Will Open Air Plasma Pave the Way for Practical Fusion Energy?

By WashingtonsBlog: University of Missouri engineer Randy Curry has made a fascinating technology breakthrough: the ability to transmit high-energy plasma through the air.
The University’s website reports: University of Missouri engineer Randy Curry and his team have developed a method of creating and controlling plasma that could revolutionize American energy generation and storage. Besides liquid, gas and solid, matter has a fourth state, known as plasma. Fire and lightning are familiar forms of plasma. Life on Earth depends on the energy emitted by plasma produced during fusion reactions within the sun. However, Curry warns that without federal funding of basic research, America will lose the race to develop new plasma energy technologies. The basic research program was originally funded by the Office of Naval Research, but continued research has been funded by MU.

Curry’s device launches a ring of plasma as far as two feet.

What Do We Want To Grow Into?

Raül Ilargi Meijer: "The world’s leading economies acknowledged on Friday that 'further actions are required' to put the global economy on track for strong, stable and balanced growth.", writes the FT. The torture never stops. Not that we had expected it to just today.
Well, alright then, you can make a point that the biggest news in economics last week was the revelation of the errors in Rogoff and Reinhart's "debt over 90% is deadly" paper. Personally, I think what is still much bigger is the - renewed - revelation that actual policies executed by actual politicians have been based on that paper. Talk about poverty of ideas and imagination. But maybe that shouldn't be surprising. If anything's the core of economics it's such poverty. And that politicians in turn base their policies on that poverty is only fitting. As an old Buddhist adage says: If and when everyone is mindlessly stupid, will anyone notice?

Highlights from the Incredible 2011 Interview of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange by Google’s Eric Schmidt

By Michael Krieger: Ever wonder what would happen if Wikileaks’ Julian Assange sat down for a five hour chat with Google’s Eric Schmidt?  Well, wonder no more!  Yesterday, I decided to read through the entire transcript of their secret meeting and it was worth every minute.  While the interview took place back on June 23, 2011 at the rural house where Assange was staying at the time, it was only released this past Friday.  The topics discussed were incredibly wide ranging including the future of journalism, how Bitcoin is changing the monetary system (kind of interesting how Schmidt had no idea what Bitcoin was, or at least claimed ignorance), teaching nuclear synthesis through interpretive dance, and how humans are tricked into war.  I found his most profound observation expressed in one simple statement: 
I think that the instincts human beings have are actually much better than the societies that we have.

I totally agree with this assessment and I wrote about it last year in my piece Humanity is Rising.
Despite mainstream media demonization, what this transcript proves to me is just what a thoughtful, brilliant and deep individual Julian Assange is.  History will look very kindly upon him and very unkindly upon his oppressors.
*Note:  All of the passages below are Julian Assange’s words.  Where helpful I provide context about the topic is he addressing.  Enjoy!

Gold And Silver Physical Market And Inventory Update From The Source: "In A Word, Ugly"

Submitted by Tyler Durden: By now everyone and their kitchen sink has speculated on what caused the great precious waterfall which started on April 12 and continued for the next four days. The factual reason for the biggest gold down days in history will likely remain unknown. In fact, in a sea of unfounded opinions, the only thing missing so far has been an informed opinion on what is really happening in some market - be it the paper of physical, especially in the aftermath of the unprecedented scramble to buy physical, not paper, gold and silver. So to avoid further speculation, and focusing on fact, here is what the CEO of Texas Precious Metals has to say about the state of the actual physical market, not the one where one can create "gold" and "silver" out of thin air. The bottom line? "The physical silver market is, in a word, ugly" and more importantly, "Last week, we turned away business in excess of 100,000 ozs of silver because of stock depletion." Botton line: please keep selling your paper metals - the demand in the physical space has never been greater, and is absorbing all the available inventory at current prices.

