Not guilty. The Israeli captain who emptied his rifle into a Palestinian schoolgirl | World news | The Guardian
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.
The soldier, who has only been identified as "Captain R", was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.
The manner of Iman's killing, and the revelation of a tape recording in which the captain is warned that she was just a child who was "scared to death", made the shooting one of the most controversial since the Palestinian intifada erupted five years ago even though hundreds of other children have also died.
After the verdict, Iman's father, Samir al-Hams, said the army never intended to hold the soldier accountable.
"They did not charge him with Iman's murder, only with small offences, and now they say he is innocent of those even though he shot my daughter so many times," he said. "This was the cold-blooded murder of a girl. The soldier murdered her once and the court has murdered her again. What is the message? They are telling their soldiers to kill Palestinian children."
The military court cleared the soldier of illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and perverting the course of justice by asking soldiers under his command to alter their accounts of the incident.
Capt R's lawyers argued that the "confirmation of the kill" after a suspect is shot was a standard Israeli military practice to eliminate terrorist threats.
Following the verdict, Capt R burst into tears, turned to the public benches and said: "I told you I was innocent."
The army's official account said that Iman was shot for crossing into a security zone carrying her schoolbag which soldiers feared might contain a bomb. It is still not known why the girl ventured into the area but witnesses described her as at least 100 yards from the military post which was in any case well protected.
A recording of radio exchanges between Capt R and his troops obtained by Israeli television revealed that from the beginning soldiers identified Iman as a child.
In the recording, a soldier in a watchtower radioed a colleague in the army post's operations room and describes Iman as "a little girl" who was "scared to death". After soldiers first opened fire, she dropped her schoolbag which was then hit by several bullets establishing that it did not contain explosive. At that point she was no longer carrying the bag and, the tape revealed, was heading away from the army post when she was shot.
Although the military speculated that Iman might have been trying to "lure" the soldiers out of their base so they could be attacked by accomplices, Capt R made the decision to lead some of his troops into the open. Shortly afterwards he can be heard on the recording saying that he has shot the girl and, believing her dead, then "confirmed the kill".
"I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over," he said.
Palestinian witnesses said they saw the captain shoot Iman twice in the head, walk away, turn back and fire a stream of bullets into her body.
On the tape, Capt R then "clarifies" to the soldiers under his command why he killed Iman: "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the [security] zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed."
At no point did the Israeli troops come under attack.
The prosecution case was damaged when a soldier who initially said he had seen Capt R point his weapon at the girl's body and open fire later told the court he had fabricated the story.
Capt R claimed that he had not fired the shots at the girl but near her. However, Dr Mohammed al-Hams, who inspected the child's body at Rafah hospital, counted numerous wounds. "She has at least 17 bullets in several parts of the body, all along the chest, hands, arms, legs," he told the Guardian shortly afterwards. "The bullets were large and shot from a close distance. The most serious injuries were to her head. She had three bullets in the head. One bullet was shot from the right side of the face beside the ear. It had a big impact on the whole face."
The army's initial investigation concluded that the captain had "not acted unethically". But after some of the soldiers under his command went to the Israeli press to give a different version, the military police launched a separate investigation after which he was charged.
Capt R claimed that the soldiers under his command were out to get him because they are Jewish and he is Druze.
The transcript
The following is a recording of a three-way conversation that took place between a soldier in a watchtower, an army operations room and Capt R, who shot the girl
From the watchtower "It's a little girl. She's running defensively eastward." "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?" "A girl about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death." "I think that one of the positions took her out." "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."
From the operations room "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?"
Watchtower "A girl about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death."
A few minutes later, Iman is shot from one of the army posts
Watchtower "I think that one of the positions took her out."
Captain R "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."
Capt R then "clarifies" why he killed Iman
"This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over."
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
NY groups seek DC order blocking targeted killings | World news | guardian.co.uk
NY groups seek DC order blocking targeted killings | World news | guardian.co.uk
NEW YORK (AP) — Two New York-based civil liberties groups have sued the federal government, saying its targeted killings of U.S. citizens overseas is unconstitutional.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Defendants include President Barack Obama and the CIA director.
The lawsuit was filed for the father of a U.S.-born cleric believed to be hiding in Yemen. It seeks a court order declaring the Constitution prohibits the government's targeted killings of U.S. citizens.
