Tag: finance

Airbnb has canceled one-night rentals over Halloween weekend as part of an ongoing effort to crack down on party houses.

The San Francisco-based company is now blocking new one-night reservations, and are offering refunds to any previously booked nights over the holiday weekend, according to ABC News.

In addition, the company will ‘look more closely’ at two and three-night reservations during Halloween – with some guests facing rejection if they try to book an entire house close to their own residence during that period, and have no history of positive reviews on the service.

Airbnb has taken a series of steps to crack down on parties since last year’s shooting. Last November, it started manually reviewing U.S. and Canadian reservations to weed out suspicious rentals.

The company’s efforts have intensified as it prepares for an initial public stock offering, which could come later this year.

In July, the company banned U.S. and Canadian guests under age 25 with fewer than three positive reviews from booking entire homes close to where they live. That policy was later expanded to the United Kingdom, Spain and France. And in August, Airbnb banned parties worldwide and limited occupancy at its rentals to 16 people. –ABC News

The company’s efforts come nearly a year after five people were killed in a shooting at an Airbnb Halloween party in Orinda, California.

According to the report, guests and hosts who violate the new rules may face legal action – noting that in August the company launched legal proceedings against a guest who held an unauthorized house party in Sacramento, California.

Authored by Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com,

This blogger sees Netflix in the same way “Godfather”, Vito Corleone, viewed his enemies.  In other words, I keep my books and blogs close, but television and movies closer.  This is because social narratives are the new religion.  As I’ve stated before in previous articles, I have a love-hate relationship with Netflix.  It offers a convenient and affordable access to an impressive library of film and documentaries – but not without its cultural bias.  It’s like anything else, buyer beware; or, rather, I simply slice off the meat and leave the bones when it comes to infotainment.

Sure, Netflix is the home of the Obamas and the Obama Administration’s former National Security Advisor, Susan Rice; so it’s no surprise why the company’s subscriber base is being programmed into Cultural Marxism, totalitarian Agenda 21 mandated Gaia worship and global taxation schemes. Netflix, by and large, programs people with Progressivism in the relative safety and comfort of their own homes. Yet, at the same time, I can cook up some homemade popcorn and conduct my research without spending $60 at the movie theater; back when there were movie theaters, of course.

In any event, I received a hat-tip from one of my progeny regarding a Netflix documentary entitled “The Social Dilemma”.   The company’s website identifies the production as a “documentary-drama hybrid” that “explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations”.

The hybrid presentation included interviews of, mostly, techno whiz kids who designed software purposed to addict the masses to apps such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, et al, and paired to a background narrative of a young Caucasian boy being unintentionally politically radicalized by algorithms designed to increase the profits of technology corporations.

In the documentary segments, the experts and former tech firm employees discussed the negative societal impacts of their creations while acknowledging their good intentions.  For example, the co-inventor of the Facebook “Like” Button said he initially believed the widget would deliver more positivity into the universe; as opposed to increasing middle-school children’s social anxiety and despair.

In the film, the continuing fragmentation of America was attributed to separate groups of online users seeing different news feeds on their chosen online platforms.  The reasons for the diverse digital presentations were attributed to algorithms and, even, artificial intelligence, interpreting the data sets of online users and then prompting new clickbait meant to engage them for longer intervals –and all solely in the pursuit of profits.

In fact, when one tech expert-turned-whistleblower was asked to state his greatest fear regarding the ultimate outcome of the aberrant algorithms and errant A.I., he said:  “Civil war.” And, that is, fundamentally, the gist of “The Social Dilemma” (TSD):  The natural pursuit of profits by tech companies sowing a technological wind of which western societies are now reaping the whirlwind.

Or, stated another way, TSD is a whitewash for the surveillance state.

In truth, the globalist elite have long planned the demise of the northern hemisphere’s (formerly) capitalist/industrial societies so a cashless (Marxist) system can rise from the ashes.

And if 2020 vision has made anything clear it is this:  Free markets and the U.S. Constitution are gone baby gone.  They have, instead, been replaced by economic and social tyranny.   Yet, Netflix’s TSD would have us believe the fracturing of American society evolved as a result of Facebook’s news feeds and fake news.

