The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
Added: 23. Januar 2010
The rain water was tested by government labs:
Aluminum (780 times over the save level.)
Arsenic (593 times over the save level.)
Manganese (4000 times over the save level.)
Barium (300 times over the save level.)
Zinc (8000 times over the save level.)
Iron (2000 times over the save level.)
Boron (4000 times over the save level.)
Added: 9. Februar 2010
Keynesianism (Deficit Spending, Obamanomics) in general is outdated and wrong.
Interesting article nevertheless.
The latest U.S. Treasury Z1 Flow of Funds report was released on March 11, 2010, bringing the data current through the end of 2009. What follows is the most important chart of your lifetime. It relegates almost all modern economists and economic theory to the dustbin of history. Any economic theory, formula, or relationship that does not consider this non-linear relationship of DEBT and phase transition is destined to fail.
It explains the “jobless” recoveries of the past and how each recent economic cycle produces higher money figures, yet lower employment. It explains why we are seeing debt driven events that circle the globe. It explains the psychological uneasiness that underpins this point in history, the elephant in the room that nobody sees or can describe.
(Click on images to enlarge.)
This is a very simple chart. It takes the change in GDP and divides it by the change in Debt. What it shows is how much productivity is gained by infusing $1 of debt into our debt backed money system.
Back in the early 1960s a dollar of new debt added almost a dollar to the nation’s output of goods and services. As more debt enters the system the productivity gained by new debt diminishes. This produced a path that was following a diminishing line targeting ZERO in the year 2015. This meant that we could expect that each new dollar of debt added in the year 2015 would add NOTHING to our productivity.
Then a funny thing happened along the way. Macroeconomic DEBT SATURATION occurred causing a phase transition with our debt relationship. This is because total income can no longer support total debt. In the third quarter of 2009 each dollar of debt added produced NEGATIVE 15 cents of productivity, and at the end of 2009, each dollar of new debt now SUBTRACTS 45 cents from GDP!
This is mathematical PROOF that debt saturation has occurred. Continuing to add debt into a saturated system, where all money is debt, leads only to future defaults and to higher unemployment.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will ram the unpopular Senate health bill through the House without a vote. Article 1, Sect. 7 of the Constitution says she can’t.
Many House Democrats are reluctant to go on record in support of the Senate bill. Pelosi’s strategy is to “deem” it passed, go straight to a vote on a package of reconciliation “fixes” and then present both the Senate bill and reconciliation package to the president for signing.
In recent years, the US Supreme Court has twice struck down attempts to abbreviate the lawmaking process required by Article 1, Sect 7. Though it’s been used before on less controversial legislation, Pelosi’s tactic won’t survive a constitutional challenge.
* In INS v. Chadha (1982), the high court ruled 7-2 that lawmaking must follow the steps laid out in the Constitution. Foreign student J.R. Chadha (from Kenya, ironically) convinced the Immigration and Naturalization Service to suspend his deportation. The House, acting without the Senate or president, voted to overturn the INS suspension via a “legislative veto” — a device created by prior law to give either house of Congress the means to overturn certain executive decisions.
Chadha challenged the constitutionality of that arrangement and won. The Supreme Court ruled that the House’s action was “legislative” in nature — and declared that lawmaking is “subject to the procedural requirements of Art. 1, Sect. 7 for legislative action: passage by a majority of both houses and presentation to the president.” Anything less is unconstitutional.
Article 1 states: “The votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively.”
Read moreNancy Pelosi’s Plan To ‘Deem’ Health Care Bill Passed Is Unconstitutional
(Reuters) – The Swiss Catholic Church is investigating around 10 allegations of abuse by clergy, including some acts committed since 2001, making Switzerland the latest country to be hit by a wave of scandal sweeping Europe.
In a pastoral letter on Saturday, Pope Benedict apologized to victims of child sex abuse by clergy in Ireland and ordered an official inquiry there.
The Swiss Bishops’ Conference said the Pope’s letter confirmed the church in Switzerland had acted correctly in dealing with cases of abuse, and added that it had already worked together with victims to report abuse to the authorities.
“The letter supports the guidelines that the Church introduced for cases of sexual abuse in 2002,” said Conference spokesman Walter Mueller.
The Diocese of Chur, in eastern Switzerland, said it was investigating around 10 complaints of abuse. “Our primary goal now is to help the victims,” the bishop’s representative, Christoph Casetti, told national Swiss television station SF1.
