Portgual Winning War On Drugs

Portgual won the drug war by focusing on prevention and treatment.

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results

... Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week. ...

Red Cross Bans Christmas

From the organization that charged servicemen in WW2 for donated coffee and doughnuts, comes a report that Christmas is banned.

The Red Cross bans Christmas

Christmas has been banned by the Red Cross from its 430 fund-raising shops.

Staff have been ordered to take down decorations and to remove any other signs of the Christian festival because they could offend Moslems.

Kurt Haskell Has Waited A Year

Kurt Haskell, the Michigan attorney who saw a "sharp dressed man" escort the "underwear bomber" around normal security protocols, has waited a year for the government to release the truth that the "underwear bomber" was put on that plane as a violation of security protocols. In an effort to inform the American people of the corrupt and fake air security, Kurt is taking his motivation to the people via a blog and radio show.

CNN interview of the Haskell's:

UK Newspaper Lies About "Terror Strike"

The Sun newspaper has admitted that it lied about a possible Christmas terror strike in the U.K.

"... there was no specific threat from Al-Qaeda as we reported."

GMO Conspiracy

While the USA ambassador to France is creating a retaliatory list to force France to accept genetically modified food, Hershey's is creating non-GMO food for Europe.

The USA and Spain also conspired to artificially drive up food prices to sway public opinion into accepting GMO in Europe.


Wikileaks is exposing the conspiracy to force GMO on the public:
"Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the [European] Commission... Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voice."

"The key ingredients which have been re-formulated from non-GM sources include changing the sugar source from beet to cane sugar and using IP (Identity Preservation) soy lecithin," explained Julian Walker-Palin, Head of Corporate Sustainability at Asda, in an email to Peter Melchett, head of the U.K. Soil Association. "In addition to this the transportation and storage have been confirmed also as GM-free or cleaned before use with these products."

Hike Food Prices To Boost GM Crop Approval In Europe

In a January 2008 meeting, US and Spain trade officials strategized how to increase acceptance of genetically modified foods in Europe, including inflating food prices on the commodities market, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

Pilot Exposes Long-Standing Security Flaws

A pilot exposes long-standing flaws in TSA's security theater and then gets harassed by the TSA. For the TSA, the show must go on even if it is a scam. Anyone who points out the scam will be harassed.

Sacramento-area pilot punished

"And the message was you've angered us by telling the truth and by showing America that there are major security problems despite the fact that we've spent billions of dollars allegedly to improve airline safety," Werno said.

Federal Reserve Hates Christmas

The (private cartel) Federal Reserve told a bank to stop displaying teller's pins of Mary and baby Jesus.
They are taking Christ out of Christmas and life.


Elected officials have taken up the bank's cause against the Federal Reserve:

“This is an all-out assault on the faith, values and rights of the bank, its employees and the people of Perkins they serve,” Inhofe said.

Bank Of America Sucks

Bank of America appears to be following BP's Gulf spill strategy of buying the media.

Bank of America Wants You to Know Its Executives Don’t Suck

As Bank of American awaits a possible release of information from WikiLeaks, it wants to ensure that you don’t think its executives suck. Or blow for that matter.

The company has been aggressively registering domain names including its Board of Directors’ and senior executives’ names followed by “sucks” and “blows”.

Deutsche Bank Admits Criminal Wrong Doing

They pay a fine for an admitted criminal violation, while a hungry American who steals food will go to jail. If the banks can settle their criminal acts through a payoff, what is to make them think twice from future criminal acts?

Deutsche Bank to pay over $550M in fraud probe

Deutsche Bank admitted criminal wrongdoing and agreed to pay more than $550 million in connection with its participation in tax shelters that enabled the rich to temporarily avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. taxes, authorities announced Tuesday.

TSA Xray Risks

Scientists and physicians from University of California San Francisco wrote a letter earlier this year describing their concerns about TSA full body xrays. From the conclusion of the letter:

... there has not been sufficient review of the intermediate and long-term effects of radiation exposure associated with airport scanners. There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations.

Government Sponsored "Terrorism" In Sweden

Surely the government would not allow a bomb to be detonated as that would be state-sponsored terrorism. This wouldn't happen in other countries to scare the populace and pass stricter laws like the USA's "Patriot Act" and "Military Commissions Act".

Military staffer knew about attacks
A Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten) employee warned an acquaintance to stay clear of an area in central Stockholm on Saturday where, several hours later, two explosions went off in what is being called a terrorist attack.

Record Cold in Sweden And Germany

Global warming has missed Europe.

Sweden in 'coldest December in 100 years'

She explained that Sweden has experienced more cold days and more snow than is normal for December.

“There were a number of days in a row with below-freezing temperatures, so called ice days. And that we have that before Lucia (December 13th) hasn’t happened in more than 100 years,” she said.

Swedes take it in stride, and continue with tradition. School children singing Santa Lucia in Gustav Stockholm's Vasa Church.



Blizzard slams Germany

Traffic jams of up to 40 kilometres formed in the state, with rescue workers providing hot drinks and blankets for chilly drivers.

There was so much snow in the state of Hesse that even street cleanup vehicles became stuck, while in Frankfurt so many people slept in their vehicles during traffic jams that police had to wake them once the roads began to clear.

Snow pile for sale on eBay

“We don’t need it any longer because we’ll be getting a new one soon,” the eBay description continues.

Mexicans Bypass TSA Security Theater

Janet Napolitano continues to make a mockery of the rule of law by allowing Mexicans to bypass airport security through the Global Entry Program.

United States has signed a “trusted traveler” agreement that allows pre-screened Mexican airline passengers to bypass lengthy airport security checkpoints.

The Global Entry Program and it's "trusted traveler program" do background checks and require a fingerprint. "All applicants undergo a rigorous background check and interview before enrollment." How does this prove a person will not become a threat in the future? Does this not set up people in the "trusted traveler program" for blackmail or threats of violence against their family so they will be coerced to carry dangerous items around the security screening?

Fingerprints and backgrounds prove nothing about what a person may do in the future. Anyone in the program will unwittingly set themselves up as a target for coercion and blackmail.

Ben Bernanke Is (Or Is Not) Printing Money

Jon Stewart calls out Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve for printing money. Or not printing money. Ben is not sure which it is.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Big Bank Theory
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

Karzai Skips Obama

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, despite being just twenty-five miles from the site of Obama's visit, was unable to visit with Obama in person. Obama's surprise Christmas troop vists are becoming an embarassment.

President Obama made a brief, unannounced visit Friday to Afghanistan. But in a scenario that seemed symbolic of star-crossed U.S. relations with the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the two leaders were unable to meet face to face.

Ireland Rallies Against Banker Bailouts

Like the people in Iceland, the people in Ireland are protesting about bailing out the banks. Will the elected government listen?

Thousands protest against Irish bailout

More than 100,000 Irish citizens took to the streets of Dublin today to protest against the international bailout and four years of austerity.

Crazy Bad Air

The Chinese are killing themselves with pollution

Pollution in Beijing was so bad Friday the U.S. Embassy, which has been independently monitoring air quality, ran out of conventional adjectives to describe it, at one point saying it was "crazy bad."