Ironically, I received the following this week from someone who actually saw it on Facebook:

If you go to the southwest desert and catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen

However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other

The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar

This is exactly what’s happening in society today:

Liberal vs Conservative

Black vs White

Pro Mask vs Anti Mask

The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who is shaking the jar and why??

Will ants behave as described in such circumstances?  Obviously, that’s not the point.  The point is who is actually fracturing the western societies today and why this is happening.   According to Netflix’s TSD, our current societal shaking is merely an inadvertent byproduct of deviant software tweaked to maximize the profits of tech companies.  Furthermore, according to the TSD tech “experts”, any other view of the societal “shaking” is the result of misguided faith in fake news and internet conspiracy theories.

Well, here’s a newsflash for the hi-tech whiz-kid whistleblowers:  If the plans were published by the globalists decades ago… and they’ve since come to pass, then the conspiracies were more than just theories.  And, certainly, fake news is defined by those promoting diverse media feeds on popular online platforms.  Except those fooled still don’t understand the deception – or that the manipulation was not naturally occurring in the pursuit of profit; it was always part of the plan.

Here are some other “issues” with the Netflix “docudrama”:

• Most internet users are far more active, and less passively manipulated, than the TSD “experts” presume.

• Those interviewed in the film claimed algorithms direct content as a means to reinforce existing worldviews when, in fact, the content and algorithms are designed to shape specific ideas and, even, entire belief systems.

• TSD, via Netflix programming, seemingly, promotes leftist agendas and dog whistles like climate change and fake news. At the same time, the documentary delegitimized Pizzagate and skepticism of COVID-19 propaganda.  It is a fact that Pizzagate derived from actual e-mails released by Wikileaks and it’s true that widely disseminated COVID-19 agitprop has been debunked by respected medical professionals.

• TSD identified Facebook as a primary facilitator of “fake news” and “conspiracies” like Pizzagate, Russian Facebook ads in the 2016 election, flat-earth theory, and COVID skepticism. Yet TSD completely ignored social media’s shameless propagation of the now-discredited Russian Collusion Hoax and the U.S. Democratic Party’s Ukrainian Impeachment gaslighting.

So why the blatant bias?  Because Netflix is programming, pure and simple.

NASA has designed a $23 million titanium toilet that will better accommodate female astronauts is headed to the International Space Station (ISS), reported AP News. 

NASA and Northrop Grumman are targeting Friday night (Oct. 2) to launch the Cygnus NG-14 mission atop its Antares rocket. The rocket, carrying ISS-bound cargo, will deliver nearly 8,000 pounds of supplies and equipment, including the “space toilet.” The original launch was expected on Thursday from Wallops Island, Virginia. But a delay was seen in the final countdown. 

The $23 million toilet weighs 100 pounds, measures 28 inches tall, and is half the size of the Russian-built toilets in use on the ISS.

Here’s a closer look at the world’s, and now undoubtedly outer space’s most expensive toilet:

Since the new toilet is about 65% smaller than Russian-built ones, it will be the premier toilet for astronauts to take number 1,2,3 while on future missions to the moon. 

At the moment, here’s the Russian-toilet currently in use on the ISS. 

Melissa McKinley, the project manager at Johnson Space Center, who was quoted by The Guardian, said the older toilets cater more to men. The new ones will better accommodate women – as we recently mentioned, NASA is preparing to send the first woman to the moon in 2024. 

“Cleaning up a mess is a big deal. We don’t want any misses or escapes,” McKinley said, adding that, let’s just say everything floats in weightlessness.

Tonight’s launch is set for 9:16 p.m. EDT (0116 GMT). Readers from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore to Philadelphia to even New York City might be able to see NASA’s launch of the world’s most expensive toilet. 

Here’s a live feed for tonight’s launch:

Readers may recall astronauts aboard the ISS are still hunting for a small air leak. They believe the leak could be coming from a Russian ISS module called Zvezda.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine has called for mandating a coronavirus vaccine, and outlined strategies for how Americans could be FORCED to take it.

The paper warns that an immediate mandate for the vaccine would spark too much resistance and backlash, so the writers suggest that at first it should be voluntary.