The abbot of a monastery in the diocese said at least three of the 77 monks at Einsiedeln had committed acts of abuse since he took up office in December 2001, but no legal action had been taken in any of the cases.
(Credit: CBS Graphic)
(AP) — The Boy Scouts of America has long kept an extensive archive of secret documents that chronicle the sexual abuse of young boys by Scout leaders over the years.
The “perversion files,” a nickname the Boy Scouts are said to have used for the documents, have rarely been seen by the public, but that could change in the coming weeks in a Portland, Ore., courtroom.
The attorney for a man who was allegedly molested in the 1980s by a Scout leader has obtained about 1,000 Boy Scouts sex files and is expected to release some of them at a trial that began Wednesday. The lawyer says the files show the organization has covered up abuse for decades.
On Friday, testimony from a Mormon bishop responsible for a Scout troop of church members suggested that the Scouts never provided training about spotting abuse or preventing it.
Read moreLawsuit: Sexual Abuse Of Boy Scouts By Scout Leaders
WASHINGTON, March 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Declassified files detailing an FBI investigation targeting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are now available on the Internet. AIPAC was investigated after it acquired and circulated classified government information provided in strict confidence by US industry and worker groups opposed to AIPAC sponsored economic legislation.
The 50 pages now available as portable document files (PDF) include:
FBI reports of Israelis circulating classified documents in the US Congress, “compromising” the authority of the U.S. President. http://irmep.org/ila/economy/06201984.pdf
US Trade Representative concerns that AIPAC was tactically “divulging” classified information supplied by US industries opposed to AIPAC lobbying initiatives. http://irmep.org/ila/economy/06211984.pdf
Reports from the International Trade Commission that AIPAC and Israeli operatives “usurped” US government authority and that an Israeli intelligence service operative was working undercover on AIPAC’s staff: http://irmep.org/ila/economy/08131984r.pdf
Internal Department of Justice prosecutorial opinions that “theft of government property” had occurred: http://irmep.org/ila/economy/08301984.pdf
An FBI director order that the Washington Field office give the AIPAC investigation top priority after Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was caught on video surveillance stealing classified US national defense information: http://irmep.org/ila/economy/11151985.pdf
FBI special agent interviews of Israeli minister of economics Dan Halpern who claimed diplomatic immunity. Halpern admitted passing classified US documents to AIPAC but refused to name his source: http://irmep.org/ila/economy/03071986DHALERN.pdf
FBI special agent interviews of AIPAC’s former director of legislative affairs detailing how he made copies of the classified documents for AIPAC’s lobbying use after being ordered to return them to the US government. http://irmep.org/ila/economy/02131986DB.pdf
FBI interviews of key AIPAC employees involved in handling the classified US government information (full document listing): http://irmep.org/ila/economy/
Read moreNew FBI Files Alleging AIPAC Theft of Government Property and Israeli Espionage Released
Related articles:
– FDIC Reports 27 Percent Jump In Problem US Banks
– FDIC Report: ‘We Were Broke And Getting Broker’
WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators on Friday shut down seven banks in five states, bringing to 37 the number of bank failures in the U.S. so far this year.
The closings follow the 140 that succumbed in 2009 to mounting loan defaults and the recession.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over First Lowndes Bank, in Fort Deposit, Ala.; Appalachian Community Bank in Ellijay, Ga.; Bank of Hiawassee, in Hiawassee, Ga.; and Century Security Bank in Duluth, Ga.
The agency also closed down State Bank of Aurora, in Aurora, Minn.; Advanta Bank Corp., based in Draper, Utah; and American National Bank of Parma, Ohio.
The FDIC was unable to find a buyer for Advanta Bank, which had $1.6 billion in assets and $1.5 billion in deposits. The regulatory agency approved the payout of the bank’s insured deposits and it said checks to depositors for their insured funds will be mailed on Monday.
The failure of Advanta Bank is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund $635.6 million.
For the other banks:
Read moreFDIC Seizes 7 More Banks; US Bank Failures In 2010 Rise To 37
See also: Obamacare Tax Hikes
Wall Street Journal, US House Republicans Say Health Bill Expands IRS Power:
House Republicans said Thursday that the health care overhaul will expand IRS authority by giving agents the power to verify acceptable health care coverage and fine or confiscate the tax refunds of Americans without coverage.
Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee, a panel that oversees taxes and health issues, also charged that IRS audits will likely increase if health care legislation is passed. They added the IRS will require up to $10 billion to administer the new program. They also claimed the IRS may need to hire 16,500 additional employees.
“This dangerously expands IRS authority,” said Representative David Camp, (R., Mich.), the ranking Republican on the Committee on Ways and Means. “Most Americans will find it shocking and troubling.”
Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:
March 19, 2010
Prof. Paul L. Caron
Associate Dean of Faculty
Charles Hartsock Professor of Law
Univ. of Cincinnati College of Law
Source: TaxProf Blog
More on Obamacare:
Washington (CNSNews.com) – The White House declined on Thursday to rule out that President Barack Obama might sign future legislation, such as an immigration reform measure, that has not been put to a recorded yea-or-nay vote in both houses of Congress.
CNSNews.com asked White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs about the possibility of the president doing so because of a prospective lawsuit that Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark Levin has prepared to file against the president if he signs a health care bill that has not been passed by a direct recorded yea-or-nay vote in the House of Representatives. The prospective lawsuit argues that the plain language of Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution requires that both houses of Congress hold recorded yea-or-nay votes on a bill before it can be presented to the president for his signature and before it can become law.
“I stated earlier that when this (health care) bill passes the House, the president will be happy to sign it,” Gibbs told CNSNews.com.
He twice declined to say, however, whether President Obama would rule out signing additional pieces of legislation that did not pass both chambers of Congress with a yea-or-nay vote.
CNSNews.com asked Gibbs: “Mark Levin, with the Landmark Legal Foundation, has prepared a suit against the president if he signs the health care bill not passed by the House with a recorded yea-or-nay vote required by Article 1 Section 7. My question on that is: Will the president rule out signing other bills, such as immigration reform, or finance reform you mentioned earlier, that are not subject to a recorded yea-or-nay vote in both chambers?”
Gibbs answered: “Again, this is–I think we’ve discussed on a number of occasions, certainly the last time we met inside – that this was the type of thing, the type of rule that you’ve seen pass on any number of instances. So, I understand that there are those that want to discuss this as being a unique thing. It is not. I stated earlier that when this bill passes the House, the president will be happy to sign it.”
CNSNews.com followed-up: “Is that still a constitutional argument in favor of it? That it has been done before?”
* Charleston man surprised when he found one while camping with daughter
Last month, Herman Jacob took his daughter and her friend camping in the Francis Marion National Forest. While poking around for some firewood, Jacob noticed a wire. He pulled on it and followed it to a video camera and antenna.
The camera didn’t have any markings identifying its owner, so Jacob took it home and called law enforcement agencies to find out if it was theirs, all the while wondering why someone would station a video camera in an isolated clearing in the woods.
He eventually received a call from Mark Heitzman of the U.S. Forest Service.
In a stiff voice, Heitzman ordered Jacob to turn it back over to his agency, explaining that it had been set up to monitor “illicit activities.” Jacob returned the camera but felt uneasy.
Why, he wondered, would the Forest Service have secret cameras in a relatively remote camping area? What do they do with photos of bystanders?
Read moreUS Forest Service admits putting surveillance cameras on public lands
The U.S. Federal Reserve (Bloomberg)
March 19 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve Board must disclose documents identifying financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest U.S. government bailout ever, a federal appeals court said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled today that the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched primarily after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The ruling upholds a decision of a lower-court judge, who in August ordered that the information be released.
The Fed had argued that disclosure of the documents threatens to stigmatize borrowers and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury,” discouraging banks in distress from seeking help. A three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected that argument in a unanimous decision.
The U.S. Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, “sets forth no basis for the exemption the Board asks us to read into it,” U.S. Circuit Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote in the opinion. “If the Board believes such an exemption would better serve the national interest, it should ask Congress to amend the statute.”
The opinion may not be the final word in the bid for the documents, which was launched by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, with a November 2008 lawsuit. The Fed may seek a rehearing or appeal to the full appeals court and eventually petition the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read moreUS Court: Federal Reserve Must Disclose Bank Bailout Records
FEMA Camps Courtesy of Google Earth (Click on image to enlarge.)
The Economic and Social Crisis
The financial meltdown has unleashed a latent and emergent social crisis across the United States.
