Ron Paul To Ben Bernanke: ‘People Lose Trust In The Government Because You Lie To Them About Inflation’ – ‘98% Of The Dollar Value Is GONE From The 1913 Dollar!’

Must-see!

On inflation:

Inflation Calculation Leaves Out Food, Energy Prices (NPR)

A Tale Of Two Inflations: Why US CPI Is Flawed And Why Bernanke Will Maintain ZIRP As Revolutions Rage (ZeroHedge)


Ron Paul To Ben Bernanke: “People Lose Trust In The Government Because You Lie To Them About Inflation”(ZeroHedge, Feb. 29, 2012):

Anytime Ron Paul sits across from Ben Bernanke you know sparks will fly. Sure enough, they did: starting 3 mins 50 seconds into the clip below, Ron Paul, guns blazing, asks the Chairman if he does his own shopping, if he is aware of what true inflation is, and if he knows that Americans don’t trust the government because they are being lied to about inflation. And it only gets better, once Paul starts brandishing a silver coin. The punchline: “The Fed will self-destruct anyway when the money is gone” – amen. And ironically letting the Fed keep on doing what it is doing will achieve that in the fastest possible way. In fact, letting the system cannibalize itself with no further hindrances may be the best option currently available – just go to town.


YouTube Added: 29.02.2012

HILARIOUS: Ben Bernanke: ‘The ECB Is Well Capitalized’

ROFL!


Ben Bernanke: “The ECB Is Well Capitalized” (ZeroHedge, Feb. 29, 2012):

This will be one of those “one picture is worth a thousand words” posts.

A quick preface:

During Congressional testimony, Ben Bernanke defended the Fed’s FX swap lines by saying that the ECB was “well-capitalized.” So instead of spending countless words explaining why that may not be quite so, we will merely show the bank’s total assets (net of LTRO 2) and its capital and reserves (link). The adjusted balance sheet is pro forma for today’s LTRO 2, which we noted earlier will add at least €311 billion in net assets to the ECB’s balance sheet, and potentially much more. Assuming the minimum, it means the ECB’s balance sheet will now hit €3 trillion. The capital backing these assets is €82 billion across the entire Eurosystem. In other words, the ECB’s leverage is 36.6x. This according to Ben Bernanke is “well-capitalized.”

And visually.

Irish EU Treaty Vote Threatens Chaos

Irish EU treaty vote threatens chaos (Telegraph, Feb. 28, 2012):

Ireland has shocked Europe with plans for a referendum on the EU’s fiscal treaty, a move that risks an unprecedented fragmentation of the eurozone and a major clash with Germany.

Premier Enda Kenny said Dublin was acting on legal advice from Ireland’s attorney-general that “on balance” the fiscal compact requires a vote under the country’s constitution. “It gives the Irish people the opportunity to reaffirm Ireland’s commitment to membership of the euro,” he told ashen-faced members of the Dail.

All three major parties back the treaty but analysts say there is a high risk of rejection by angry voters in the current fractious mood. The compact gives the EU intrusive powers to police the budgets of debtor states, and has been denounced as feudal bondage by Sinn Fein and Ireland’s vociferous eurosceptics. The Irish voted “No” to both the Nice and Lisbon treaties before being made to vote again. Dublin has ruled out a second vote this time.

Poll: Ron Paul Triumphs Over Obama For The First Time Nationally

Poll: Ron Paul triumphs over Obama for the first time nationally (The State Column, Feb. 27, 2012):

Fans of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul will rejoice upon hearing the following news: Congressman Paul (R-TX) has defeated President Barack Obama in a Rasmussen Reports daily presidential tracking poll of general election voters released Monday. This is the first time that Mr. Paul has bested Mr. Obama in a Rasmussen Reports poll. Mr. Paul garnered 43 percent of the votes among general election voters and Mr. Obama pulled 41 percent of the votes.

Read morePoll: Ron Paul Triumphs Over Obama For The First Time Nationally

CIA Admits Using MSM To Manipulate The USA (Video)


YouTube

CIA Controlled Media: CIA Admits Using News To Manipulate the USA (The Intel Hub, Feb. 27, 2012):

An archived clip of different Congressional hearings exposes the fact that the CIA directly plants stories in the media, both in the United States and the rest of the world.

Question: Do you have any people being paid by the CIA who are contributing to a major circulation journal?

Answer: We do have people who submit pieces to American journals.

Question: Do you have any people paid by the CIA who are working for television networks?