TSA Dragged Into Reality

Pilots may already carry loaded firearms. Pilots are obviously capable of flying their plane into the ground. Nonetheless, TSA (Thousands Standing Around, Total Sexual Assault), have insisted pilots go through the same screening regime as everyone else.

Finally relenting, the TSA will now allow pilots to only go through the metal detector:

The agency agreed on Friday to let uniformed airline pilots skip the body scans and aggressive pat-downs. Pilots must pass through a metal detector at airport checkpoints and present photo IDs that prove their identity.

The change followed a 2-year lobbying campaign by union leaders, their efforts boosted by hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger, who said pilots should be treated as "trusted partners" in the fight against terrorism.

Complaints from Sullenberger, who landed a passenger jet in the Hudson River in January 2009, and others gave weight to the movement to roll back the new measures.

Lucky Boy

To be lucky!

A three year old found a multi-million dollar treasure

The three-year-old was minutes into his first ever attempt at metal detecting when he found a gold locket potentially worth £2.5million.

Stopping The Looting

While Warren Buffett thanked American taxpayers for the bailouts that made him more wealthy, Henry Blodget gets it right when he says the bailouts destroy free market capitalism:

The only self-regulating measure capitalism has--and it's an effective one--is the punishment of those who make mistakes. In a normal free market, when you sell lousy products or make dumb investments, you lose your money. And the fear of losing money encourages better decisions, which helps all of us.

By bailing out Wall Street--preserving equity value, preserving bonuses, subsidizing massive profits through artificially low interest rates--the government suspended this natural law of capitalism. In so doing, it rewarded the folks who had made the worst products and the dumbest decisions of all. And the country is NOT better for that.

Meanwhile, three years into the housing collapse, the FDIC has started criminal prosecutions:

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) is conducting about 50 criminal investigations at U.S. banks that have failed since the start of the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal said.

Thousands of criminal indictments should be forth-coming and the outrageous banker bonuses must be clawed back to make Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac whole.

al-Qaeda Can Not Be Beaten Says British Military

The new head of Britain's armed forces, Gen Sir David Richards, has warned that the West cannot defeat al-Qaeda and militant Islam.

He goes on to tout the official lie that all of the death and destruction is worth it.

However, he said the sacrifice being made by the Armed Forces in Afghanistan, where 343 soldiers have been killed since 2001, "has been worth it".

End The TSA

Thousands Standing Around (TSA) have overstepped their bounds and the people are resisting genital groping and nude xray radiation. This Forbes article discusses the important topic that TSA xrays and groping does not make us safer:

The airlines have enormous sums of money riding on passenger safety, and the notion that a government bureaucracy has better incentives to provide safe travels than airlines with billions of dollars worth of capital and goodwill on the line strains credibility.

The TSA

... provides security theater, as Jeffrey Goldberg argues.

Sweden Threatens Global Economy

The Swedes have kept to their knitting, taken care of their citizens, kept it's own currency instead of the Euro, and generally stayed out of international disputes. The USA-based "think tank" New America Foundation has decided Sweden is a global threat.

Simple math shows that trade between nations must balance. Some nations will have more output than others, and this will change over time.
New America Foundation has singled out the tiny country of Sweden for the horror of exporting too much:

"Sweden has not taken sufficient measures to reduce its current account surplus," non-profit New America Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan US-based think tank, wrote in a statement on Thursday.

Speaking of countries like Sweden with current account surpluses, "...they pose an obstacle to the adjustment policies deficit economies must undertake to avoid or to get out of financial crises," the foundation said in a statement.

New America Foundation is essentially criticizing Sweden for not participating in the debt orgy that was a big part of the current financial crises that is particularly acute in several other European countries.

New America Foundation foundation goes on to recommend, ".. these countries to pursue other constructive policies, such as international development assistance."

Why would Sweden, which has effectively side-stepped most of the current financial crisis, want to participate in international programs that cripple countries?


The current account balance is

one of two major measures of the nature of a country's foreign trade (the other being the net capital outflow). A current account surplus increases a country's net foreign assets by the corresponding amount, and a current account deficit does the reverse. Both government and private payments are included in the calculation. It is called the current account because goods and services are generally consumed in the current period.

German Ex-Chancellor Says Bush Lied

German Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder says Bush and Cheney lied about Iraq:

"... this link, as it became clear during 2002, was false and contrived. This goes for reasons (for the invasion) given by Bush and (vice president Dick) Cheney too.

"As we know today, the Bush administration's reasons for the Iraq war were based on lies."

Fraudsters Pay Fine, No Bribery Charges

Contractors working for a large computer services company bribed school board employees to win a competitive bid contract. The employees received no legal punishment, the computer company simply paid a fine.

... contractors were said to have bribed school district officials to get deals under the government’s E-rate program that helps wire up schools and libararies with Internet links.

... contractors took school officials on boating trips and even gave them tickets to the Super Bowl in 2004 in exchange for help winning the contracts.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the settlement shows how hard the government is working to stop fraud and waste in the E-rate program.

What about bribery charges against the employees?

Silent Chinese

The Chinese apparently have undetectable submarines. The bluewater navy was supposed to be America's portable force projection. Now it is vulnerable to attack by a single enemy submarine.

American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast U.S.S. Kitty Hawk - a 1,000ft supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board.

By the time it surfaced the 160ft Song Class diesel-electric attack submarine is understood to have sailed within viable range for launching torpedoes or missiles at the carrier.

According to senior Nato officials the incident caused consternation in the U.S. Navy.

...

The lone Chinese vessel slipped past at least a dozen other American warships which were supposed to protect the carrier from hostile aircraft or submarines.

And the rest of the costly defensive screen, which usually includes at least two U.S. submarines, was also apparently unable to detect it.

Rich Get Lenient Punishment

If someone steals a pizza they will get some jail time.  Bruce Karatz stole millions and committed mail fraud and lied to cover it up, and gets to serve the sentence in his 24-room mansion.

Prosecutors said in an Oct. 14 filing that sentencing Karatz to home detention at his 24-room mansion in Bel Air, California, would suggest that there is a two-tier justice system in which well-connected chief executives can break the rules with virtual impunity.

"To promote respect for the law, the public must be assured that a wealthy, well-connected individual, regardless of his station, array of prominent friends and associates, history of private success or acts of public largesse, will be subject to the same standard of criminal justice as those less fortunate," prosecutors said in the filing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Stern, whose office was seeking a 6 1/2-year prison term for Karatz, said, "We respectfully disagree with the judge's decision," and declined to comment further.

Wright ordered Karatz to pay a $1 million fine, serve eight months of home detention with electronic monitoring and perform 2,000 hours of community service.

BPA Is Toxic In Canada, Not In USA

Canada has acknowledged the common can liner and plastic softener BPA is toxic to human health:

Canada just became the first country in the world to declare bisphenol A (BPA) to be a toxic substance that poses risks to human health and the environment. BPA is a synthetic chemical used to make plastic drinking bottles, baby bottles and storage containers as well as the lining of food and drink cans. Currently, it is found in virtually all canned goods and most baby bottles.