What is at stake is the fraudulent confiscation of lifelong savings and pension funds, the appropriation of tax revenues to finance the trillion dollar “bank bailouts”, which ultimately serve to line the pockets of the richest people in America.
This economic crisis is in large part the result of financial manipulation and outright fraud to the detriment of entire populations, leading to a renewed wave of corporate bankruptcies, mass unemployment and poverty.
The criminalization of the global financial system, characterized by a “Shadow Banking” network has resulted in the centralization of bank power and an unprecedented concentration of private wealth.
Obama’s “economic stimulus” package and budget proposals contribute to a further process of concentration and centralization of bank power, the cumulative effects of which will eventually resul in large scale corporate, bankruptcies, a new wave of foreclosures not to mention fiscal collapse and the downfall of State social programs. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America’s Fiscal Collapse, Global Research, March 2, 2009).
The cumulative decline of real economic activity backlashes on employment and wages, which in turn leads to a collapse in purchaisng power. The proposed “solution” under the Obama administration contributes to exacerbating rather than alleviating social inequalities and the process of wealth concentration.
The Protest Movement
When people across America, whose lives have been shattered and destroyed, come to realize the true face of the global “free market” system, the legitimacy of Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the US administration will be challenged.
A latent protest movement directed against the seat of economic and political power is unfolding.
How this process will occur is hard to predict. All sectors of American society are potentially affected: wage earners, small, medium and even large businesses, farmers, professionals, federal, State and municipal employees, students, teachers, health workers, and unemployed. Protests will initially emerge from these various sectors. There is, however, at this stage, no organized national resistance movement directed against the administration’s economic and financial agenda.
Obama’s populist rhetoric conceals the true nature of macro-economic policy. Acting on behalf of Wall Street, the administration’s economic package, which includes close to a trillion dollar “aid” package for the financial services industry, coupled with massive austerity measures, contributes to precipitating America into a bottomless crisis.
“Orwellian Solution” to the Great Depression: Curbing Civil Unrest
At this particular juncture, there is no economic recovery program in sight. The Washington-Wall Street consensus prevails. There are no policies, no alternatives formulated from within the political and economic system. .
What is the way out? How will the US government face an impending social catastrophe?
The solution is to curb social unrest. The chosen avenue, inherited from the outgoing Bush administration is the reinforcement of the Homeland Security apparatus and the militarization of civilian State institutions.
The outgoing administration has laid the groundwork. Various pieces of “anti-terrorist” legislation (including the Patriot Acts) and presidential directives have been put in place since 2001, largely using the pretext of the “Global War on Terrorism.”
Homeland Security’s Internment Camps
Directly related to the issue of curbing social unrest, cohesive system of detention camps is also envisaged, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.
A bill entitled the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (HR 645) was introduced in the US Congress in January. It calls for the establishment of six national emergency centers in major regions in the US to be located on existing military installations. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-645
The stated purpose of the “national emergency centers” is to provide “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster.” In actuality, what we are dealing with are FEMA internment camps. HR 645 states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.”
There has been virtually no press coverage of HR 645.
These “civilian facilities” on US military bases are to be established in cooperation with the US Military. Modeled on Guantanamo, what we are dealing with is the militarization of FEMA internment facilities.
Once a person is arrested and interned in a FEMA camp located on a military base, that person would in all likelihood, under a national emergency, fall under the de facto jurisdiction of the Military: civilian justice and law enforcement including habeas corpus would no longer apply.
HR 645 bears a direct relationship to the economic crisis and the likelihood of mass protests across America. It constitutes a further move to militarize civilian law enforcement, repealing the Posse Comitatus Act.
In the words of Rep. Ron Paul:
“…the fusion centers, militarized police, surveillance cameras and a domestic military command is not enough… Even though we know that detention facilities are already in place, they now want to legalize the construction of FEMA camps on military installations using the ever popular excuse that the facilities are for the purposes of a national emergency. With the phony debt-based economy getting worse and worse by the day, the possibility of civil unrest is becoming a greater threat to the establishment. One need only look at Iceland, Greece and other nations for what might happen in the United States next.” (Daily Paul, September 2008, emphasis added)
The proposed internment camps should be seen in relation to the broader process of militarization of civilian institutions. The construction of internment camps predates the introduction of HR 645 (Establishment of Emergency Centers) in January 2009. There are, according to various (unconfirmed) reports, some 800 FEMA prison camps in different regions of the U.S. Moreover, since the 1980s, the US military has developed “tactics, techniques and procedures” to suppress civilian dissent, to be used in the eventuality of mass protests (United States Army Field Manual 19-15 under Operation Garden Plot, entitled “Civil Disturbances” was issued in 1985)
Read moreUS Government Preparing For Civil Unrest In America
Sen. Jay Rockefeller alarmed technology and telecommunications firms last year when he announced a plan for the president to seize “emergency” control of the Internet. Now the West Virginia Democrat is trying again with a new version that aides hope will be seen as less extreme.