However, it suggests that if not enough people are willing to get the vaccine within the first few weeks of it’s availability, it should be transformed into an obligation, with penalties put into place for refusal.

The paper outlines “six trigger criteria” that need to be met before the vaccine is made mandatory, and that it should be rolled out to specific demographics of the population first.

“Only recommended groups should be considered for a vaccination mandate,” initially, according to the paper, which cites “high risk groups” as the first set of people.

“[T]he elderly, health professionals working in high-risk situations or working with high-risk patients…persons with certain underlying medical conditions,” as well as those in “high-density settings such as prisons and dormitories” should be mandated to get the jab, the paper says.

It also suggests that active-duty military service members should be among the first that are forced into the vaccination.

The paper proclaims that “noncompliance should incur a penalty” and notes that it should be a “relatively substantial” one.

It suggests that “employment suspension or stay-at-home orders,” should be issued, but that fines should be discouraged because they can be legally challenged, and “may stoke distrust without improving uptake.”

The paper also suggests that government health authorities should avoid making public their close relationship with vaccine manufacturers, to quell public mistrust.

Just coincidentally, the authors of the paper reside at Yale and Stanford, institutions that have received substantial funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for vaccine development.

The prospect of denying freedom of movement to those who refuse to vaccinate has been floated recently in the UK, where government health officials have also suggested that the jab should be made mandatory.

In the US, calls have been made to make any vaccination mandatory with the likes of the New York Times expressing concern that half of Americans would refuse to take it.

In Canada, a poll recently revealed that 60 per cent think that when a vaccine for coronavirus becomes available it should be made mandatory.

In addition, Canada’s current Chief Public Health Officer appeared in a recently resurfaced 2010 documentary in which she advocated using mandatory “tracking bracelets” for people who refuse to take a vaccine after a virus outbreak.

During an election year that was marred by an unprecedented global pandemic and some of the worst political violence witnessed in the US since the 1970s, it’s hardly a surprise that the DoJ is planning to station officials at an election night “command center” at FBI headquarters in the J Edgar Hoover building.

With liberals still hysterical over President Trump’s answer to Chris Wallace’s final debate question about pledging to accept the election results, whatever they may be, the DOJ is intensifying its usual routine monitoring of election night activity to also brace for any problems with voting machines that might arise.

The DoJ has started preparing for a wide range of scenarios in recent weeks, though WaPo refused to go into much detail about the various ‘scenarios’ that the DoJ anticipates.

“The Department of Justice takes election security and integrity seriously, and this year is no exception,” said Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman.

The FBI said in a statement that, as in previous years, it is “committed to protecting the American public’s right to a fair and safe election by securing it” and that officials “are working closely with our federal, state, and local partners so everyone involved with safe-guarding the election has the information and resources necessary to respond in a timely manner to any violations that may arise.”

“Of course our preparations for 2020 take into account the current climate of the country,” the statement said. “As always, the FBI has a responsibility to plan for a host of potential scenarios.”

While one DoJ flak insisted that this type of planning happens any year, another assured WaPo that anxieties about widespread political violence on election day are much more intense this year, given the extremely toxic political environment.

“There have been concerns raised about the possibility of civil unrest, and those are concerns raised on both sides, for different reasons, and because of that, we’re paying particularly close attention to that possibility,” the official said. “I think that we would be remiss if we didn’t take the monitoring of election security and integrity particularly seriously.”

Individuals at the command center will include civil rights and national security experts who will monitor accounts of high profile incidents and news accounts for any signs of unrest.

Plans for the ‘command center’ had been in place before Tuesday night’s debate. The president has repeatedly urged his followers to keep their eyes out for misconduct at the polls. And on Tuesday, he cited reports about an incident at a Philly polling station as support for his insinuations about the Dems trying to rig the election.

Trump told Fox News back in August that he would like local law enforcement to patrol the polls. “We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement and we’re going to hopefully have US attorneys…” Trump said, although federal law prohibits the presence of “armed men” at polling places. The DoJ does, however, employ specially trained poll monitors who watch for problems with voting. The FBI also regularly uses its command center for major events, like the State of the Union or a presidential inauguration. 

