buy weapons for the Contras, “came from drugs.” and he wouldn’t need to mention the two hundred and fifty other such entries in his diary, which refer to narcotics.

On October 1, 1997, Ruppert submitted documents to the Select Intelligence Committees of both Houses. To date, it remains only a document submitted in advance of testimony and has not been placed in the Congressional Record.

Ruppert went on to become an aggressive investigator and Journalist,[10] as well as establishing the publication From The Wilderness, a watch dog group that exposes governmental corruption, including his experience with CIA drug dealing activities. From The Wilderness, was read, before being shut down, in more than 50 countries around the world. Its subscribers include 60-plus members of the US Congress, professors at more than 40 universities around the world, and major business and economic leaders. Since 9/11 Ruppert has been in demand as a university lecturer and has spoken on Peak Oil and 9/11 in nine countries. Recently, at the request of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, he served as an official questioner during a Congressional briefing looking into unanswered questions and the unaddressed flaws of the Keane 9/11 Commission report.

Crossing The Rubicon

Ruppert is author of Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, published in September 2004. Crossing The Rubicon claims that Vice President Dick Cheney, the US government, and Wall Street had a well-developed awareness of and colluded with the perpetrators of 9/11.

Ruppert appears in the documentary films Peak Oil – Imposed by Nature  and The End of Suburbia.

Controversies and conflicts

In the summer of 2006, Ruppert abruptly left the United States for Venezuela.[15] He flew to Canada on November 18, 2006, for medical treatment in Toronto. Finally these problems became too much to bear and he temporarily threw in the towel giving the following message to his fans:

“Over the past four months many of you have touched me with your generous and loving offers of support and encouragement. You have kept me alive. I have also understood, probably for the first time, how deeply FTW has impacted your lives and the lives of a new and younger generation. As my health and my access to your letters improves I will be writing personally to as many of you as I possibly can.

“I want to repeat something I have been saying in private emails over the last month. Personally, I am through forever with investigative journalism and public lecturing. I am leaving public life. It is my hope that by continuing to repeat this sincere position that many of the inexplicable difficulties which have dominated my life over the past months will ease.

“It is time to move on. I spent twenty-seven years as a dedicated public activist and that is something which I am no longer able or inclined to do. The price was ultimately too great.”

Amongst the reasons given to end From The Wilderness, Ruppert states:

“There were more problems of human origin. Some were definitely malicious … I am the one who left knowing that I couldn’t continue any longer after our offices were burglarized and our computers were smashed this June. There had been one-too-many battles and, looking back, I knew my health was failing then even though I didn’t want to admit it.”

On December 4, 2006, as reported by the Ashland Daily Tidings, Ruppert and From the Wilderness were sued by their landlord, Aro Partners, for back rent owed on the Ashland office space. In the same article it was confirmed that Ruppert was an official suspect in the burglary of said office space.[17] On August 13, 2007 a post was made on the unofficial From The Wilderness blog stating that Ruppert had been cleared of any involvement in the break in by the Ashland Police Department because it would be absolutely moronic for anyone to vandalize their own office. Ruppert has since updated all events that have occurred over the past two years in a new article on FTW. In it he describes and discredits all accusations against him while out of the country fighting for his life.

The subsequent and second chief suspect of the burglary, a former From the Wilderness employee, fled Oregon to California, where troubles with the law followed with a local DUI arrest. The victim of the alleged sexual harassment, who was previously cleared for direct involvement with the burglary of the FTW office itself, has ceased further accusations after a blackmail scheme was exposed. Ruppert suggested these four individuals’ motives may have been connected to his staff’s revelations concerning the Pat Tillman case on their website and also a specific piece From the Wilderness did that was highly critical of the Ashland Daily Tidings reporting accuracy. He has no plans to continue civil cases of his own against them.

Some of his last posting from him on the FTW website said Ruppert was back in New York, receiving treatment from “sympathetic physicians” for a variety of ailments, many at the very least related to extreme stress as a result of death threats, the aforementioned burglary, false allegations, and resulting financial troubles. “It has been learned that his adrenal system is severely damaged and there may be toxicity of the liver. He has lost more than 20 pounds in the last ten weeks. Many of you have written suggesting possible poisoning as cause for his known symptoms. We are not pursuing that at the moment because the treatment for the symptoms would not change in either case.”

As of 2010, Ruppert is now living in Los Angeles, CA and has launched Collapse Network to build sustainable communities across the world.

Ruppert still occasionally contributes to the Collapse Network news desk run by former FTW associate and longtime friend, Jenna Orkin.