Oklahoma City Multiple Bombs - Neil Sanders

Morris: The anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing was a couple of days ago. And the MSM kept saying the ingredients of the fertiliser plant in Waco that exploded were the same ones that were used in the Oklahoma City bombing. Neil Sanders is a wizard at false flag events (and many other things) and here he gives us many anomalies of these bombings with some background and interpretation. Source

China Hasn't "Seen This Gold Rush In 20 Years"

Submitted by Tyler Durden: As we noted last week, all around the world the demand for physical precious metals has soared in the days following paper gold's price collapse. As the FT reports, from Shanghai and Hong Kong to India, one dealer noted, "Older members who have been in the business for 50 years haven’t seen such a thing." The feverish buying has left many of Hong Kong's banks, jewelers, and even its gold exchange without enough gold to meet demand. Record volumes on Shanghai's exchange, lines outside Beijing jewelry stores, and the proximity of Hindu festivals drove "Indian physical demand and premiums," higher as the worlds two largest gold buying nations prompted one exchange CEO to note that we hadn't, "seen this kind of gold rush in over 20 years." It would seem the concerted effort to collapse paper prices in London and New York has provided the rest of the world a multi-decade buying opportunity.

More gold at dawn than people realise?

The Slog: A reliable source here in Athens states that current polls are understating support for Golden Dawn. “Were we to have elections tomorrow,” he confides via official pollsters, “they [GD] would be in the driving seat.
It’s not uncommon when canvassing for respondents to understate their support for extreme Parties. But this information is supported by broader data showing that faith in the democratic political system is collapsing, with almost a third of respondents expressing nostalgia for the 1967-74 dictatorship on the eve of the coup’s 46th anniversary. This comes from Eleftherotypia’s front page on Sunday, the data suggesting that Anti-austerity parties in parliament would win a majority of votes if an election were to happen tomorrow.
The Slog predicted this in the context of Alexis Tsipras’s loss of support last week. I noted at the time that ‘the decision of Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras to accept the euro as ‘a given’ in Greek mainstream politics is about to backfire badly.’
It’s devaluation Jim, but not as we know it.

Physical Gold Buyers Will Now Crush Central Planners

Sinclair: “Gold is freeing itself as an emancipation process from the gold banks control via paper gold that has no gold whatsoever involved in it.  The thralldom of the gold price ends when the Evil Kings of Gold, the Gold Banks, are clearly proven to have no gold clothes on.

The emancipation of gold from paper is now in progress as physical demand increases unperturbed, and rather pleased by the lower price of the metal of kings.  The central planning fools, in their effort to try and break the mystique of gold via a paper crash, have only ignited what once was sparks into flames for its physical accumulation....

Palestine's first marathon kick off in Bethlehem

UK BANNED Press TV: Palestine's first marathon kicked off in the city of Bethlehem on Sunday with hundreds of runners from 21 countries. The marathon's goal is to promote the right of free movement for Palestinians living under apartheid Israeli occupation. Despite rainy weather, runners gathered at Manger square, the marathon's starting point. This runner came from Denmark to show solidarity with Palestinians. The marathon started after a bit of warming up. From Manger square they raced through the city towards a refugee camp at the Southern edge of Bethlehem. The runners have now reached the separation wall and are on their way to Aida refugee camp. They chose this course in order to highlight the obstacles imposed by the apartheid Israeli occupation on the Palestinian people.

Jim Rogers: On Gold, All Governments Debasing Their Currency at the Same Time and More

Greg Hunter: Forget last week's sell-off in gold. Jim Rogers says it's going higher. How high? "If the U.S. dollar becomes confetti, any number you want to make up. They're printing U.S. dollars fast enough to turn them into confetti. Who knows how high gold will go as long as we have a mad man running the central bank," says Rogers. Source

How US Hospitals Profit from Making Mistakes

“We said, ‘Whoa, we’re working our tails off trying to lower complications, and the prize we’re going to get is a reduction in profits,’

By Michael Krieger: One of the many things holding the nation back at the moment is the complete lack of incentive to be a creative, productive and honest member of society versus the tremendous incentive to be a corrupt, thieving, lackey for the establishment.  In a free market system, with a strict set of rules governing the game that is applied to everyone equally, market signals and incentives exist for companies to create a great product and to meet customer needs with great service.  In contrast, within a crony capitalist system, the primary incentive is to get as close as possible to political and corporate power in order to financially benefit from their oligarchical ownership of the controlled economy.
It is only within a completely disconnected from reality, crony, fraudulent economy where you could have a situation in which hospitals actually earn much larger profit margins from making mistakes and harming their patients, than from providing excellent care.  We learn from the New York Times that:

Hospitals make money from their own mistakes because insurers pay them for the longer stays and extra care that patients need to treat surgical complications that could have been prevented, a new study finds.

Mort Sahl explains politics