BPA is known to mimic estrogen and otherwise interfere with the hormonal system, and studies have linked it to elevated risks of cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

OK For CIA To Destroy Evidence

The CIA destroyed evidence of their complicity in war crimes.  The investigation of the CIA's destruction of evidence predictably resulted in no charges.

A special prosecutor cleared the CIA's former top clandestine officer and others Tuesday of any charges for destroying agency videotapes showing waterboarding of terror suspects, but he continued an investigation into whether the harsh questioning went beyond legal boundaries.

The decision not to prosecute anyone in the videotape destruction came five years to the day after the CIA destroyed its cache of 92 videos of two al Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri, being subjected to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. The deadline for prosecuting someone under most federal laws is five years.

European Central Bank Covers Up Fraud

The European Central Bank is refusing to release details about the fraud Greece committed on the other members of the European Union.

The European Central Bank refused to disclose internal documents showing how Greece used derivatives to hide its government debt because of the “acute” risk of roiling markets, President Jean-Claude Trichet said.

Will Germany pull out of the Euro common currency?

German Chancellor Merkel has rejected calls for an EU-wide tax to prop up failing states.

"I am against the introduction of a European tax," Merkel said after talks with Belgian caretaker premier Yves Leterme, whose country chairs the EU until the end of the year. 

Debt Collectors Get Their Own Court Room

A debt collect in Pennsylvania set up their own court room with a fake judge who issued fake rulings.  The debt collector is going to see a real court room with a real judge:

The Attorney General's Office told Team 4 that Unicredit lured debtors to the building by sending employees who appeared to be sheriff's deputies to their homes, implying that they would be taken into custody if they failed to appear at the phony court hearings. 

Growing Food At School

School administrators prevent school-grown produce from being used in school lunches.  The children can grow the food, but not eat the food for lunch.


Kathleen Merrigan, deputy secretary of agriculture at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recently toured a CPS school garden at the Academy for Global Citizenship on the Southwest Side. There, two second-grade girls showed her the eggplant, squash and tomatoes they grew, along with the chickens they kept for eggs.

"Ideally, all of those products would make it from the garden to the lunchroom," Merrigan said.

But rules created by CPS and its meals supplier, Chartwells-Thompson, prevent that from happening.

NASA Can't Measure Temperature Accurately

Their algorithm creates an imaginary hot spot at the North Pole (2-4 C based on no actual data within 800 km) and then weights it as heavily as a closer measured temperature reading, in the next step.

They appear to be using at least two steps of extrapolation/interpolation – which compounds error. In other words, their entire 21st century warming story is based on a defective interpretation of the Arctic.

“A likely explanation for discrepancy in identification of the warmest year is the fact that the HadCRUT analysis excludes much of the Arctic ….. (whereas GISS) estimates temperature anomalies throughout most of the Arctic.”

The GISS article with this statement has disappeared from their web site, but it used to be at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0319.pdf.

Electronic Voting Twists

We have been told electronic voting machines are more accurate and convenient.  There have been many reports about irregularities with voting tallies.  In Nevada, voters are finding the machine automatically selects candidates for the voter!

Nevada Voters Complain Of Problems At Polls

Some voters in Boulder City complained on Monday that their ballot had been cast before they went to the polls, raising questions about Clark County's electronic voting machines.

Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac Will Cost Much More

Fannie and Freddie have huge problems with underwater mortgages and defaulting mortgages. Using their best case scenarios, they will have additional drawdown of "$142 billion to $259 billion."

"To date, the Enterprises have drawn $148 billion from the U.S. Treasury... "

This is going to get much worse at taxpayer expense.

Officer Bubbles Sues

Officer Bubbles had a young lady arrested for blowing bubbles.



Now Officer Bubbles, Toronto Police Const. Adam Josephs, is suing those who posted comments about the video on the internet.

Pearl Harbor Attack Was Not A Surprise

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was no surprise:

Prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, however, most of the United States citizens were opposed to America's entering the war in Europe on Britain's side. After the Pearl Harbor, the issue was a no brainer. Roosevelt and his pal Winston Churchill NEEDED a "Pearl Harbor" as an excuse to involve this great country in a war (in Europe) that never threatened our national security. And his government made sure it got its "Pearl Harbor" one way or another.

Busted: Fed GPS Tracking Device

A California student found a GPS tracking device on his car. He wasn't sure who put it there, until:

A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. ... half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi’s apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device.

The device is pictured in the article at wired.com.

Crimes Against Humanity

Conducting secret medical trials on victims is a crime.

"US government medical researchers intentionally infected people in Guatemala, including institutionalized mental patients, with gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge or permission more than 60 years ago," Robert Bazell, the Chief science and health correspondent for NBC News, reports. "Many of those infected were encouraged to pass the infection onto others as part of the study. About one third of those who were infected never got adequate treatment."

Mainstream Media Wants To End The Fed

The mainstream media is waking up to the fraud of privately owned central banks. Outside the USA, a reporter dares to write about ending the Federal Reserve:

I apologise to readers around the world for having defended the emergency stimulus policies of the US Federal Reserve...

Bernanke is reviving a doctrine that was already shown to be bunk eighty years ago.

The Fed is indeed out of control.

Fed is trying to conjure away the hangover from the last binge (which Greenspan/Bernanke caused, let us not forget), as if to vindicate its prior claim that you can always clean up painlessly after asset bubbles.

Italy Abandons Airport X-ray Scanners

Italy looked at the facts about the usefulness of full-body x-ray scanners and decided to remove the scanners, calling them 'ineffective'.

Italy To Abandon Airport Body Scanner Project

After a six-month test, Italy's government will drop the use of full-body scanners for security checks in airports, judging them slow and ineffective, Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported Thursday.

USA Is Fattest

We're number one !!!

The United States is the fattest nation among 33 countries with advanced economies, according to a report out today from an international think tank.

Two-thirds of people in this country are overweight or obese; about a third of adults — more than 72 million — are obese, which is roughly 30 pounds over a healthy weight.

CIA Uses Stolen Software

Court filings have shown that Netezza stole software intellectual property from a partner company and sold it to the CIA. Though the software was known to produce incorrect results, the CIA relied on the software to target people for remote execution via drone weaponry.

CIA used 'illegal, inaccurate code to target kill drones'

...
"My reaction was one of stun, amazement that they want to kill people with my software that doesn't work," he said.
...
"For some strange reason many of the calculations are a little off, from 1 to 13 metres," wrote Joe Wiltshire, a federal account manager at Netezza.

Bury Thyself

A hapless German on holiday built his own tomb in the sand:

Spanish firefighters saved a 23-year-old German tourist from being buried alive on a Tenerife beach on Wednesday after a tunnel he built in the sand collapsed.

Expanding Human Rights

In a move sure to bring happiness to liberals who believe government knows best and can best determine what is best, the list of "human rights" includes alcohol and cigarettes:

Germany’s drug policy commissioner Mechthild Dyckmans defended welfare allowances for alcohol and cigarettes on Thursday, saying that little indulgences were a human right.

David Rockefeller Thanks Media For Manipulating News

David Rockefeller via wikiquotes

We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.