Ruppert currently plays and performs music with a Venice, Ca group. New White Trash

Critics

Columnist Norman Solomon has argued that Ruppert has a flawed analytical model. “Some of the problem is in how he characterizes news reports. These citations can be narrowly factual yet presented in a misleading way. Yes, such-and-such newspaper reported that thus-and-so claim was made by so-and-so. The paper reported on the claim, but that doesn’t mean the claim is true.”

Ruppert’s reply to Solomon’s criticism, “Most of our critics, notably David Corn of The Nation and self-anointed media critic Norman Solomon, have gone silent as both our reporting and predictions have been completely validated by events.”

Columnist David Corn has also criticized Ruppert’s methodology, and dismisses the idea that conspiracy theorizing is useful: “In fact, out-there conspiracy theorizing serves the interests of the powers-that-be by making their real transgressions seem tame in comparison.”  Ruppert responded with an open public letter to Corn.

Many supporters of Ruppert take issue with the use of phrases like ‘conspiracy theories,’ as they instigate immediate connotations and denote falsehoods that portray the ‘conspiracy theorist’ as a member of a paranoid fringe-dwelling underclass. As Ruppert points out about several of his major documented sources, academics Dr Alfred W. McCoy and Peter Dale Scott; “why is it that these books have never been sued? There is an old saying amongst legal circles: the truth is the perfect defence against libel.

www.conspiracy-theories-hoax.com investigates identity cards.

In the year 2003 David Blunket proposed a parliamentary bill to introduce ID Cards into Britain. This was pushed aside, until following a poll which said that 80% of people supported ID Cards (more on this later).

When first brought to mind, ID Cards are connected to the Nazi police that Hitler controlled. Without ID papers (as they were called then) and the J-stamp, the Jewish genocide would have been harder to enforce.

And still today the power of ID Cards is abused. ID Cards are used in places like Argentina and Afghanistan (pre-conflict) to bully, help racial abuse and even force people to join the army.

But the chance of this happening in Britain or any European country, is a snow balls chance in hell. We live in a democratic society so it would be nearly impossible for a government to get in power from a general election with these kind of ideas.

But there is another worry. With the advance of technology, soon your life story will be able to be put in a chip the size of a finger nail.

We are assured as it says on the official government website.

“Critics of the national ID Cards scheme who suggest that it would threaten our privacy should be reassured that under the proposed scheme only very basic personal details such as name, address, date and place of birth will be held. Alongside this will be ‘biometric’ information such as the imprint of a finger or scan of an iris, which establish unique personal identity. The extent of the information held will be strictly limited and subject to tight controls. Only Parliament will be able to extend or change what information is held by the scheme”

Which sounds great saying that things stay this way. But will this personal information be available to everyone?

Again we are reassured, the governments main website says.

“The National Identity Register will hold only the information that is needed to demonstrate identity and it certainly will not hold information such as medical or tax records. Accredited organizations such as banks will be able to check identity against the database, but will not be able to access the information held there.”

There is trouble brewing in paradise as the ID card bill as a little future catch. The amount of information stored on a card can be enlarged, saying that this is necessary for the ID Cards to do there job, which, if the reasons that the government give for introducing ID Cards is correct, then a increase in information is needed.

And it is impossible for the holder of the card too know if their information has been changed. Something which is at the moment illegal.

Even though the government says they will not use the ID Cards for racial abuse, individuals will, especially individuals within government controlled agencies like the police (we are all human after all!!). (This has been proven in the past). Although the police and other official people will not be allowed to ask for your ID Card or even look at your details, the government says that…

“there is a strong argument to help the police force”

So in the future police may use ID Cards to abuse our freedoms, like many people will abuse any power they have, will this drive us to buying Fake ID Cards?

If things stay generally as promised by the government today, ID Cards will be like a hi-tech driving license. Unfortunately there is a record with government abusing ID Cards, mostly in asian and caribbean countries.

BUT all of these country have almost no common law, and any European country that have introduced ID Cards have not abused the power (not including before 1950s).

However none of these countries have proposed identity cards as extensive as we have.

So the ground of the future is a bit iffy, but if it protects us then giving up a small bit of privacy isn’t that bad, right? If it stops Britain being attacked by terrorists then its fine, but it does no such thing.

The government reason for ID Cards are:

A: Prevent illegal immigration: Lack of a card allows illegal immigrants to arrive and disappear.

B: Prevent illegal working: They give employers a secure way of knowing if people are actually allowed to work. It’ll be easier to prosecute employers who break the law.

C: Aid anti-terrorism measures: It’ll be harder for terrorists and organized crime rings to use false and multiple identities.

D: Tackle identity theft: They’ll help protect against identity theft.