Answer: This I think gets into the details id like to get into in executive session. (so the public doesn’t hear how we control all the networks)

Considering that this was going on in the 1950s, it is highly likely that this is happening now and at a much larger extent. The CIA and other government agencies literally control the corporate controlled media.

Anytime you hear a story on the major networks that has any implication in US foreign or domestic policy rest assured that it was, at the very least, vetted by the CIA before being released.

In the early 90s CNN was also used to test Army psychological operations.

“The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
– William Colby, former CIA director

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
– William Casey, CIA Director (from first staff meeting, 1981)

“Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the State.”
– James Angleton, head of CIA counter intelligence from 1954-1974

“I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo.”
– Harry S. Truman

“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.”
– J. Edgar Hoover, ex-FBI director on the New World Order conspiracy

“If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts.”
– George H. W. Bush

” I will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.”
– John F. Kennedy

“Fifty men have run America, and that’s a high figure.”
– Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, in the July 26th, l936 issue of The New York Times

“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar weekly salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
– John Swinton, former New York Times Chief of Staff

David Icke: When The Knock Comes On Your Door! & The Madness Of War! (Video)


YouTube Added: 25.02.2012

David Icke: The Madness of King Obama …The Fake President (Video)


YouTube Added: 27.02.2012

See also:

George Carlin: The Illusion Of Freedom – ‘This Country Finshed!’

Bill Hicks: ‘Go Back To Bed America!’ (Video)

George Carlin: The American Dream (Video)

Divide And Rule – George Carlin And Bill Hicks Tell It Like It Is

Syria Crops Sheltered In Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault … To Protect Them From Wars And Natural Disasters

Flashback:
More Seeds For Doomsday Seed Vault

Investors Behind Doomsday Seed Vault May Provide Clues to Its Purpose (Part 2):

The group of investors includes The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation, and the Government of Norway.

African seed collection first to arrive in Norway on route to Arctic seed vault

Scientists to capture DNA of trees worldwide for database

Hungary to start the world’s first wild seed bank

Experts prepare for lunar ‘Doomsday Ark’

‘Doomsday’ seed vault opens in Arctic

See also:

Interview With US General Wesley Clark (Ret.): US Government Planned To ‘Take Out 7 Countries In 5 Years’: ‘Starting With Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan And Finishing Off Iran



FILE – This is a Feb. 26, 2008 file photo showing the Svalbard Global Seed Vault near Longyearbyen in Svalbard, Norway

Syria crops sheltered in Arctic doomsday vault (Deseret News, Feb. 28, 2012):

STOCKHOLM — Chick peas, fava beans and other seeds from a facility in Syria are among the 25,000 new samples being deposited this week in an Arctic seed vault built to protect food crops from wars and natural disasters, officials said Tuesday.

The latest additions mean that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault — a master backup to the world’s other seed banks — has now secured more than 740,000 samples since it opened in a remote Norwegian archipelago in 2008.

That represents an estimated three-quarters of the biological diversity of the world’s major food crops, said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which maintains the vault with Norway’s government and the Nordic Genetic Resources Center.

With the shipment from the Syria-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, almost its entire collection is now backed up in Svalbard, Fowler told The Associated Press.

“I think the events unfolding in Syria obviously underline the importance of having safety duplication outside of a country,” he said, adding the facility had not been damaged in the military crackdown on an anti-government uprising.

He noted that wars destroyed seed banks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another one in Egypt was looted during last year’s uprising.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault — sometimes referred to as a doomsday vault — is designed to withstand global warming, earthquakes and even nuclear strikes.

Read moreSyria Crops Sheltered In Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault … To Protect Them From Wars And Natural Disasters

Ministry of Agriculture Allows Rice To Be Grown In Almost All Areas In Fukushima

Ministry of Agriculture to Allow Rice to Be Grown in Almost All Areas in Fukushima This Year, Just Like Last Year (EX-SKF, Feb. 28, 2012):

except for a few districts where rice with high level of radioactive cesium exceeding 500 becquerels/kg was found in last year’s testing.

Well why not? The government didn’t stop farmers in Fukushima from planting rice last year, right after three explosions (possibly 4, counting Reactor 2’s Suppression Chamber) at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant released 650,000 terabecquerels (iodine equivalent) of radioactive materials. They apparently told some reluctant farmers if they didn’t grow rice they wouldn’t be compensated. So the farmers in Fukushima tilled the land, mixed up the contaminated soil and poured water in the rice paddies and grew rice. If they could do it last year, surely they can do it this year, and next year, and year after next year.