During a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill on Wednesday attended by about a dozen industry representatives, CNET has learned, Rockefeller’s staff pitched a revised version of his controversial cybersecurity legislation.
It says that after the president chooses to “declare a cybersecurity emergency,” he can activate a “response and restoration plan” involving networks owned and operated by the private sector. In an attempt to limit criticism, instead of spelling out the plan’s details, the latest draft simply says that it must be developed by the White House in advance.
There is no requirement that the emergency response plan be made public, meaning it could still include a forcible disconnection of critical Web sites from the Internet–which is what the March 2009 version of the legislation had proposed.
– Here’s Why Putting The Fed In Charge Of Regulation Is A Joke (The Business Insider)
In the footnotes of a speech U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke would have given to the House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 10, lies a unique and startling disclosure.
Hosted on the Federal Reserve’s own servers, the written testimony of the bank’s chairman explains in plain text what expanding the Fed’s powers will do.
“The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system,” footnote number nine, at the bottom of the page, explains without additional qualification.
Read moreBen Bernanke: Fed wants end to ‘minimum reserve requirements’
Banks had been braced for Latvia’s government to collapse
The People’s Party, the largest group in a five-party coalition, walked out amid disputes over how to cope with the country’s severe problems.
Unemployment has now hit 20 per cent and the economy contracted by 18 per cent last year.
The People’s Party quit after its action plan failed to get the backing of Valdis Dombrovskis, the Latvian prime minister, who labelled it “populist”.
See also:
– Timmy-Gate: Did Geithner Help Hide Lehman’s Fraud? (Prof. L. Randall Wray)
– Dylan Ratigan & Eliot Spitzer on The Lehman Brothers Report (MSNBC)
– Report: JPMorgan, Citigroup helped trigger Lehman collapse (Telegraph)
– Lehman bosses used accountancy gimmick to cover up debt (Times)
– EXPLOSIVE: Lehman Corruption – Where Are The Cops? (Market Ticker)
March 18 (Bloomberg) — Ernst & Young LLP, the Big Four auditor that failed to keep Lehman Brothers from misleading investors about its financial condition, still can’t get its facts straight.
Last week, after Lehman’s bankruptcy examiner accused E&Y of malpractice in a report on the investment bank’s collapse, the accounting firm issued a brief statement standing by its audit work and offering up its best defense.
“After an exhaustive investigation, the examiner made no findings in his report that Lehman’s assets or liabilities were improperly valued or accounted for incorrectly in Lehman’s November 30, 2007, financial statements,” E&Y said, referring to the last fiscal year for which it performed a full-fledged audit of Lehman’s books.
Part of that statement is a half-truth. The other part stretches the truth past the breaking point.
It’s true the examiner, Anton Valukas, didn’t find that Lehman’s assets or liabilities were improperly valued at the end of 2007. One thing E&Y left out: Valukas did find evidence that Lehman used unreasonable asset values for the first and second quarters of 2008, including one investment he said was overvalued by as much as $500 million.
E&Y issued signed opinion letters for both quarters. Those letters, which Lehman disclosed in its financial filings, said the firm had reviewed Lehman’s financial statements and found nothing wrong.
‘False and Misleading’
The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the only animal in the world to have truly discovered the fountain of youth.
Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span. Scientists say the hydrozoan jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its polyp state (its first stage of life).
The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation and regenerate organs, such as salamanders, which can regrow limbs. Turritopsi nutricula, on the other hand, can regenerate its entire body over and over again. Researchers are studying the jellyfish to discover how it is able to reverse its aging process.
Gov. David A. Paterson
NEW YORK (CBS) ? For hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, the check won’t be in the mail — at least not on time. New York State has stopped paying tax refunds and won’t start again until next month.
The tax refund delay is part of a bigger cash crunch.
Message to New Yorkers: don’t start spending your tax refund money because it’s going to be delayed.