Vitamin B Halts Alzheimer's Memory Loss

New study show inexpensive vitamins can halt the effects of Alzheimer's disease:

... costing as little as 10p a day and made up of three vitamin B supplements, cut brain shrinkage linked to memory loss by up to 500 per cent.

The tablets contained extremely high doses of vitamins B6, 9 and 12.

For instance, the amount of B12 was up to 300 times higher than could be obtained by simply eating bananas, meat, wholegrains, beans and other foods rich in the vitamin.

Europeans Refuse Genetically Modified Foods

For years, Europeans have refused GMO "Frankenfood".

Sweden has found genetically modified potatoes, and has started an inquiry with BASF:

The discovery of genetically modified potatoes in a field in Sweden has led to the European Commission on Monday issuing a summons on German chemical giant BASF.

The commission spokeswoman asked: "Who knows what the effects of growing a largely untested GM crop for months in the open environment will be?"

New Jersey Police State

TSA started screening train commuter passengers. If TSA is about security and explosive devices, why are they interested in a crack pipe? Why do Americans allow TSA to "conduct any kind of search we want"?

If it is police and not TSA doing the searches, where is the probably cause or the search warrant?

Random Pat-Downs Turn PATCO Into Police State

The chief says that out of the 6663 bags searched between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., a crack pipe was the only item confiscated.

“We can conduct any kind of search we want," said McClintock. "We could ask TSA to bring wands or X-ray machines like they have in airports, though we don't think that's appropriate for PATCO riders at this time."

CIA Implicated In Stopping Anti-War Presidency

The CIA has been implicated in the killing of Robert Kennedy, presumably to stop his anti-war message from reaching the presidency.

The following video documentary was released in 2006.

CIA role claim in Kennedy killing
New video and photographic evidence that puts three senior CIA operatives at the scene of Robert Kennedy's assassination has been brought to light.

...
Kennedy had just won the California Democratic primary on an anti-War ticket and was set to challenge Nixon for the White House when he was shot in a kitchen pantry.
...
He reveals new video and photographs showing three senior CIA operatives at the hotel.

Three of these men have been positively identified as senior officers who worked together in 1963 at JMWAVE, the CIA's Miami base for its Secret War on Castro.

David Morales was Chief of Operations and once told friends:

"I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard."
...

Thorium, Unlimited Energy

This article describes Thorium as a wonder-fuel that would safely solve our energy problems.

work by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) on the use of thorium as a cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors may be the magic bullet we have all been hoping for, though we have barely begun to crack the potential of solar power.

Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – named after the Norse god of thunder, who also gave us Thor’s day or Thursday - produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal. A mere fistful would light London for a week.

The article further claims that thorium reactors are not in widespread use for historical and big-business political reasons.

"It is almost impossible make nuclear weapons out of thorium because it is too difficult to handle. It wouldn’t be worth trying." It emits too many high gamma rays.

You might have thought that thorium reactors were the answer to every dream but when CERN went to the European Commission for development funds in 1999-2000, they were rebuffed.

Brussels turned to its technical experts, who happened to be French because the French dominate the EU’s nuclear industry. "They didn’t want competition because they had made a huge investment in the old technology," he said.

German Nacktscanner (Airport Porno-Scanners)

In 2008, Germans were against the full-body airport scanners, calling them "nonsense":

"I can tell you in all clarity that we will not take part in this nonsense," a spokeswoman for the interior ministry told a regular news conference.

Two years later, Germany begins

Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, a conservative Christian Democrat and member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet, indicated he is more open to the full-body scanners than previously.

implementing the scanners:

German air passengers in Hamburg will pass through full-body scanners before catching their flights. The scanners have raised fears about risks to health and personal privacy.

Verified Non-GMO Food

The Non-GMO Project provides product testing and labeling.

This will make it easier for consumers to buy non-GMO products.

Argentina Collapse

Interesting video on two decades of political turmoil in Argentina. Shows effects on the people.

Twelve parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6_i8zuffs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whVSw5X2pVU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPddW3da2aA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dbb4U8v3YQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPZcxQhUc9E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMiedzHeUzg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPST2cqgVQs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBSNTxPM3mU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnig3LwEs3Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsirWiQ5kv0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAtVUx8_Rps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvEPPsC3Xfs

Combat Brigades Did Not Leave Iraq

Obama's claim that combat troops have left Iraq

The last U.S. brigade combat team in Iraq has left the country, a move that helps U.S. President Barack Obama reach his goal of 50,000 troops in the country by September 1.

is a lie

So while the “last full U.S. combat brigade” have left Iraq, just under 50,000 soldiers from specially trained heavy, infantry and Stryker brigades will stay, as well as two combat aviation brigades.

Compared with the 49,000 soldiers in Iraq, there are close to 67,000 in Afghanistan and another 9,700 in Kuwait, according to the latest Army chart on global commitments dated Aug. 17. Under an agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

There are seven Advise and Assist Brigades in Iraq, as well as two additional National Guard infantry brigades “for security,” said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Craig Ratcliff.

World's Most Expensive BBQ

Around the world, elected officials abuse the tax payers.

Germany is trying to hide the details of the "World's Most Expensive BBQ" for George Bush:

A court in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Friday will consider whether the original bill from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s June 2006 barbecue with then US President George W. Bush has to be made public. The event is reported to have cost €8.7 million.

After a request from the far-right NPD party, the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state Interior Ministry reported in 2007 and 2008 that the visit had cost €8.7 million. Other German states ponied up some €5.7 million to send police officers.

Swedes To Leave Afghanistan

Obama's war in Afghanistan is being deserted by the rest of the world. Swedish troops will leave Afghanistan next year.

A Red-Green government would begin the withdrawal of Swedish troops from Afghanistan in July 2011, with the last soldiers home by the 2013, the three party opposition coalition announced on Friday.

"Our strategy is completely consistent with the international strategy for a successive withdrawal," said Social Democrat leader Mona Sahlin at a Friday press conference.

Australia Bans Flu Vaccine

Due to children reacting to the seasonal flu vaccine with convulsions and in one case a coma, Australia suspended use of the flu vaccine:

Seasonal flu vaccinations across Australia for children under five have been suspended after 23 children in Western Australia were admitted to hospital with convulsions following their injections.

One child, aged 1, remains in a coma in a Perth hospital.

Finland Suspends H1N1 Vaccine

European governments are often thought as being more health-conscious than the USA. Finland suspended use of the H1N1 vaccine:

The Finnish National Institute for Health (THL) proposed suspending vaccinations for H1N1 swine flu, due to suspected links to increased narcolepsy in children and adolescents, the body announced this week.

The Fed Is The Problem

This article blames the (private cartel) Federal Reserve for not saving the markets. The problem is the Federal Reserve! The Fed created the housing bubble. The Fed bailed out it's buddies and now is fighting to withhold information about which buddies were bailed out. A collapsing debt bubble that was caused by the Fed is not solved by quantitative easing:

What has emerged since the acrimonious Fed meeting on August 10 is that Bernanke was unable to marshal a consensus behind fresh QE.