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.

Beethoven is a symbol of “exclusion and elitism”

The woke mob is attempting to cancel one of the most famous pieces of music in history – Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Their aim? To thwart “wealthy white men who embraced Beethoven and turned his symphony into a symbol of their superiority and importance.”

Come again?

Prior to Beethoven in the mid 1700s, lower class Europeans would regularly attend symphonies. And they were apparently quite a rowdy bunch– hooting and hollering all throughout the performance, like a modern day rock concert.

Around the time that Beethoven rose to prominence in the early 1800s, however, the lower classes were excluded from attending symphonies because they didn’t keep quiet and applaud at the appropriate time.

So today’s woke mob believes that by playing or enjoying Beethoven’s Fifth, you are glorifying the exclusion of poor people, and by extension, women and minorities.

Click here to read the full story.

UK authorizes undercover agents to commit crimes

New legislation in the UK will allow undercover government agents to commit crimes.

The undercover agents from a slew of UK departments– from MI5 to the Environment Agency– will have to ask a judge permission to commit a particular crime while undercover.

But of course those authorizations will be hidden from the public, and even government prosecutors.

Which makes you wonder, where is the limit? The legislation doesn’t even specifically forbid murder.

It’s the ultimate inversion: the government can do literally whatever it wants, even break its own laws.

But you could be thrown in prison for going out in public without covering your face.

Click here to read the full story.

California to ban gasoline-powered vehicles

In a COVID world, Governors rule like kings with executives orders.

Now these legally binding proclamations have moved beyond public safety.

Using an executive order, the Governor of California decided to unilaterally ban the sale of  gasoline-powered vehicles starting in 2035.

Maybe by then Californians will have a reliable electric grid.

As it stands, the state has to ration electricity, and beg people to turn off their appliances to keep the lights on.

Click here to read the full story.

Video shows driver narrowly escape mob, arrested by police

It’s apparently now standard in places like Los Angeles for police to stand down and allow protesters to block traffic and occupy entire streets and intersections.

If you are a driver caught in one of these mobs, that can be pretty scary.

The driver of a white Prius who found himself in this situation handled it pretty well. He looked for the quickest path out of the mob, and slowly and carefully drove through whatever small openings he could find.

And because this driver DARED to drive a car down a street, the mob chased him.

Video shows a pickup truck full of protesters speed after the Prius, cut him off, slam on the brakes, and then try to rip the man out of his vehicle. The protestors on foot catch up, and join the attempted lynching.

The Prius manages to escape again, and still not injure any of the “peaceful protesters” in the process.

But a short time later, police swooped in and arrested the Prius driver, NOT the woke vigilantes!

Apparently it’s now illegal to flee a dangerous mob.

Click here to watch the videos.

School suspends 9 year old for BB gun in his bedroom

Once again a school has punished a child for having a BB gun in his bedroom during remote learning.

The fourth grade boy from Louisiana named Ka Mauri was suspended for six days.

A teacher reported Ka after his brother tripped over a BB on screen during class. Ka picked up the fake gun, and moved it to the other side of his desk, where the barrel was visible on screen.

The school called that a federal weapons law violation, as if he brought the gun to school.

Ka was also subjected to an embarrassing mob attack when the school tasked his classmates to write letters about the incident.

And he will now be evaluated by a social worker.

Imagine the emotional toll this takes on a boy who did absolutely nothing wrong.

Click here to read the full story.

Spotify employees threaten strike if they can’t censor Joe Rogan

Earlier this year, Joe Rogan signed a $100 million deal to host his popular podcast with Spotify, and Spotify’s stock price soared.

Moving to the platform, certain episodes didn’t make the cut.

For example, episodes were removed where Rogan interviews controversial conservative figures, or openly discusses transgender issues.

In one transgender-themed episode, Rogan questions whether or not prepubescent children are capable of making far reaching decisions such as whether or not to take sex hormones. It was intended as an objective intellectual discussion. But the woke mob views this as “transphobic”.

But pulling these episodes wasn’t enough for some Spotify employees.

They want full editorial control to censor and edit Joe Rogan’s podcast episodes, add trigger warnings, and entirely veto particular episodes which they find upsetting.