The cleric is believed to have helped inspire the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner Christmas Day. The Obama administration cited his al-Qaida role when it placed him on the CIA's list of assassination targets.
The Department of Justice hasn't returned a message seeking comment.
NEW YORK (AP) — Two New York-based civil liberties groups have sued the federal government, saying its targeted killings of U.S. citizens overseas is unconstitutional.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Defendants include President Barack Obama and the CIA director.
The lawsuit was filed for the father of a U.S.-born cleric believed to be hiding in Yemen. It seeks a court order declaring the Constitution prohibits the government's targeted killings of U.S. citizens.
The cleric is believed to have helped inspire the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner Christmas Day. The Obama administration cited his al-Qaida role when it placed him on the CIA's list of assassination targets.
The Department of Justice hasn't returned a message seeking comment.
China goes organic after scandal of cooking oil from sewers - Telegraph
China goes organic after scandal of cooking oil from sewers - Telegraph
Organic food sales have taken off in China after a series of safety scares, including the disclosure that one in 10 meals is cooked using oil dredged from the sewer.
The Chinese now consume more than twice as much organic food as health-conscious Japan.
The market is worth an annual 10billion yuan (£1billion) having quadrupled in the past five years. For comparison, the British organic market is worth roughly £2billion. Interest has been promoted by a series of scares including toxic beans, contaminated milk and pork, pesticide-laced dumplings, chemically-tainted chicken, and the growing presence of what is known as “sewage oil”.
Night soil collectors typically visit the drains behind restaurants late at night to scoop up dregs of oil, which they filter and resell.
The government, which released the figures, has promised to take action against the practice. But since there are no laws against skimming oil from drains, police have had to release any suspects.
In April, a man was caught in broad daylight collecting oil at a sewer in Zhengzhou, Henan province, which he admitted intending to sell to street food vendors for 300 yuan a barrel.
“There is no way to prevent this oil from returning to the food chain,” said Zhen Zhiquan, 32, the manager of a company in Qingdao that turns sewage oil into biofuel.
“Companies like us buy around 10 to 20 per cent of the oil that is dredged from the sewers, but at least 80 per cent is recycled,” he said.
Xie Lili, 25, runs an organic store on the internet. In the aftermath of the oil scare, she said she had seen “a huge increase” in demand for organic salts, oils and spices.
“The volume is 10 to 15 times greater. People became quite scared and preferred to cook at home,” she added.
In the Shanghai suburb of Nanhui, famous for its peaches, the 4,000-acre Duoli Organic Farm was founded in 2005 and left fallow for three years to allow pesticides to seep out of the soil.
“In Shanghai, because land is scarce and the city has 20 million people, farmers are using up to four times the recommended amount of pesticides to boost their yields,” said Wang Tao, the head of the farm’s quality control department. In 2009, Duoli’s sales were 30 million yuan. This year, it expects revenues to more than double.
To encourage more sustainable farming, the Shanghai government provided 140 million yuan out of the farm’s 200 million yuan start-up costs. It sent scientists from local universities to help to develop new farming methods.
Nonetheless, it would take a decade before organic food became mainstream, Mr Wang said.
“It is very expensive, and mostly for rich people,” he said. “Also, Chinese people like to judge their food by how it looks, but organic food does not look so good. It is lumpy and has holes in it.”
Organic food sales have taken off in China after a series of safety scares, including the disclosure that one in 10 meals is cooked using oil dredged from the sewer.
The Chinese now consume more than twice as much organic food as health-conscious Japan.
The market is worth an annual 10billion yuan (£1billion) having quadrupled in the past five years. For comparison, the British organic market is worth roughly £2billion. Interest has been promoted by a series of scares including toxic beans, contaminated milk and pork, pesticide-laced dumplings, chemically-tainted chicken, and the growing presence of what is known as “sewage oil”.
Night soil collectors typically visit the drains behind restaurants late at night to scoop up dregs of oil, which they filter and resell.
The government, which released the figures, has promised to take action against the practice. But since there are no laws against skimming oil from drains, police have had to release any suspects.
In April, a man was caught in broad daylight collecting oil at a sewer in Zhengzhou, Henan province, which he admitted intending to sell to street food vendors for 300 yuan a barrel.
“There is no way to prevent this oil from returning to the food chain,” said Zhen Zhiquan, 32, the manager of a company in Qingdao that turns sewage oil into biofuel.