Farmers in the areas where rice with radioactive cesium between 100 becquerels/kg and 500 becquerels/kg was found last year will be allowed to grow rice this year, even though the new safety limit for radioactive cesium in food will be 100 becquerels/kg starting April 1, 2012.

Read moreMinistry of Agriculture Allows Rice To Be Grown In Almost All Areas In Fukushima

AP: ‘Probe Finds Japan Withheld Risks Of Nuke Disaster’

See also:

Independent Investigation Commission on Fukushima Accident: Confusion from Interference by PM Kan and His Ministers Made the Situation Much Worse (EX-SKF, Feb. 27, 2012)


AP: “Probe finds Japan withheld risks of nuke disaster” (EX-SKF, Feb. 28, 2012):

Here’s AP’s Japanese reporter’s take on the report by the private independent investigation commission set up by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (RJIF).

One of the issues that AP focuses in the article below is whether TEPCO did want to abandon the plant on March 15. The private RJIF commission sides with the Kan administration that TEPCO did, and only PM Kan’s strong word persuaded TEPCO to keep a small number of workers to continue to work on the plant.

Read moreAP: ‘Probe Finds Japan Withheld Risks Of Nuke Disaster’

Russian Mogul Dmitry Itskov’s Avatar Project For Immortality: Plant Our Brains in Robots, Keep Them Alive Forever


YouTube

Russian Mogul’s Plan: Plant Our Brains in Robots, Keep Them Alive Forever (Wired, Feb. 29, 2012):

The Pentagon’s new Avatar project, unveiled by Danger Room a few weeks back, sounds freaky enough: Soldiers practically inhabiting the bodies of robots, who’d act as “surrogates” for their human overlords in battle.

But according to Dmitry Itskov, a 31-year-old Russian media mogul, the U.S. military’s Avatar initiative doesn’t go nearly far enough. He’s got a massive, sci-fi-esque venture of his own that he hopes will put the Pentagon’s project to shame. Itskov’s plan: Construct robots that’ll (within 10 years, he hopes) actually store a human’s mind and keep that consciousness working. Forever.

“This project is leading down the road to immortality,” Itskov, who founded New Media Stars, a Russian company that runs several online news outlets, tells Danger Room. “A person with a perfect Avatar will be able to remain part of society. People don’t want to die.”

Itskov’s project, also called “Avatar,” actually precedes the Pentagon’s. He launched the initiative a year ago, but recently divulged more details to a group of futurists — including Ray Kurzweil — at a three-day conference, called Global Future 2045, held in Moscow.

Read moreRussian Mogul Dmitry Itskov’s Avatar Project For Immortality: Plant Our Brains in Robots, Keep Them Alive Forever

Tour Of ‘Fragile’ Fukushima Nuclear Plant Shows Shocking State Of Disrepair

Flashback:

If reactor 4 SFP collapses:

At this moment, one of the biggest risk is the SFP of reactor 4.

Japanese government talks they need to evacuate further than 250km (Around Yokohama), but this would be a lie as always.

Dr. Arnie Gundersen warns they need to go further than 450km.

Here FD puts the map just for your information.


Tour of ‘fragile’ Fukushima nuclear plant shows shocking state of disrepair (Oakland Tribune, Feb. 28, 2012):

OKUMA, Japan — Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima power plant remains fragile nearly a year after it suffered multiple meltdowns, its chief said Tuesday, with makeshift equipment — some mended with tape — keeping crucial systems running.

An independent report, meanwhile, revealed that the government downplayed the full danger in the days after the March 11 disaster and secretly considered evacuating Tokyo.

Read moreTour Of ‘Fragile’ Fukushima Nuclear Plant Shows Shocking State Of Disrepair

Federal Public Health Agency: 10 MilliSieverts/Year Of Ionizing Radiation ‘Do Pose A Serious, Long-Term Health Effect’

Wikipedia:

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is a federal public health agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

From the article:

“… the levels of ionizing radiation do pose a serious, long-term health effect as exposures can approach or exceed 1 rem per year for persons associated with future industrial, commercial, or residential development. Furthermore, when coupled with the possible incidental ingestion of radionuclide-contaminated sludge, these risks are increased as the radiation dose from the ionizing radiation component must be added to the radiation dose from the ingestion pathway. At this potential level of exposure the chance of leukemia, other cancers, or organ damage is greatly increased.”