The employees are threatening to strike if their demands are not met… but so far Spotify hasn’t caved.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

A vibrant economic recovery of America’s largest city that is New York City, depends on the return of office workers; otherwise, the absence of white-collar folks means a painful recovery is ahead. 

As of Sept. 18, about six months after the virus pandemic began, only 10% of Manhattan office workers were back, according to The Wall Street Journal, quoting commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE Group Inc.’s latest report. That represents a slight uptick from the 6% to 8% level seen in July, a month after strict social distancing measures were eased because of the virus pandemic. 

Months and months of empty office buildings across the borough paralyzed the local economy, which resulted in a collapse in consumption as workers stayed home. The spillover effect has since led to a collapse in small businesses across the area. 

CBRE’s report noted on a national level, about a quarter of office workers returned to their desks in September. The figure was higher in certain metropolitan areas such as Dallas at 40% and the Los Angeles metro area at 32%. The reoccupation rate across NYC is 32%. 

The low rate of office workers returning to Manhattan is a significant disappointment for anyone who remotely thought NYC’s economic recovery would resemble a “V” by the fourth quarter of 2020. 

With new clusters of cases emerging in Brooklyn and NYC’s northern suburbs in recent days, new fears of restrictions to businesses and schools could be nearing. 

Already, mobility trends around the city, according to Apple’s Mobility Trends Tracker, shows driving, walking, and transit is slumping as the virus cases are increasing in the city. 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said “significant action” is needed to mitigate the spread of the virus in hot spot areas.  A continued rise in cases could affect the city’s reopening of schools. 

New virus developments come as NYC prepares this week to reopen public schools and permit restaurants to allow some indoor dining. A surge in the virus and the slow return to the workplace suggests a vibrant recovery in the real economy won’t be seen this year. A direct consequence of the virus-induced downturn is the implosion of commercial real estate woes, an exodus of city-dwellers to suburbs, jump in murders and homelessness, and the collapse of small businesses. 

So again, remind us how the real economy is in a “V” recovery? 

By John Hirschauer of RealClearEducation

Those viral moments, however, fail to capture the state of free expression on campus in its full nuance and complexity. To provide a more detailed look at the state of speech at American colleges and universities, RealClearEducation collaborated with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the survey-research group College Pulse on the 2020 College Free Speech Survey.

Nearly 20,000 undergraduates at 55 major American colleges and universities participated in the survey. Students were asked a series of questions, meant to gauge their own commitment to free speech and their perception of their peers’ tolerance for diverse points of view. Institutions were ranked according to student sentiment on free expression. 

The results were dispiriting. As RealClearEducation’s Nathan Harden highlighted on Tuesday, nearly “20% of students say that using violence to stop an unwanted speech or event is in some cases acceptable,” and some 60 percent of the undergraduates surveyed “say they have kept quiet due to fear of how others would respond.”

One university in particular stands out for the discrepancy between its official posture on free speech and the views of its students on the state of speech on campus. Georgetown University, which hosts the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University and is apparently committed to promoting free expression, struggled mightily in the 2020 College Free Speech Rankings, ranking 48th out of the 55 colleges and universities included. 

A granular look at the data from Georgetown is startling. Forty percent of Georgetown undergraduates surveyed were not confident that the administration would support an embattled speaker in a free-speech controversy. Sixty-eight percent of students felt that it might be acceptable to shout down a speaker on campus, while 17% felt it could be acceptable in some cases to use violence to stop a speech on campus. This atmosphere of intolerance extends to the classroom, many students said. When asked to share a moment where the student felt unable to express an opinion on campus, one Georgetown student wrote, “In almost every class, I feel like I [cannot] express my opinions.” 

Georgetown’s code of conduct contains regulations that have the effect of stifling speech and negatively affecting the school’s overall score. For example, “incivility”– defined as any language that “disrespects another individual” – is forbidden at Georgetown, and “uncivil” students could face disciplinary actions for their remarks. This creates a potential chilling effect on speech, and “disrespect” can, of course, have an expansive definition in the hair-trigger world of undergraduate education. 