FDA Fails To Protect

For decades, the FDA and medical personnel have known of the risks of using the same tubing connections for every device. The risk is death if devices are hooked up incorrectly, such as an air pump hooked into an IV tube which will cause a deadly air embolism, putting liquid food directly into veins:

Instead of snaking a tube through Ms. Rodgers’s nose and into her stomach, the nurse instead coupled the liquid-food bag to a tube that entered a vein.

Putting such food directly into the bloodstream is like pouring concrete down a drain. Ms. Rodgers was soon in agony.

...

Their deaths were among hundreds of deaths or serious injuries that researchers have traced to tube mix-ups. But no one knows the real toll, because this kind of mistake, like medication errors in general, is rarely reported.

At gas stations, the nozzles at diesel pumps are a different size than unleaded, those reducing the chance of mistake. In the medical world, the FDA has everything be the same:

Experts and standards groups have advocated since 1996 that tubes for different functions be made incompatible — just as different nozzles at gas stations prevent drivers from using the wrong fuel.

But action has been delayed by resistance from the medical-device industry and an approval process at the Food and Drug Administration that can discourage safety-related changes.

“Nurses should not have to work in an environment where it is even possible to make that kind of mistake,” said Nancy Pratt, a senior vice president at Sharp HealthCare in San Diego who is a vocal advocate for changing the system. “The nuclear power and airline industries would never tolerate a situation where a simple misconnection could lead to a death.”

Since the FDA can't protect consumers, is it time to admit that government regulation is a failure?

Federal Reserve Secrecy

The Federal Reserve, authorized by Congress to run the monopoly over our money since 1913, sent bail-out funds to it's banker buddies and now wants to keep that information secret. Apparently the private Federal Reserve will appeal to the Supreme Court, to keep their dealings secret.

The Fed's argument for keeping the bailout secret is:

... disclosure of the documents threatens to stigmatize borrowers and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury,” discouraging banks in distress from seeking help. The appeals court panel rejected that argument.

The people also want to know the non-banks that received bailouts.

Why do we allow a secret organization to continue to control our money? When will we end the Fed?

Endless Traffic

Many cities have terrible traffic during peak hours, though the roads typically become passable at other times of the day.

In China, a road has been continually jammed for nine days:

Thousands of vehicles were bogged down Monday in a more than 100-kilometre (62-mile) traffic jam leading to Beijing that has lasted nine days and highlights China's growing road congestion woes.

The 100km jam is expected to last for another month:

The city authorities have sent 400 police to the area to try to calm the situation -- the second time in two months such a massive traffic snarl has occurred on the road that links the Chinese capital to Tibet.

September 10

On Septemeber 10, 2001 Donald Rumsfeld announced the Pentagon had lost accountability of over $2 trillion:

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

Also on September 10, 2001 George Bush agreed to a plan to attack Osama bin Laden:

The day before the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration agreed on a plan to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan by force if it refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, according to a report by a bipartisan commission of inquiry.

Medicare Projections

The chief actuary of the Medicare program has wrote that Medicare is financially unsustainable:

‘the financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range (as a result of the unsustainable reductions in physician payment rates) or the long range.’

Social Security is also financially unsustainable. And the FDIC is broke.

The End Of Antibiotics

This article published in England describes how overuse of antibiotics may shortly lead to complete ineffectiveness of antibiotics. This will lead to human deaths and livestock deaths.

The era of antibiotics is coming to a close. In just a couple of generations, what once appeared to be miracle medicines have been beaten into ineffectiveness by the bacteria they were designed to knock out. Once, scientists hailed the end of infectious diseases. Now, the post-antibiotic apocalypse is within sight.

Border Patrol Abuse

Border Patrol thugs running an "inland checkpoint" (checkpoint hundreds of miles inland where they demand your papers) physically assaulted a pastor. The non-violent pastor was criminally charged and at trial the jury found him not guilty.

Tempe pastor cleared in checkpoint confrontation
... A Border Patrol agent questioned Anderson about his citizenship but he refused to answer, saying it was his constitutional right to remain silent. After he wouldn't move to a secondary inspection area, Anderson says a state police officer and Border Patrol agents broke both windows of his car, shocked him with a stun gun, dragged him out and slammed him onto the ground. ...

TARP Bailed Out Foreign Banks

As many suspected, the overwhelmingly unpopular (except to the bailed out bankers) program to prop up failed banks gave America's money to foreign banks.

Watchdog: U.S. Rescue Helped Foreign Banks
The $700 billion U.S. bailout program launched in response to the global economic meltdown had a far greater impact overseas than other countries' financial rescue plans did on the U.S., according to a new report from a congressional watchdog.

Billions of dollars in U.S. rescue funds wound up in big banks in France, Germany and other nations. That was probably inevitable because of the structure of the Treasury Department's program, the Congressional Oversight Panel says in a new report issued Thursday.
...

Subsidized Housing Injuries

62 people were injured while trying to apply for government-subsidized housing:

Thirty thousand people turned out in East Point on Wednesday seeking applications for government-subsidized housing, and their confusion and frustration, combined with the summer heat, led to a chaotic mob scene that left 62 people injured.

At the Tri-Cities Plaza Shopping Center, emergency vehicles passed each other, transporting 20 people to hospitals. Medical and police command posts were set up on scene. East Point police wore riot gear. Officers from four other agencies supported them. Yet no arrests were made.

All of this resulted from people attempting to obtain Section 8 housing applications and, against long odds, later securing vouchers for affordable residences. Some waited in line for two days for the applications.

Government Admits Storing TSA Full Body Scans

After previous denials, now the government admits they do store full image body scans from checkpoints.

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they're viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

Third DUI For Illegal

An illegal alien killed a person while committing his third DUI. After one or two DUIs and being here illegally, why was this person allowed to remain free?

The Virginia man suspected in a drunken-driving crash that killed a Catholic nun in Prince William County this weekend is an illegal immigrant and repeat offender who was awaiting deportation and who federal immigration authorities had released pending further proceedings, police said Monday.

Allies Leave Afghanistan

While the US increases troop commitments to Afghanistan, other participating countries are leaving.

The Netherlands are leaving now.
Canada is leaving in 2011.
Poland is leaving in 2012.

The Netherlands became the first NATO country to end its combat mission in Afghanistan, drawing the curtain Sunday on a four-year operation that was deeply unpopular at home and even brought down a Dutch government.

Useless Government Oversight

The Wall Street Journal reports that the government oversight of bailed-out banks has found bankers are getting questionably large bonuses, but the government isn't going to do anything about it.

Mr. Feinberg's four-page public discussion of banks' pay practices concluded that 17 banks had handed out $1.6 billion in "ill-advised" executive compensation before he was assigned in 2009 to oversee banks that accepted government money during the financial crisis.

All Your Cocoa Are Belong To Us

Like the 2000 meme all your base are belong to us, someone in Europe bought all of the cocoa beans (used in chocolate beans).

Mystery trader buys all Europe's cocoa

Even Willy Wonka might struggle to use this much chocolate. Yesterday, somebody bought 241,000 tonnes of cocoa beans.