E: Reduce benefit fraud and abuse of public services: They will ensure that public services are only used by those entitled.

F: Enhance sense of community: ID Cards will create a sense of shared citizenship and belonging.

However all of these reasons are false and/or do not warrant a reason to spend several billion on ID Cards.

A: Preventing illegal immigration: Any immigrants already in the country will not have an ID Card so will not be counted and not able to be caught using ID Cards. Also it estimated that 80% of the population will sign up to ID Cards, even if this high number is true, with a population of 6,000,000, 120,000, people will not have an id card and sifting through all of those people would be impossible.

B: prevent illegal working: With just the name and address on the card why would this help the problem. Also even if it did, many employees know quiet well that there workers are not trained for the job and keep quiet.

C: Anti-terrorism: This is the governments main argument and is one of the most pathetic. All a terrorist as to say when entering the country is that he’s a tourist staying for less then three months and there’s no way that they can stop him/her using ID Cards, due to he won’t have one. Also in Russia you can buy an id card for $5, about £2.80 – £3.00. Now even though the fake ID Cards in Britain will cost a lot more, terrorists have million of pounds to spend towards this kind of law breaking.

D: Tackle identity theft: Possible, this is the only reason that might work. But with the billions of pounds that going to be spent on this project, this reason is not enough alone. Also this problem could be solved at a much lower cost by just tightening the security around vital details such as birth certificates.

E: Reduce benefit fraud and abuse of public services: About 100 million a year is spent on these problems. Compared to the several billion that is going to be used for the ID Cards. And most benefits fraud is caused by people saying that there disabled or single not identity fraud.

F: Enhance sense of community: OH COME ON!!!

So if there is no real reason for ID Cards to be introduced given by the government, why bother with ID Cards at all!

Also the government seem pretty keen to enforce ID Cards, even though there is no reason that they give us that works.

THE POLL

The government has been using a poll carried out not long before the government got keen on ID Cards to justify ID Cards at every corner. This poll showed that 80% of us supported ID Cards. But sadly this poll is flawed. At first this poll seemed like a good thing, it was carried out by an individual company, there was no insensitive and these people had not been talked to before. But then i saw the amount of pollers, only 1000 people were questioned. Does this mean that because around 800 people said yes to ID Cards, the other 60 million will agree.

Also out of this 1000 80% barely knew anything.

Also if you look at the representative numbers on the poll.

People who know about ID Cards 27%
People who disagree 20%
People who have got very little knowledge 73%
People who favour ID Cards 80%

This suggests that people who are oblivious to the facts (73%) agree with ID Cards (80%). Which also suggests, that the government is working on people not knowing the facts.

CONCLUSION In my view it all depends on the future. If ID Cards are used as advertised then we have nothing to worry about, as ID Cards will be like an advanced driving license. But there is room for change, and we may soon be living in a world dominated by ID Cards. Even though no common law country has ever abused its power, no common law country have previously suggested an identity card system as wide spread as the proposed British system.

Conspiracy status: Possible government conspiracy to gain greater control over the information it holds about us in the long term future.

Foot note: This article is just the tip of the iceberg, much more information is out there. Please don’t just believe my word, check this issue yourself. Also anybody wanting to use my website to weight there argument please don’t represent me as a conspiracy believer or debunker. Also nobody may copy this article and put it online.

Pastor McMinn has been a respected Preacher and worship leader in many church revivals in the Tulsa, OK area. In addition, John is a successful entrepreneur in the computer industry.

For a fascinating discussion between Ginna Lewis and Pastor McMinn in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 10, 2010, please click below.

John’s Objective:

To be obedient and faithful to the calling God has put on my life. To preach, teach, worship, and lead in such a manner that the lost will come to salvation, and the believers are encouraged, challenged, and enriched.

A Special New Friend

Tenor Mathew Edwardsen (click here)

American tenor Mathew Edwardsen’s voice has been described as both lithe and sturdy.

Listen to Ginna Lewis interview Mathew, an accomplished opera tenor, in March 2010 when he performed as the lead in the Tulsa Opera, in Tulsa Oklahoma.

“ONE of the worst days of my professional life” was Lloyd Blankfein’s characterisation of April 16th, when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs.

The bank and an employee were accused of failing to disclose that a hedge fund that had influenced the composition of a complex mortgage-debt transaction was also shorting it.

April 27th was surely not much better, either for the Wall Street firm’s boss or any of the six other current and former Goldman investment bankers who testified before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The roasting, which lasted more than ten hours, was as dramatic as any hearing focused largely on synthetic collateralised-debt obligations (CDOs) could be.