Dr. Joshua Mitchell, who teaches political theory in Georgetown’s Government department, is not surprised that many students are uncomfortable expressing themselves candidly in class. “I’ll teach something in class that questions a politically correct position on a particular issue, and when I do, I’ll get crickets. No one will speak up and say anything. Then, students will come to office hours and say, ‘I agree with you, but I could never say it publicly.’” 

“It is a complicated picture,” Mitchell said. “It’s not as though faculty and administration at Georgetown are actively suppressing conservative speech – it’s subtler than that, for the most part. When there is an opportunity to replace a conservative faculty member, for example, the faculty will decide that they’re not going to replace him. There is a quiet agreement not to reach out to people on the other side.” When the faculty is almost exclusively comprised of professors with one worldview, Mitchell said, students who disagree with the prevailing views of the faculty are less likely to speak up.

A Georgetown University spokesperson responded to a request for comment by noting that the university “is committed to the free and open exchanges of ideas, even if those ideas may be found difficult or objectionable by some.” The spokesperson said that Georgetown’s “long-standing Speech and Expression policy has guided our approach to speech while maintaining the fundamental right of members of our community to free expression, dialogue and academic inquiry. We respect members of our community’s right to express personal views and are committed to maintaining the values of academic freedom and serving as a forum for the free exchange of ideas, even when those ideas may be controversial and objectionable to some.”

While the university reaffirmed its commitment to free expression, Dr. Mitchell laments that many students “don’t see many alternatives” to the “hegemony of identity politics.” He thinks that the identitarian focus of many administrators is fostering an arid, “choreographed” conversation about difficult political issues on campus. Mitchell is hopeful, however, that things will improve. “There has been a subtle turn in the student body. There is a generational shift,” he said. “Many of the younger students at Georgetown know that the account identity politics gives is not adequate, and that you cannot build a society around it.”

The U.S. wild pig population is rapidly increasing across the country, which has been characterized as a ticking “feral swine bomb,” according to a new report. 

“I’ve heard it referred to as a feral swine bomb,” Dale Nolte, manager of the National Feral Swine Damage Management Program (NFSP) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), told The Atlantic.

Nolte said, “they multiply so rapidly. To go from a thousand to two thousand, it’s not a big deal. But if you’ve got a million, it doesn’t take long to get to 4 [million], then 8 million.”

Feral swine have caused significant damage to property, agriculture (crops and livestock), native species, and ecosystems, with an estimated damage cost of upwards $2.5 billion per annum. The hogs have a reputation for carrying at least 30 viral and bacterial diseases and at least 40 parasites. 

Ryan Brook, a University of Saskatchewan biologist who researches feral pigs, estimates these highly invasive species will occupy 386,000 square miles across the country by the end of 2020. At the moment, the hogs are expanding at about 35,000 square miles per year.

Brook said many of the wild pigs are a crossbreed between domestic ones and European wild boar:

“The problem with the hybrids is you get all of the massive benefits of all of that genetics… It creates what we’d call super-pigs.,” he said. 

According to Nolte, these super pigs are highly intelligent and have a good sense of smell, along with a shield of bone, up to 2 inches thick, around their shoulders, which offers some protection against small-caliber bullets. 

At least 1.5 million of these hogs roam Texas, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife; these pigs have four tusks and are brown and black color once they mature. They can weigh between 75 to 250 pounds on average, and run up to 30 mph. 

“Pig populations are completely out of control,” Brook warned. 

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Over the last few days, a swarm of almost 600 earthquakes has shaken southern California, and a lot of people are becoming extremely concerned about what will happen next.  In fact, if you go on Twitter right now you will find a tremendous amount of speculation that “the Big One” could be coming.  The experts are trying to calm the general public by assuring them that it is probably not likely that “the Big One” is imminent, but they don’t know for sure.  Forecasting earthquakes is not like forecasting the weather, and experts will continue to tell us that a major event is not likely until the day when one finally happens.

But what everyone can agree upon is that earthquake swarms cause the probability of a major event to rise.  Of course that doesn’t mean that there will be a major event associated with this current earthquake swarm, and there may not be a major event if an earthquake swarm occurs next month.  But without a doubt what is going on in southern California right now is worth watching.