Public Health Assessments & Health Consultations (ATSDR)

PUBLIC HEALTH ASSESSMENT

KERR-MCGEE REFINERY SITE
CUSHING, PAYNE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION AND OTHER HAZARDS

A. On-Site and Off-Site Contamination

Read moreFederal Public Health Agency: 10 MilliSieverts/Year Of Ionizing Radiation ‘Do Pose A Serious, Long-Term Health Effect’

U.S. Air Force Getting A New ‘Optionally-Manned’ Bomber Capable Of Carrying Nuclear Weapons

U.S. Getting a New Bomber (The Diplomat, Feb. 27, 2012):

The U.S. Air Force is making progress on a new long-range bomber, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said at a trade conference in Florida last week. “There’s a competition,” Donley said, according to DoDBuzz.

“The program is underway, the requirements, the cost parameters have been set by the Secretary of Defense and we’re executing in that direction…we’ve identified the target delivery for the mid ‘20s.”

Read moreU.S. Air Force Getting A New ‘Optionally-Manned’ Bomber Capable Of Carrying Nuclear Weapons

Vaccination Rights Attorney Patricia Finn Threatened With Criminal Charges; New York State Demands She Surrender Names Of All Clients

See also:

US Government Agents Now Search Homemade Lunches Of Schoolchildren


– Vaccination rights attorney Patricia Finn threatened with criminal charges; New York State demands she surrender names of all clients (Natural News, Feb. 28, 2012):

Vaccine rights attorney Patricia Finn is being targeted by the Ninth Judicial District of New York State, which has threatened to strip her of her license to practice law and even file criminal charges against her. Finn is one of several “vaccine rights” attorneys across America who helps parents assert their rights to protect their children from potentially deadly vaccines. She’s considered a hero by many, but a villain by the status quo for daring to stand up against the vaccine-pimping medical police state that exists in America today.

I personally interviewed Patricia Finn for InfoWars Nightly News last night (February 27, 2012), and during that interview I saw and read the documents that contain the charges being leveled against her. Watch that full video interview at:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=C502580E9AE582072C0E9EBD916E2477

One document described her vaccine rights advocacy as “threatening the public interest,” asserting that her helping parents legally and ethically avoid toxic vaccines somehow puts the public at risk. This accusation makes absolutely no logical sense, of course, given that even the vaccine pushers claim their vaccines offer absolute and total immunity against infectious disease. Therefore, how can an unvaccinated child ever threaten the health of a vaccinated child?

New York demands Patricia Finn surrender her list of clients

Read moreVaccination Rights Attorney Patricia Finn Threatened With Criminal Charges; New York State Demands She Surrender Names Of All Clients

How To Remove Your Google Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

FYI.


How to Remove Your Google Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Takes Effect (Electronic Frontier Foundation):

Note that removing your Web History also pauses it. Web History will remain off until you enable it again.

[UPDATE 2/22/2012]: Note that disabling Web History in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes. It also does not change the fact that any information gathered and stored by Google could be sought by law enforcement.

With Web History enabled, Google will keep these records indefinitely; with it disabled, they will be partially anonymized after 18 months, and certain kinds of uses, including sending you customized search results, will be prevented. If you want to do more to reduce the records Google keeps, the advice in EFF’s Six Tips to Protect Your Search Privacy white paper remains relevant.

If you have several Google accounts, you will need to do this for each of them.

How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy (Digital Journal, Feb. 24, 2012):

With just a week to go before Google changes to its new privacy policy that allows it to gather, store and use personal information, users have a last chance to delete their Google Browsing History, along with any damning information therein.

Tech News Daily reports that once Google’s new unified privacy policy takes effect all data already collected about you, including search queries, sites visited, age, gender and location will be gathered and assigned to your online identity represented by your Gmail and YouTube accounts.

After the policy takes effect you are not allowed to opt out without abandoning Google altogether. But now before the policy takes effect, you have the option of deleting your Google Web History by modifying your settings so that Google is unable to associate data collected about you with your Gmail or YouTube accounts. Tech News Daily reports that Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that advocates for online privacy, says: “Search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more.”

EFF advises all Google users to delete their web history.

Meanwhile, Center for Digital Democracy has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, asking the Commission to sue Google to stop the policy change.

Tech News Daily reports FTC can impose fines up to $16,000 per day for violation.