Half a billion dollars’ worth of refund checks were put on hold last Friday, and state beancounters won’t start sending you your money until at least April 1.
“I apologize that we had to do this. I hope it serves notice on the public of how serious our financial situation is,” Gov. David Paterson said.
Several hundred thousand New York taxpayers will be affected with most getting an average refund of $1,000. People who filed in late February and early March might have to wait as long as six weeks till the checks are in the mail.
The governor said the move was unavoidable. He’s also planning to withhold $1.5 billion in school payments and aid to local governments.
– Bank of England warns families to expect fall in living standards (Telegraph):
Families have been warned by the Bank of England to expect an effective pay cut in the coming months because of the economic climate.
And the Bank of England banksters should know what they are talking about, because with their quantitative easing (= creating money out of thin air = printing money = increasing the money supply = creating inflation.) policy they are destroying the pound!
Inflation is a hidden tax on monetary assets.
“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”
– John Maynard Keynes
See also:
– Europe’s Top Banks Brace For UK Debt Crisis And Sterling Debacle
Almost 4million Brits living abroad are planning a mass return to home shores after seeing their savings and income stripped by the plunging values of the pound and their property.
The dramatic slump has slashed their income by a third and has turned Brits into the paupers of Europe.
Fears over job security and falling property prices are also giving expats second thoughts, according to research from foreign exchange specialist Moneycorp.
Some 845,000 Brits living in Spain and France have suffered an 8 per cent drop in house prices in the year to August 2009 alone. This wiped €30,000 off the average property on the Costa del Sol.
Sterling has slumped from over €1.50 to £1 in January 2007 to close to parity, taking a terrible toll on the estimated 5.5million British expats, and particularly the 1.1million pensioners living abroad. Moneycorp research shows that 70 per cent of all expats are now considering returning to the UK.
‘Truth is treason in the empire of lies’
‘Let the revolution begin!’
– Ron Paul
So WikiLeaks must have done everything right.
To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret.
The Pentagon assessed the danger WikiLeaks.org posed to the in a report marked “unauthorized disclosure subject to criminal sanctions.” It concluded that “WikiLeaks.org represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC and INFOSEC threat to the ” — or, in plain English, a threat to Army operations and information.
WikiLeaks, true to its mission to publish materials that expose secrets of all kinds, published the 2008 Pentagon report about itself on Monday.
Lt. Col. Lee Packnett, an Army spokesman, confirmed that the report was real. Julian Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks, said the concerns the report raised were hypothetical.
“It did not point to anything that has actually happened as a result of the release,” Mr. Assange said. “It contains the analyst’s best guesses as to how the information could be used to harm the Army but no concrete examples of any real harm being done.”
WikiLeaks, a nonprofit organization, has rankled governments and companies around the world with its publication of materials intended to be kept secret. For instance, the Army’s report says that in 2008, access to the Web site in the United States was cut off by court order after Bank Julius Baer, a Swiss financial institution, sued it for publishing documents implicating Baer in money laundering, grand larceny and tax evasion. Access was restored after two weeks, when the bank dropped its case.
Governments, including those of North Korea and Thailand, also have tried to prevent access to the site and complained about its release of materials critical of their governments and policies.
The Army’s interest in WikiLeaks appears to have been spurred by, among other things, its publication and analysis of classified and unclassified Army documents containing information about military equipment, units, operations and “nearly the entire order of battle” for American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in April 2007.
WikiLeaks also published an outdated, unclassified copy of the “standard operating procedures” at the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. WikiLeaks said the document revealed methods by which the military prevented prisoners from meeting with the International Red Cross and the use of “extreme psychological stress” as a means of torture.
Read morePentagon Adds WikiLeaks to The List of Enemies Threatening National Security
– House Health Care Bill Includes 3.8% Medicare Tax on Investment Income:
The House Health Care bill unveiled today includes a 3.8% Medicare tax on investment income (interest, dividends, capital gains, annuities, rents) earned by those with incomes in excess of $200,000 (single) and $250,000 (joint).
March 18, 2010
– WSJ: Obama’s ‘Sneaky’ New Tax on Investments:
Wall Street Journal editorial, Obama’s New Investment Tax: A Sneaky Medicare Levy on Dividends and Capital Gains:
The White House’s new health-care proposal promises the “largest middle class tax cut for health care in history,” which is a creative way of describing a vast taxpayer-subsidized insurance entitlement. Naturally, the fine print goes on to describe one of the largest tax increases for health care in history, too.