“Companies like us buy around 10 to 20 per cent of the oil that is dredged from the sewers, but at least 80 per cent is recycled,” he said.
Xie Lili, 25, runs an organic store on the internet. In the aftermath of the oil scare, she said she had seen “a huge increase” in demand for organic salts, oils and spices.
“The volume is 10 to 15 times greater. People became quite scared and preferred to cook at home,” she added.
In the Shanghai suburb of Nanhui, famous for its peaches, the 4,000-acre Duoli Organic Farm was founded in 2005 and left fallow for three years to allow pesticides to seep out of the soil.
“In Shanghai, because land is scarce and the city has 20 million people, farmers are using up to four times the recommended amount of pesticides to boost their yields,” said Wang Tao, the head of the farm’s quality control department. In 2009, Duoli’s sales were 30 million yuan. This year, it expects revenues to more than double.
To encourage more sustainable farming, the Shanghai government provided 140 million yuan out of the farm’s 200 million yuan start-up costs. It sent scientists from local universities to help to develop new farming methods.
Nonetheless, it would take a decade before organic food became mainstream, Mr Wang said.
“It is very expensive, and mostly for rich people,” he said. “Also, Chinese people like to judge their food by how it looks, but organic food does not look so good. It is lumpy and has holes in it.”
Obama's new tax on...Rainwater!? | Americans for Prosperity
Obama's new tax on...Rainwater!? | Americans for Prosperity
Would President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency really force Americans to pay a tax on "rainwater runoff" from homes and small businesses?
You bet they would. In fact, the EPA, under radical environmentalist Lisa Jackson, is proposing regulations to do just that.
Take a look at the EPA's own Federal Register filing, where the EPA generally describes the initiative it's proposing:
...requirements, including design or performance standards, for stormwater discharges from, at minimum, newly developed and redeveloped sites. EPA intends to propose regulatory options that would revise the NPDES regulations and establish a comprehensive program to address stormwater discharges from newly developed and redeveloped sites and to take final action no later than November 2012. (Source)
This is bureaucratic-speak for having the EPA force cities and counties to limit stormwater runoff to levels the EPA deems acceptable. Limiting "rainwater runoff" will mean forcing homeowners and businesses to pay new taxes in order to rein in rainwater, and that's no pun intended.
Think about just how big-government this is. A Washington, D.C. bureaucracy plans on forcing your local county or city to slap new taxes on you and me because this big-government bureaucracy wants to micro-manage rainwater across the entire country. Already, several counties and cities across the United States are moving to pass new taxes and fees in anticipation of the new EPA rules, including cities in states as disparate as Florida, Ohio and Kansas. For more details CLICK HERE
But really, this new EPA outrage is part of the pattern of the Obama Administration. Cap-and-trade is bogged down for now in the Senate (though they'll try to bring it back this year), so the liberals try to use an un-elected bureaucracy to pass their radical agenda. First, they declared that greenhouse gases are a "threat" to the environment and to health, so they're pushing new regulations that will in effect pass cap-and-trade without Congress having to act. Now, they're pushing this new "rainwater runoff" tax.
Just last month, Americans for Prosperity launched a national effort to stop this big government over-reach by the EPA. We're calling it the Regulation Reality Tour™, and we launched it in Arkansas with events across the state. Click HERE for photos. On April 19 we will begin the second leg of our tour in Colorado, with a third leg launching in Indiana and Ohio in early May. I hope to see you on the road as we take on Obama's EPA!
Our goal is simple: educate Americans on the threat to their freedoms and our economy from the EPA's arrogant, nutty agenda. The EPA's head, Lisa Jackson, attended the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen where she stated her intention to "transform" the way the American economy works using her bureaucracy. I was there in the room and heard her say it.
EPA is such a runaway bureaucracy at this point that only Congress can stop them. Thankfully, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has a proposal to do just that. Murkowski has a resolution of disapproval—which would stop EPA in its tracks—that has been gathering steam, but we need your help to put her over the top. CLICK HERE to take action and tell your senators to support S.J.Res. 26. Make sure they know you will hold them accountable if they don't help pass Murkowski's resolution. Any lawmakers who won't stand up to stop the EPA are complicit in the onerous regulations they are trying to pass.
Spring is here. All things begin anew. And that includes renewing the fight for our freedoms.