Daily Mail reports that deleting your browsing history before March 1 when Google’s new privacy policy comes into effect will limit Google’s ability to track and record your every move online. The process is simple. Follow the steps below:

Read moreHow To Remove Your Google Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

Mystery Virus Kills Thousands Of Lambs, Threatens Survival Of Many British Farms

See also:

All 40 H5N1 Exposed Ferrets DIED

US Government Paid Dutch Researchers To Mutate Deadly H5N1 Virus And Make It Go AIRBORNE!!!


Mystery virus kills thousands of lambs (Telegraph, Feb. 25, 2012):

Thousands of lambs have been killed by a new virus that is threatening the survival of many British farms.

The Schmallenberg virus causes lambs to be born dead or with serious deformities such as fused limbs and twisted necks, which mean they cannot survive.

Scientists are urgently trying to find out how the disease, which also affects cattle, spreads and how to fight it, as the number of farms affected increases by the day.

So far, 74 farms across southern and eastern England have been hit by the virus, which arrived in this country in January.

Read moreMystery Virus Kills Thousands Of Lambs, Threatens Survival Of Many British Farms

Mainstream Column Admits Vaccines Cause Cancer In Pets

Mainstream column admits vaccines cause cancer in pets (Natural News, Feb. 27, 2012):

Did you know that vaccinating your cat with the typical, recommended feline vaccination schedule may lead to your furry friend developing cancer? In a recent article published in The Ledger, Karri Miller, Central Florida’s only full-time board certified veterinary oncologist, admits that inflammation caused by vaccines can cause some cats to develop cancer years down the road — and yet she still recommends that people have their pets vaccinated.

A telling admission about the serious risks associated with vaccines, Miller’s report highlights the fact that at least one out of every 10,000 cats develops “vaccine-associated sarcomas” as a result of getting vaccinated. Whether it is the mandatory rabies vaccine, or the host of other viral and bacterial vaccines commonly administered to felines, vaccinated cats admittedly have an increased risk of developing cancer in response to the injections.

Vaccine task force says keep injecting cats with cancer-causing vaccines, but do so in spots that will be easy to remove tumors later

The issue has become so serious, in fact, that the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) developed a “Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force” (VAFSTF) back in 1996 to keep track of the prevalence of the condition, and to investigate ways to help mitigate and prevent it. Besides simply not vaccinating cats at all, the only thing this task force has really come up with so far as a solution is to simply inject vaccines in different spots on cats’ bodies so that, should a tumor end up developing there, it will be easy to treat it with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation (http://www.avma.org/vafstf/sitercmnd.asp).

In other words, vaccines will continue to cause cancer in cats, so the best way, in these experts’ minds, to address the problem is to inject vaccines in areas that will be easier for surgeons to access in the event that they have to remove a tumor at the site. Never would these experts caution cat owners against getting the harmful vaccines in the first place, of course, or at the very least reduce the number of vaccines they choose to get for their cats.

Read moreMainstream Column Admits Vaccines Cause Cancer In Pets

Mitt Romney Lays Out His Economic Vision – In Empty 65,000-Seat Stadium

Romney lays out economic vision – in mostly empty stadium (MSNBC, Feb. 24, 2012):


Picture of the Day: Romney Speaks to an Empty Stadium (The Atlantic, Feb. 24, 2012):

Question: Who schedules a speech in a 65,000-seat stadium if he only expects 1,200 attendees?

Answer: Mitt Romney.

‘S&P Declares Greece in Default’ (Wall Street Journal) – ‘The Greek Default Begins (Sky News) – ECB Puts Greek Banks On Emergency Aid After Downgrade (Reuters)

ECB puts Greek banks on emergency aid after downgrade (Reuters, Feb. 28, 2012):

Greece’s central bank is likely to step in to smooth funding for the country’s banks after an earlier-than-expected downgrade of the nation’s credit rating prevented them from borrowing against Greek government bonds.

S&P Declares Greece in Default (Wall Street Journal, Feb. 28, 2012):

Greece became the first euro-zone member officially to be rated in default, 13 years after the single European currency was adopted to strengthen the European Union.

Standard & Poor’s cut Greece’s long-term credit rating to selective default from double-C. The move was expected, as S&P said this month that it would consider Greece in default if it added “collective-action” clauses to its sovereign debt, effectively forcing all bondholders to accept a bond-swap offering. …

The Greek Default Begins (Sky News, Feb. 28, 2012):

The talking is over; it is finally happening. For the first time since World War Two, a developed nation is going into default.