Goldman’s persecutor-in-chief was the panel’s chairman, Carl Levin. The gruff Democrat went beyond the SEC’s complaint, accusing the firm of having concocted several deals, not just one, to profit from the collapse of the housing market, and also of being riddled with “inherent conflicts of interest.” Not content merely to skewer America’s pre-eminent investment house, the senator harrumphed that its conduct “calls into question the whole function of Wall Street”—a market that, while supposedly free, “isn’t free of self-dealing.” His attack rested, in part, on internal Goldman e-mails. In one, a senior executive described a Goldman-underwritten CDO as “one shitty deal”. In another, a colleague applauded the structured-products team for making “lemonade from some big old lemons.”

The team’s representatives at the hearing squirmed in the spotlight. Fabrice Tourre, the employee charged by the SEC, firmly denied misleading investors. But he and his colleagues, coached by lawyers in light of the SEC case and clearly fearful of committing a legal faux pas, came across as evasive. At times the dialogue resembled a Pinter play: a question, then a long pause, followed by a spare, cryptic response.

The firm’s senior executives put up a stronger, clearer defence. In response to Mr Levin’s assertion that Goldman had profited from others’ misery with a “big short”, David Viniar, the bank’s chief financial officer, pointed out that its net revenues in mortgages were a mere $500m in 2007, with a loss of $1.2 billion in 2007 and 2008 combined.

Mr Blankfein gurned incredulously at some of the senators’ questions, doubtless baffled that they would characterise as immoral profiteering what he viewed as nothing worse than prudent risk management. (He must have wondered if Goldman would have been better off from a public-relations point of view by incurring giant losses, like Citigroup.) But he also struck a conciliatory tone, expressing gratitude for support from taxpayers, who were “understandably angry” towards Wall Street, and declaring that everyone in the industry has to “ratchet up their standards”.

Nevertheless, he argued that criticism of Goldman’s motives rested on a misunderstanding of the market-making business. Unlike money managers, market-makers owe no fiduciary duty to clients, and offer no warranties; their only responsibility is to make sure those they serve are getting the risk exposures they seek. Ironically, Mr Blankfein was at his most uncomfortable when tackling questions about a disclosure the firm had made, rather than one it had not: its decision to release e-mails that happened to reveal details of Mr Tourre’s personal life, a move leading to speculation that the Frenchman was being, as one senator put it, “hung out to dry”.

The hearing produced no smoking gun, but there was much that looked bad for Goldman. The reputational damage is hard to gauge, but it was not a good sign that Goldman was the butt of jokes this week at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference, an annual gathering of businesspeople and policymakers in Los Angeles. One panellist even drew a parallel with Drexel Burnham Lambert, an investment bank that went from best to bust in a matter of months 20 years ago. Some of Goldman’s institutional clients, such as CalSTRS, a Californian pension fund, have publicly expressed concern. It won’t help that shareholders have began filing suits this week. (On April 28th, Goldman’s share price was 15% lower than on April 15th, the day before the SEC announced it was launching its case.)

Goldman’s grilling all but ensures the passage of the Volcker rule, clamping down on banks’ proprietary trading and investments in hedge funds and private equity, as part of a broader financial-reform law. It will also add to pressure for broker-dealers to act with the same fiduciary duties towards their clients as investment advisers, a move already being contemplated by lawmakers. No wonder the usually chirpy Mr Blankfein looked so drained by the time he was let go, after almost four hours in the hot seat.

Apr 28th 2010 | NEW YORK | From The Economist online

Uncle Sam points out the problems we have when we buy cheap products from China. “Buy, Buy American Pie” was written and performed by the Capitol Steps. Visit them at www.CapSteps.com This is a parody and involves exageration. Tastykakes are made in the United States and not in China and definitely contain no harmful ingredients. Visit www.Tastykake.Com. Little Debbie is also located in the United States and not in China and their products contain no harmful ingredients. Visit www.LittleDebbie.Com.

Ten REAL reasons to avoid products made in China: 1. Products made with hazardous materials 2. Lack of quality control, monitoring, and safety regulations, plus corruption 3. Tainted food, deadly drugs, adulterated products 4. High levels of antibiotics and toxins in seafood 5. Exploitation of the Chinese workforce and use of child labor 6. Predatory pricing and unethical business practices 7. Massive industrialization at the expense of the environment 8. Deforestation and mining has destroyed the water supply in Asia 9. Chinese military manufactured goods 10. Manufacturing in forced (laogai) labor camps and prisons

NORTHERN Europeans will not forget the name Eyjafjallajokull in a hurry, even if they may have trouble pronouncing it.