The purchase was enough to move the entire global cocoa market, sending the price to the highest level since 1977

State-Sponsored Lying With Statistics

The website Number Watch contains a look at how government-funded scientists deceive us with statistics.

One section is devoted to global warming and how the "hockey stick" theory was broken.

Astute observers began to notice that the historical records of temperatures were changing and almost always in such a way as to increase the illusion of global warming. NASA, of all institutions, was involved in this dubious practice and it was all done without explanation.

School Lunches Threaten National Security

Obese America is making it difficult for the military to find physically qualified recruits.

"Mission: Readiness", the non-profit group of over 130 retired military leaders that is calling for healthier federal food for children, is expressing support for new legislation that would outlaw junk food from schools so that more children will qualify to enroll in the military.

According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics, the number of states with 40 percent or more of the young adult population being overweight or obese has jumped from one to 39 in just ten years. Currently in three states, more than half of the young adult population is overweight.

Mission: Readiness is calling on Congress to amend the Child Nutrition Act

Elected Kings & Queens

The elected officials have been caught taking wildly excessive pay. With just 38,0000 residents, some officials are taking $800,000 and part-time council members take $100,000.

Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo earns $787,637 -- with annual 12 percent raises -- and that Bell pays its police chief $457,000, more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck makes in a city of 3.8 million people. Bell council members earn almost $100,000 for part-time work.

Troop Deaths

Afghanistan is the longest actively fought war in US history. The death toll is tragic and continues to climb.

Army reports record number of suicides for June

Soldiers killed themselves at the rate of one per day in June, making it the worst month on record for Army suicides, the service said Thursday.

England Steals To Give To Charity

England will use the power of government to steal people's funds and give the money to charity

The Prime Minister will detail plans to raid bank accounts that have been "dormant" for up to 15 years and redistribute the money to fund enterprises that would otherwise struggle to secure funding amid the Government's austerity programme.

Britain Exaggerated Iraq WMDs

A high ranking British whistle blower says that under Tony Blair, the British government lied about WMDs in Iraq

Carne Ross, who was First Secretary responsible for the Middle East at the United Nations, accused the former government of issuing “lies” to the public about the dictator’s capacity to launch weapons of mass destruction.

He said that it was a "disgrace" that ministers failed to exhaust all peaceful options before going to war against Iraq.

Federal Reserve Insider Theft

Greg Palm was legal counsel of Goldman Sachs and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during the financial crisis. Mr. Palm had inside knowledge of the planned bailouts, and he traded on that insider knowledge to make great profits for himself. Insider trading is theft and it is illegal.

When will Mr. Palm be prosecuted for theft and insider trading?

Friedman, 72, who is still a Goldman director, bought 37,300 shares at an average of $80.78 each on Dec. 17. Five weeks later, he picked up 15,300 more at an average of $66.61. By yesterday, the stock had doubled to $133.76, giving Friedman a paper profit of $3 million.

Now, the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is investigating Friedman’s stock purchases. It wants to know why he was permitted to buy stock in a bank he was regulating as chairman of the New York Fed.

Friedman held both that post and his Goldman board seat when the firm became a bank holding company in September 2008. The Federal Reserve Act forbids an official at the New York Fed in his position from also being a director of a bank or buying its stock.

Good News Foods

Foods can lead us to sustainable happiness.

Can you really eat your way to happiness? The mood food connection

High-quality omega-3s provide one of the most powerful and sustainable boosts to healthy moods of any commonly-available food.
...
You can get omega-3 oils from fish, quality marine oil supplements like Moxxor, chia seeds, flax seeds and other quality nutritional supplements.

...

Pecans are extremely beneficial to supporting not just healthy moods but healthy brain function as well. It's the oils in the nuts that do the trick.
...
Almonds, pistachios, macadamia nuts and walnuts all have powerful health-supporting properties that affect brain function and therefore mood experiences

...

Green tea seems to provide a subtle mood lift without all the problems of typical stimulants. ... check your source to make sure it doesn't suffer from fluoride contamination
...
Adaptogenic herbs are also very, very good at helping your neurology better handle stress. ... Adaptogens include ginseng, ashwagandha, rhodiola, cordyceps mushroom and many others.

...

St. John's Wort has been clinically shown to work as well as antidepressant drugs to ease symptoms of depression.

...

focus on consuming large quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables.

...

If you want to maintain healthy moods, it's crucial to avoid refined sugar and caffeine from all sources.

Barron's Nonsense

Barron's weekly newspaper printed some nonsensical thoughts from MRG Institutional Update.


The focus on debt is useful. Austerity (budget cuts) must be part of the solution.

Austerity's Not the Answer
Total Debt's the Problem MRG Institutional Update, by MRG
325M Sharon Park Dr., Menlo Park, Calif. 94025

June 15: Cross-European contagion risk...threatens the very existence of our banking system. European bank balance sheets are stuffed with nonperforming loans that should have been written off in 2009. European regulators, however, allowed the banking industry not to come clean, in a repeat of the policy mistakes made by Japan in the 1990s.

Austerity measures will only exacerbate the banking-system problems, by leading to defaults in the massive private-sector debts of troubled countries. Attempts to use rapid and large fiscal retrenchment to avoid public-debt defaults virtually assure an escalation in private-debt defaults.

It is total debt which matters, not just public debt, something which European Union authorities seem to not yet grasp. In fact, the rapid rise in public debt in recent years is not so much the cause of this crisis as it is the result of excessive growth in private-sector debt over the last decade or so. (Note: private debt excludes nonfinancial corporates).

Greece and about 10 other euro-zone members desperately need a cheaper currency, but a falling euro doesn't necessarily do the trick, as much of Greece's exports go to other euro-zone members. Alternatively, the Greeks may choose to go for an "internal devaluation" by cutting salaries On the order of 20% to 25%. [But remember that] people died in the streets of Athens following a decision to reduce salaries by 5%.

Government Knew Of Oil Well Problems

The federal government knew about problems with BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico a full two months before it exploded. Around the world, government is failing.

Cracks Show BP Was Battling Gulf Well as Early as February

In early March, BP told the minerals agency the company was having trouble maintaining control of surging natural gas, according to e-mails released May 30 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the spill.

Taxpayers Pay For Banker Bonuses

After accepting TARP money from the federal government in 2008, banks paid out record bonuses (over $100 billion) in 2009.

The federal government now reports the TARP losses will be at least $105 billion.

TARP was a direct transfer of wealth from average Americans to the elite bankers.

Geithner estimated that TARP would end up costing taxpayers $105 billion.

IPCC Insider Says Climate Change Not Real

An insider says the IPCC report does not represent the majority of scientists.

The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.
...

Illinois Is Insolvent

Markets have lost confidence in Illinois' ability to continue to tax and spend.

Illinois Sells Build America Bonds as Premium to Treasuries Increases 40%
Illinois sold $300 million of Build America Bonds at a yield premium over Treasuries about 40 percent higher than two months ago after lawmakers failed to close a $13 billion budget deficit for the year starting July 1...

USA War Crimes

USA morality is becoming an oxymoron. This will take generations to heal.