According to the Los Angeles Times, this current swarm of quakes has been centered “around the town of Westmoreland in Imperial County”…

A swarm of hundreds of small earthquakes struck in and around the town of Westmoreland in Imperial County over the past couple days

The Southern California Seismic Network recorded nearly 600 earthquakes, the smallest a magnitude 1.1, as of 6 a.m. Thursday, according to a report from the project by Caltech and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Most of the rumbling has been relatively minor, but during a period of less than three hours on Wednesday there were 45 earthquakes of at least magnitude 3.0…

‘In just 2.5hr Westmorland swarm has had 45 quakes of M≥3.0. One of the largest swarms we have had in the Imperial Valley – and it is historically the most active swarms in SoCal,’ seismologist Dr Lucy Jones wrote on Twitter on Wednesday night.

A magnitude 4.9 quake has been the largest event so far, and we shall see what else happens over the next several days.

According to Dr. Lucy Jones, this earthquake swarm has occurred along some small faults “that connect the San Andreas and Imperial faults”…

None of the earthquakes that have been happening in the Imperial Valley are anywhere near the San Andreas fault. They are in the Brawley Seismic Zone – a network of small faults that connect the San Andreas and Imperial faults.

This is an area that has had some pretty serious earthquake swarms in the past.

In fact, the USGS is telling us that there were also large swarms in the area in 1981 and in 2012…

The quake swarms “are located in an area of diffuse seismic activity between the San Andreas fault in the north and the Imperial fault to the south,” the USGS says. Previous swarms in the area happened in 1981 and 2012.

“Past swarms have remained active for 1 to 20 days, with an average duration of about a week,” the USGS reported.

Obviously the swarms of 1981 and 2012 did not produce something much larger, and hopefully this one will not either.

But the USGS is warning that there is a “very small probability” that a quake of magnitude 7.0 or above could potentially happen…

‘The ongoing swarm could trigger an earthquake significantly larger than the M4.9 that occurred on the 30 September (i.e., M7.0 and above),’ they warned.

‘While this is a very small probability, if such an earthquake were to occur, it would have serious impacts on communities nearby and would be followed by aftershocks that would increase the number of smaller earthquakes per day.’

However, as I noted above, the truth is that they don’t really know.

None of the experts has any way to reliably forecast earthquakes in advance, and someday when “the Big One” finally strikes there may not be any sort of advance warning at all.

But the experts do believe that it is inevitable that eventually “the Big One” will arrive, and one particularly alarming study concluded that the full length of the San Andreas fault could potentially “unzip all at once”….

For years, scientists believed the mighty San Andreas—the 800-mile-long fault running the length of California where the Pacific and North American plates meet—could only rupture in isolated sections.

But a recent study by federal, state and academic researchers showed that much of the fault could unzip all at once, unleashing a rare, singular catastrophe. Now, insurers have used that research to come up with a new analysis of the damage that could be caused by statewide break of the San Andreas.

Could you imagine the utter devastation that such an event would cause?

Scientists have discovered that enormous earthquakes in the distant past caused the ground to sink by as much as three feet in some portions of southern California, and some scientists have warned that if such an event happened today that “it could plunge large parts of California into the sea almost instantly”…

The Big One may be overdue to hit California, but scientists near LA have found a new risk for the area during a major earthquake.

They claim that if a major tremor hits the area, it could plunge large parts of California into the sea almost instantly.

If you have read my new book, you already understand why I keep relentlessly warning people about these things.

Unfortunately, one day the time for warning will be over and disaster will strike.  According to Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby, a big enough quake could cause vast stretches of southern California to sink dramatically “relatively instantaneously”…

‘It´s something that would happen relatively instantaneously,’ Kirby said.

‘Probably today if it happened, you would see seawater rushing in.’

Right now, most people living in California are not thinking about earthquakes because they are dealing with the worst wildfire season in the history of the state.

Millions of acres have already burned, and the skies have been filled with smoke for weeks on end.

For many residents, this has been the final straw and they are finally moving out of the state.

But of course most Californians will just continue to stay where they are no matter what happens, and one day “the Big One” will turn all of their lives upside down in a single moment.