Re: Planet X: Magnitude (Revisited)

In Article <3B8D1E1D.91CF44A@company.com> The Small Kahuna wrote:
> There is an enormous amount of denial and avoidance of the issue.
> This means that nobody is planning on the inevitable, so what is
> going to happen is that failure will hit western countries SUDDENLY
> and seemingly "out of nowhere".  Well, it is not out of nowhere, it is
> just that the elastic will suddenly snap.

A couple months after those crop shortage reports started piling up in
mid-2000, the ZetaTalk site got banned in Saudi Arabia.  This posting is
at http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tworx240.htm

    Subject: [tt-gossip] Access to Zeta-Talk site blocked in the Middle East
    Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 08:59:26 +0300

    Nancy,
    I was stunned to see today that for the first time I could not access to
    the Zeta-Talk site (I am in Saudi). The message is : Blocked site -
    Emirates Internet denies access to this site.....

I'd been getting e-mail from that part of the world for years, since
1995, so it wasn't the site ITSELF, I presumed, but something else.
Then a month later another news article dropped in my queue.  Not 5 days
before the ban, the Saudis had to start subsidizing their farmers, big
time.  Oops!  If ZetaTalk is that accurate, then the common folks can't
READ it, else (take your pick) panic might ensue, our line won't be
believed, we might get questioned about matters we have no answer for,
whatever. From the page at http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tworx187.htm

    Saudi Orders Subsidies to Curb High Barley Prices
    Reuters, June 25, 2000

        Saudi Arabia's King Fahd has ordered "billions of riyals" in state
        subsidies to help livestock owners cope with high barley prices, a
        Saudi official said on Sunday. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest
        importer of feed barley. According to the International Grains
        Council, Saudi Arabia is expected to import 4.5 million tonnes of
        barley during the current crop year. But traders see the desert
        kingdom importing between five and six million tonnes because
        of the impact of drought.