Human Experimentation at the Heart of Bush Administration's Torture Program
by: Jason Leopold
High-value detainees captured during the Bush administration's "war on terror," who were subjected to brutal torture techniques, were used as "guinea pigs" to gauge the effectiveness of various torture techniques, a practice that has raised troubling comparisons to Nazi-era human experimentation ...

"Such acts may be seen as the conduct of research and experimentation by health professionals on prisoners, which could violate accepted standards of medical ethics, as well as domestic and international law. These practices could, in some cases, constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity." ...


Meanwhile, General Patraeus says torture is unnecessary and hurts America.

Threat of H1N1 Exaggerated

Reports accuse WHO of exaggerating H1N1 threat, possible ties to drug makers
By Rob Stein
European criticism of the World Health Organization's handling of the H1N1 pandemic intensified Friday with the release of two reports that accused the agency of exaggerating the threat posed by the virus and failing to disclose possible influence by the pharmaceutical industry on its recommendations for how countries should respond.
...


Vaccine manufacturers gave payments to people who had some influence on the WHO's threat assessment and pandemic decision.

http://www.naturalnews.com/028936_WHO_vaccines.html
The report was authored by Deborah Cohen (BMJ features editor), and Philip Carter, a journalist who works for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London. In their report, Cohen states, "...our investigation has revealed damaging issues. If these are not addressed, H1N1 may yet claim its biggest victim -- the credibility of the WHO and the trust in the global public health system."

In response to the report, WHO secretary-general Dr Margaret Chan defended the secrecy, saying that WHO intentionally kept the financial ties a secret in order to "...protect the integrity and independence of the members while doing this critical work... [and] also to ensure transparency."

Dr Chan apparently does not understand the meaning of the word "transparency." Then again, WHO has always twisted reality in order to serve its corporate masters, the pharmaceutical giants who profit from disease.

Gulf Leak Much Larger Than Reported?

Matt Simmons, a well-known oil industry analysts, says there is a much larger and leak nearby.  He says the other leaks have plumes that indicate leaks of over 120,000 barrels per day.  He also says the Soviets over the past 30 years have had huge well leaks and had stopped the weeks by detonating nuclear weapons a couple miles into the well to seal in the well.

Live Webcam of Gulf Oil Leak

Watch live video from the source of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

Losing The War: Aghanistan

The Soviets lost in Afghanistan. Why does the USA think they can do any better?

Doubts are growing about future action in Afghanistan:

Scepticism about McChrystal's ambitious aims was implicit in the way the Pentagon report on the war issued Apr. 26 assessed the progress of the campaign in Marja. Now, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai begins a four-day round of consultations with President Barack Obama and other senior U.S. officials here this week, the new report has been given even more pointed expression by an unnamed "senior military official" quoted in a column in the Washington Post Sunday by David Ignatius.

...

The same military official is also quoted as pointing out that parts of Helmand that were supposed to have been cleared by the offensive in February and March are in fact still under Taliban control and that Afghan government performance in the wake of the offensive had been disappointing, according to Ignatius.

Blowing Up Church Donations

Someone left thousands of dollars in cash and silver eagles in a box outside a church with a note for the pastor. The box was deemed suspicious, x-rayed, and blown up.

We have allowed our country to be in a constant state of fear. We can choose how we want to live. Do we want to live in fear? If we rationally look at the legitimate risks, should we be in so much fear?

JP Morgan Chase Wants To Write Financial Reform

JP Morgan Chase, which accepted a bailout to avoid bankruptcy, has a research report on the financial regulations being discussed in Congress. In the research report, JP Morgan says "grownups" should take over the financial legislative process from the elected representatives in Congress.

Now that the financial reform debate is in the final innings, it’s time for the grownups to step in.

JP Morgan's $12 billion bailout was funded by the private cartel Federal Reserve. Since the Congressional charter that created The Federal Reserve does not allow bailouts, it is time to Audit The Fed.
Since JP Morgan is a "primary dealer" which grants special access to the Federal Reserve, it is understandable JP Morgan would release propaganda that attacks financial reform.

Meanwhile, JP Morgan Chase is going ahead with a $138 million plan to buy two new luxury corporate jets and build "the premier corporate aircraft hangar on the eastern seaboard" to house them, ABC News has learned.

JP Morgan Chase's research report that recommends "grownups" take over writing financial reform law:

JPMorgan Chase Analyst Takes Aim At U.S. Senators -

Super Weeds Threaten Agriculture Production

Advanced pesticides have encouraged the development of super weeds that are causing problems for farmers:

American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.
To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.

With new super weeds, there will be less incentive for farmers to use genetically modified seeds:

The superweeds could temper American agriculture’s enthusiasm for some genetically modified crops. Soybeans, corn and cotton that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup have become standard in American fields. However, if Roundup doesn’t kill the weeds, farmers have little incentive to spend the extra money for the special seeds.

Chemical Weapons In Iraq

Chemicals weapons in Iraq are alleged to have been used by British and American forces against civilian Iraqis in 2004. This is a war crime. The after-effects include birth defects. Doctors report a "massive, unprecedented number" of congenital health problems.

The unlawful use of white phosphorus in built-up areas was... never objected to by the British Government who assisted in the attack on Fallujah.

Army to be sued for war crimes over its role in Fallujah attacks

Parents of children with birth defects say Britain knew of US chemical weapons use
By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Allegations that Britain was complicit in the use of chemical weapons linked to an upsurge in child deformity cases in Iraq, are being investigated by the Ministry of Defence. ...

Banks Capture Their Regulator

Derivatives were a much part of the financial problems. Regulator Sheila Bair is urging lawmakers to allow banks to continue to play with derivatives. Sheila Bair is apparently a financial industry lobbyist pretending to regulate the industry. It is time to fire Sheila Bair.

Bair Warns Against New Curbs on Bank Trading
BY DAMIAN PALETTA
WASHINGTON—

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair has urged lawmakers to scrap a controversial Senate plan that would force banks to spin off their derivatives businesses, saying it could destabilize banks and drive risk into unregulated parts of the financial sector. ...

GMO Foods Stop Mice Reproduction

Genetically modified foods have not been adequately tested. New tests on mice find safety concerns:
Today Salem-News reports that a joint experiment by Russia’s National Association for Gene Security and the Institute of Ecological and Evolutional Problems has revealed that hamsters fed genetically modified (GM) foods produce grandchildren that are unable to produce fourth generation offspring.
... they monitored the behavior, weight gain and birthrate of several groups of hamsters. Upon birth of the second generation they noted slower rates of growth and sexual maturity. The next generation was unable to produce.

Obama Hides Murder Documents

The murders at Foot Hood have been investigated and documented. Obama has refused to comply with a Congressional subpoena request for more information.

Thirteen people were murdered in Foot Hood, Texas. What is Obama covering up?

Tainted Beef, Inadequate Government Monitoring

The federal agencies tasked with protecting consumers have failed:

A program set up to test beef for chemical residues "is not accomplishing its mission of monitoring the food supply for … dangerous substances, which has resulted in meat with these substances being distributed in commerce," says the audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General.

The health effects on people who eat such meat are a "growing concern," the audit adds.

Swine Flu Hoax?