This new ObamaCare bargain would for the first time apply the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax to “interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents,” so-called passive income that we are told includes capital gains, though the latter wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the proposal. This antigrowth investment tax would apply to singles earning more than $200,000 and joint filers over $250,000 and comes on top of the Senate’s 0.9-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax, which would bring the combined employee-employer share to 3.8%.
The rate hike on investment income would presumably take effect at the same time the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts are due to expire next year, bringing the top rate to 22.9% as the current top capital gains rate would also rise to 20% from 15%. That’s a 52% jump, and the last time investors were slammed with anything comparable was 1986 when the capital gains rate bounced to 28% from 20%—or a 40% increase—as part of the Reagan tax reform that reduced income tax rates. …
If Americans need another reason to oppose ObamaCare, or more evidence of its destructiveness, here it is.
Police say Ramos-Lopez, fired from a Texas auto dealership, went online for revenge as part of a “harmless prank.”
More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.
Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership’s four Austin-area lots.
“We initially dismissed it as mechanical failure,” says Texas Auto Center manager Martin Garcia. “We started having a rash of up to a hundred customers at one time complaining. Some customers complained of the horns going off in the middle of the night. The only option they had was to remove the battery.”
The dealership used a system called Webtech Plus as an alternative to repossessing vehicles that haven’t been paid for. Operated by Cleveland-based Pay Technologies, the system lets car dealers install a small black box under vehicle dashboards that responds to commands issued through a central website, and relayed over a wireless pager network. The dealer can disable a car’s ignition system, or trigger the horn to begin honking, as a reminder that a payment is due. The system will not stop a running vehicle.
Read moreHacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely Over Internet
See also:
– Rep. Dennis Kucinich willing to cast the vote that kills health reform
– Rep. Dennis Kucinich: Health reform legislation ‘a bailout for insurance companies’
Dennis Kucinich has probably been told that the USS Titanic will sink very fast, if the health care bill is not passed NOW.
Have they put a gun to his head?
Dennis Kucinich is off my very short list of righteous congressmen.
More signs that health care bill is desperately needed to slow the sinking of the USS Titanic:
– US healthcare bill to cut deficit, CBO says (Reuters)
Why has CNN removed this video?
– Health care bill will cut deficit, Nancy Pelosi says. (CNN)
The healthcare bill cuts the deficit? Sounds like a tax increase, doesn’t it?:
Added: 17. März 2010
More on Obamacare:
Read moreAnd Now: Rep. Dennis Kucinich Will Support Senate Health Care Bill
The Catholic church in Ireland was today embroiled in another child abuse scandal after allegations that a victim was paid to keep quiet in a deal overseen by the bishop of Derry.
Bishop Seamus Hegarty was named as a party in a confidential civil settlement after a woman claimed she was abused by a priest for more than a decade, according to a report in today’s Belfast Telegraph. According to the newspaper, the claim was settled without admission of liability but with a payment of £12,000 to the alleged victim. The settlement between the archdiocese of Derry and the woman, who was eight when the abuse began, reportedly contained a confidentiality clause preventing her from discussing the case.
See also:
– Catholic Church Child Abuse: Nuns Now Also Accused (Radio Netherlands Worldwide)
– Church: Pope Had Role in Moving Molesting Priest (Bloomberg)
– Pope knew priest was paedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry (Times)
– Pope will struggle to survive abuse scandal (Irish Independent)
– Benedict’s involvement ’shows extent of cover-ups’ (Irish Independent)
– Sinead O’Connor: I’d help Jesus to burn down the Vatican (Irish Independent)
– RIGHTS-GERMANY: ‘Catholic Church Protects Paedophile Priests’ (IPS)
– Child abuse claims sweep Catholic Church in Europe (AP)
Her ordeal allegedly began in 1979 and lasted for a decade before she revealed at her 18th birthday party that she had been repeatedly abused by the priest.
The allegation came as further developments in similar abuse scandals in Germany and Austria compounded the woes of Pope Benedict XVI. In Germany, the archbishop of Munich, Reinhard Marx, said Catholic bishops in Benedict’s home state of Bavaria felt “deep consternation and shame” at the reports of abuse.
Read moreIrish Catholic Church Paid Child Sex Abuse Victim To Keep Quiet