Monday April 19th marked a fifth day of jet-free skies over a huge swathe of the continent as a result of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano, which began pumping large quantities of ash into the sky last Wednesday.

That fine volcanic ash could pose a risk to jet engines, which have cut out in the past after exposure to similar volcanic material. Many of Europe’s busiest airports remained out of action.

Demonstrating the unpredictability of volcanic eruptions, Britain’s National Air Traffic Service said on Monday afternoon that airspace in Scotland and parts of northern England would reopen on Tuesday morning, and sounded optimistic that the rest of Britain would be cleared for flying later in the day; but later switched to a more cautious tone as a new ash cloud began spreading. Earlier, Norway, Sweden and Finland had allowed a few mainly domestic flights to operate.

The civil-aviation authorities had come under strong pressure from European airlines, several of whom had conducted successful test flights in the supposed danger zone. However, the engines of a Finnish military jet did suffer considerable damage as a result of breathing in the ash.

By late on Monday night there was still no clear answer as to how long the disruption might last. For one thing, the European Aviation Safety Agency says that there is currently no consensus as to what is an acceptable level of ash in the atmosphere. Furthermore, there is no way of telling what concentration of ash the test aircraft were flying through. The best source of information for the moment is a theoretical model of where the cloud might be, taking into account the prevailing wind and other weather conditions. One interesting wrinkle is that studies of natural disasters tend to be paid for by insurance companies. As volcano eruption is deemed to be an uninsurable risk, there are few studies to turn to.

This uncertainty has led the International Air Transport Association to plead on behalf of its members for Europe’s government to rethink policy on shutting airspace. The industry body reckons that its members have been losing $200m a day as a result of the shut-down. On Monday British Airways said that it and other European airlines had asked for cash from the EU in compensation for the losses suffered because of the closure of airspace, citing the bail-out offered to American airlines in the wake of the September 11th 2001 terror attacks. IATA reckons the situation for Europe’s airlines is even worse than then.

If the eruption were to worsen again, there are several ways that the damage wrought by the volcano might be mitigated. If meteorologists and vulcanologists developed a dynamic model of the ash cloud’s progress, it might be possible to keep more airports open, and to reroute planes to get passengers moving again. Wind patterns could change at any time and some reckon that they might do so by the end of the week. If the ash cloud were to drift in another direction flights could be sent around or above it. But when it sits over Europe’s biggest airports that is all but impossible. And while there remains any uncertainty, passengers may decide not to make trips in case the temporary respite reverses along with the wind, stranding them far from home.

If a renewed eruption threatened to continue for days or even weeks, the ad hoc efforts to get people home could develop into more permanent solutions for those making essential trips. Madrid’s large airport, so far unaffected by the ash cloud, could handle extra flights with passengers then continuing their journey north by land. Cross-channel ferries and the Eurostar trains that connect London with Brussels, Paris and points beyond are currently full to bursting with short-haul flyers returning home and businessmen who have no alternative but to travel. But these services and Europe’s rail and road networks could provide some with alternative means of getting to their destinations.

Some air freight might take to the road or water—98% of the world’s trade is already carried by ship. And plenty of the world’s container vessels are sitting idly waiting for the world economy to pick up after the recent recession in the rich world. But for some freight, from Formula One racing cars stuck in China after Sunday’s Grand Prix there to flowers farmed in Kenya and destined for restaurant tables in London, there is no alternative route.

Even if the volcano stopped emitting ash immediately, it might take two or more weeks before airlines could restore their schedules, with planes and crew stuck around the globe along with their passengers. Some fear that they could be in for a long wait. Icelandic volcanic activity has been low for some time. Eyjafjallajokull is particularly prone to producing the fine ash that has caused the current mayhem.

The last big eruption from Eyjafjallajokull, in 1821, belched ash into the atmosphere for over a year. Perhaps even more worrying than that is the risk that the neighbouring Katla volcano might erupt too. Archaeological evidence suggests that when roused it is even more destructive.

So far, aside from airlines and air travellers, the impact has been limited. But as the shutdown continues Europe’s fragile economies will suffer as tourists fail to arrive, meetings are cancelled and businesses with supply chains that rely on air freight nervously watch stocks running down.

Apr 19th 2010 | From The Economist online

Raised in Vancouver and Toronto, Severn Cullis-Suzuki has been camping and hiking all her life. When she was 9 she started the Environmental Children’s Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. They were successful in many projects before 1992, when they raised enough money to go to the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Their aim was to remind the decision-makers of who their actions or inactions would ultimately affect. The goal was reached when 12 yr old Severn closed a Plenary Session with a powerful speech that received a standing ovation.   more information on http://www.davidsuzuki.org