That’s the significance of the events of the past 24 hours, with Greece’s debt being classified as in “selective default” and the European Central Bank banning it from its cash window. Months of planning by both banks and policymakers have gone into ensuring that Greece’s negotiated default will be a smooth painless process. We are about to find out whether that planning pays off.

Now, we shouldn’t be surprised by Standard & Poor’s decision to cut the rating on Greece’s sovereign debt from CC to SD (which stands for “selective default”). The ratings agencies had always said that, given private investors are about to lose just over half the value of their debt (through a complex bond swap), this downgrade would be a natural consequence.

Nor should we be shocked that the ECB says it will no longer accept Greek debt as collateral: in fact, the only surprise is that it’s taken this long – on the basis of the ECB’s previous policy, the bonds should have become ineligible when were first downgraded from investment status two years ago.

Read more‘S&P Declares Greece in Default’ (Wall Street Journal) – ‘The Greek Default Begins (Sky News) – ECB Puts Greek Banks On Emergency Aid After Downgrade (Reuters)

So Greece ‘Defaults’ And Europe Moves On …

FYI.


So Greece ‘Defaults’ And Europe Moves On… (ZeroHedge, Feb. 28, 2012):

Via Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors,

So far there are no dramatic consequences of the Greek default. The ECB did say they couldn’t accept it as collateral, but national central banks (including Greece’s somehow solvent NCB) can, so no real change.  We will likely get a Credit Event prior to March 20th once CAC’s are used to get the deal fully done.  Will the market respond much to that?  Probably not, though there is a higher risk of unforeseen consequences from that, than there was from the S&P downgrade.

Read moreSo Greece ‘Defaults’ And Europe Moves On …

‘Ethicists’: “… ‘AFTER-BIRTH ABORTION’ (Killing A Newborn) Should Be Permissible In All The Cases Where Abortion Is, Including Cases Where The Newborn Is Not Disabled”

In other news:

Ethicists Argue in Favor of ‘After-Birth Abortions‘ as Newborns ’Are Not Persons’ (The Blaze, Feb. 27, 2012):

Two ethicists working with Australian universities argue in the latest online edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics that if abortion of a fetus is allowable, so to should be the termination of a newborn.

Alberto Giubilini with Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne write that in “circumstances occur[ing] after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.”

The two are quick to note that they prefer the term “after-birth abortion“ as opposed to ”infanticide.” Why? Because it “[emphasizes] that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child.” The authors also do not agree with the term euthanasia for this practice as the best interest of the person who would be killed is not necessarily the primary reason his or her life is being terminated. In other words, it may be in the parents’ best interest to terminate the life, not the newborns.


Paper: After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? (Journal of Medical Ethics):

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Authors:

  1. Alberto Giubilini 1,2,
  2. Francesca Minerva 3,4

Author Affiliations

  1. 1Department of Philosophy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
  2. 2Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. 3Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  4. 4Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Oxford University, Oxford, UK

More info on the authors:

Read more‘Ethicists’: “… ‘AFTER-BIRTH ABORTION’ (Killing A Newborn) Should Be Permissible In All The Cases Where Abortion Is, Including Cases Where The Newborn Is Not Disabled”

Russia Foils Plot To Assasinate Vladimir Putin

FYI.


Russia ‘thwarts plot’ to assassinate Putin (AFP, Feb. 27, 2012):

MOSCOW — Russia said on Monday its secret services had thwarted a plot hatched in a Ukrainian port city by suspected militants from Chechnya to assassinate Vladimir Putin after next weekend’s presidential vote.

State television showed the two men confessing to conspiring to kill the Russian strongman in a bombing attack that was revealed to the public less than a week before Putin’s likely victory in Sunday’s election.

The plot was confirmed by Putin’s spokesman as well as the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and its Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) counterpart, who worked jointly to break up the conspiracy.

The purported confessions showed the two men saying they acted on the orders of Chechen Islamist militant Doku Umarov — the warlord who has claimed Moscow’s deadliest airport and metro bombings in the past two years.

Russia foils ‘Chechen plot’ to assassinate Vladimir Putin (Telegraph, Feb. 27, 2012):

State television in Russia said that special forces had seized two conspirators in Odessa, southern Ukraine, after an explosion in an apartment in January.

The Chechen alleged ringleader, Adam Osmayev, 31, has reportedly confessed to planning the assassination on the orders of Doku Umarov, the emir of the Islamist insurgency against Moscow’s rule in the North Caucasus region.

Read moreRussia Foils Plot To Assasinate Vladimir Putin