What happened to the widely-hyped swine flu predictions in 2009? Was it a hoax? Was it an engineered panic to sell more vaccines?

WHO admits shortcomings in handling flu pandemic
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, April 12 (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation conceded shortcomings on Monday in its handling of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, including a failure to communicate uncertainties about the new virus as it swept around the globe.

Harrisburg & Greece

Greece hid their debt (through CDOs from Goldman Sachs) to improve the country's balance sheet so they could qualify for inclusion into the Euro zone. When Greece entered the Euro zone, they lost their own currency. Without control of their own currency they can not print money nor set the price of money. Greece is in economic dire straits, looking for bailouts from the EU, Germany, and the IMF. Greece is also attempting to cut social benefits and the reaction has been strikes and protests.

Like Greece, America's cities and states can not print their own money. Some cities (Harrisburg) and states (California) are unable to match their spending with their revenue. They are in a similar situation as Greece.

Harrisburg is considering bankruptcy:
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which has missed $6 million in debt payments since Jan. 1, should consider seeking Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, City Controller Dan Miller told a three-hour special committee hearing.

Amish Farmer Raided

An Amish farmer sold milk and had his property raided at 4 AM by two FDA agents, two U.S. Marshals, and a Pennsylvania state trooper.

Is this America with freedom, or a dictatorship with no rule of law?

GM Repays Bailout Loan With Another Bailout Loan

GM double-speak in Barron's magazine:

GM firmly on road to viability: Treasury

The Treasury confirmed that GM had repaid in full the $4.7 billion balance it owed under the government's Trouble Asset Relief Program, five years before the loan maturity date and ahead of an accelerated repayment schedule set last year.

"We are encouraged that GM has repaid its debt well ahead of schedule and confident that the company is on a strong path to viability," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement.
...

Tax cheat Timothy Geithner says GM has repaid the TARP loan. Should we believe tax cheat Geithner to tell the truth or to mislead? Tax cheat Geithner misleads because he left out the fact that GM repaid the TARP loan with another government loan.

But the money to repay the loan will come from a portion of the government money it has set aside. In other words, GM has not actually drawn down every dollar of the $50 billion. It has about $13.4 billion sitting in an escrow account, and it has tagged $8.1 billion of that to repay loans from both the U.S. and Canadian governments. (Incidentally, GM also got a $1.3 billion loan from Germany in support of its European unit.)

Fluoride Hurts Cattle

Volcanic eruptions in Iceland are causing ranchers to protect their cattle from fluoride in the volcanic dust.

"The ash is toxic – the fluoride causes long-term bone damage that makes teeth fall out and bones break."

Anti-virus Vendor Breaks PCs

McAfee shut down many of it's customer's PCs. Home computers and office computers were affected. Economic damage included the shutdown of one conglomerate's chain of stores.

If you can't trust your paid anti-virus vendor, who can you trust? This highlights the importance of complete and current data backups.

Creating Enemies

The Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan.

The Americans, by killing Afghanistan women and attempting to cover up the crime, are creating enemies. When will the Americans leave Afghanistan and stop creating enemies?


U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

KABUL, Afghanistan — After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths.

...

Bombs Inside Murrah Building

News reports and a report from the Justice Department confirm removal of two undetonated bombs from inside the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.

Who had access to plant the bombs inside a secured federal building?



Was the Oklahoma City terrorism an inside job?

Federal Reserve Admits Law Breaking

The law that created the Federal Reserve (private banking cartel that sets price of money via interest rate) is allowed to purchase debt that is backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. The Fed is not authorized to purchase corporate debt nor corporate securities.

The Fed recently admitted to buying corporate securities "to aid Bear Stearns’s takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co.".

Where are the prosecutors who should be filing charges against Ben Bernanke and the Fed?

Too Big To Jail

When companies become huge, they can commit crimes and receive just a slap on the wrist. Pfizer broke the law by illegally marketing a drug, and the executives responsible for the illegal actions have escaped punishment solely because of the size of the company.

Feds found Pfizer too big to nail

... Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, was caught illegally marketing Bextra, a painkiller that was taken off the market in 2005 because of safety concerns.

...

Promoting drugs for unapproved uses can put patients at risk by circumventing the FDA's judgment over which products are safe and effective. For that reason, "off-label" promotion is against the law.

But with billions of dollars of profits at stake, marketing and sales managers across the country nonetheless targeted anesthesiologists, foot surgeons, orthopedic surgeons and oral surgeons. "Anyone that use[d] a scalpel for a living," one district manager advised in a document prosecutors would later cite.

A manager in Florida e-mailed his sales reps a scripted sales pitch that claimed -- falsely -- that the FDA had given Bextra "a clean bill of health" all the way up to a 40 mg dose, which is twice what the FDA actually said was safe.

...

According to Lewis Morris, chief counsel to the inspector general at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "They pushed the envelope so far past any reasonable interpretation of the law that it's simply outrageous."

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But when it came to prosecuting Pfizer for its fraudulent marketing, the pharmaceutical giant had a trump card: Just as the giant banks on Wall Street were deemed too big to fail, Pfizer was considered too big to nail.

Why? Because any company convicted of a major health care fraud is automatically excluded from Medicare and Medicaid. Convicting Pfizer on Bextra would prevent the company from billing federal health programs for any of its products. It would be a corporate death sentence.

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US Gov't Covers Up 2008 Mumbai Attacks

The US federal government appears to be prohibiting the release of any information of a key person (David Coleman Headley) in the 2008 Mumbai India attacks.

Headley had previously been a DEA informant in Pakistan and had been working with the CIA. What is the US government hiding?


A spy unsettles US-India ties
By M K Bhadrakumar

News that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had reached a plea bargain with David Coleman Headley, who played a key role in the planning of the terrorist strike in Mumbai in November 2008 in which 166 people were killed, has caused an uproar in India.

The deal enables the US government to hold back from formally producing any evidence against Headley in a court of law that might have included details of his links with US intelligence or oblige any cross-examination of Headley by the prosecution.

Nor can the families of the 166 victims be represented by a lawyer to question Headley during his trial commencing in Chicago. Headley's links with the US intelligence will now remain classified information and the Pakistani nationals involved in the Mumbai attacks will get away scot-free. Furthermore, the FBI will not allow Headley's extradition to India and will restrict access so that Indian agencies cannot interrogate him regarding his links with US and Pakistani intelligence.

... the plea bargain confirms that Headley had a criminal record in the US from 1989 as a conspirator to import heroin and spent a total of six years in prison as a result of four convictions. He was later recruited as an agent by US drug-enforcement authorities, who after the 9/11 attacks in the US coordinated closely with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

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Sweet: High Fructose Corn Syrup

Sickly Sweet: The Truth Behind High-Fructose Corn Syrup
by Nancy Witting

According to an article by Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times (Oct. 30, 2008), a small study published in 2008 in the Journal of Nutrition suggests that fructose may make people fatter by bypassing the body's regulation of sugars, meaning it gets more quickly converted to fat than do other sugars.


A more recent article describes a Princeton study of high fructose corn syrup causing abnormal weight gain in rats.

A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain
by Hilary Parker

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

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"When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight."

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