PS: I just finished a father/son trip with my 16-year-old twin boys. It was great fun. On the airplane especially, my sons talked about what they wanted to do in the years to come. Hearing them talk about their futures, I was reminded of something Ronald Reagan said – freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. As usual, President Reagan was right. Let's make sure we keep doing our part to ensure that our generation passes on to our children and grandchildren the same freedoms we enjoyed.
Please click here to contact your senators and tell them to stop the EPA
Read more: http://www.americansforprosperity.org/040610-obamas-new-tax-onrainwater#ixzz0yCVAJwwN
Would President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency really force Americans to pay a tax on "rainwater runoff" from homes and small businesses?
You bet they would. In fact, the EPA, under radical environmentalist Lisa Jackson, is proposing regulations to do just that.
Take a look at the EPA's own Federal Register filing, where the EPA generally describes the initiative it's proposing:
...requirements, including design or performance standards, for stormwater discharges from, at minimum, newly developed and redeveloped sites. EPA intends to propose regulatory options that would revise the NPDES regulations and establish a comprehensive program to address stormwater discharges from newly developed and redeveloped sites and to take final action no later than November 2012. (Source)
This is bureaucratic-speak for having the EPA force cities and counties to limit stormwater runoff to levels the EPA deems acceptable. Limiting "rainwater runoff" will mean forcing homeowners and businesses to pay new taxes in order to rein in rainwater, and that's no pun intended.
Think about just how big-government this is. A Washington, D.C. bureaucracy plans on forcing your local county or city to slap new taxes on you and me because this big-government bureaucracy wants to micro-manage rainwater across the entire country. Already, several counties and cities across the United States are moving to pass new taxes and fees in anticipation of the new EPA rules, including cities in states as disparate as Florida, Ohio and Kansas. For more details CLICK HERE
But really, this new EPA outrage is part of the pattern of the Obama Administration. Cap-and-trade is bogged down for now in the Senate (though they'll try to bring it back this year), so the liberals try to use an un-elected bureaucracy to pass their radical agenda. First, they declared that greenhouse gases are a "threat" to the environment and to health, so they're pushing new regulations that will in effect pass cap-and-trade without Congress having to act. Now, they're pushing this new "rainwater runoff" tax.
Just last month, Americans for Prosperity launched a national effort to stop this big government over-reach by the EPA. We're calling it the Regulation Reality Tour™, and we launched it in Arkansas with events across the state. Click HERE for photos. On April 19 we will begin the second leg of our tour in Colorado, with a third leg launching in Indiana and Ohio in early May. I hope to see you on the road as we take on Obama's EPA!
Our goal is simple: educate Americans on the threat to their freedoms and our economy from the EPA's arrogant, nutty agenda. The EPA's head, Lisa Jackson, attended the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen where she stated her intention to "transform" the way the American economy works using her bureaucracy. I was there in the room and heard her say it.
EPA is such a runaway bureaucracy at this point that only Congress can stop them. Thankfully, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has a proposal to do just that. Murkowski has a resolution of disapproval—which would stop EPA in its tracks—that has been gathering steam, but we need your help to put her over the top. CLICK HERE to take action and tell your senators to support S.J.Res. 26. Make sure they know you will hold them accountable if they don't help pass Murkowski's resolution. Any lawmakers who won't stand up to stop the EPA are complicit in the onerous regulations they are trying to pass.
Spring is here. All things begin anew. And that includes renewing the fight for our freedoms.
PS: I just finished a father/son trip with my 16-year-old twin boys. It was great fun. On the airplane especially, my sons talked about what they wanted to do in the years to come. Hearing them talk about their futures, I was reminded of something Ronald Reagan said – freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. As usual, President Reagan was right. Let's make sure we keep doing our part to ensure that our generation passes on to our children and grandchildren the same freedoms we enjoyed.
Please click here to contact your senators and tell them to stop the EPA
Read more: http://www.americansforprosperity.org/040610-obamas-new-tax-onrainwater#ixzz0yCVAJwwN
Ground Zero Islamic center�s funding leads to CFR
Ground Zero Islamic center�s funding leads to CFR
Ground Zero Islamic center's funding leads to CFR
My first whiff of the news was an unsettling email from a reader of my article, Ground Zero Mosque inflating Islamophobia, indicating The Council on Foreign Relations, i.e. the Rockefeller Globalist cabal, had a hand in this. The writer was annoyed at my not considering it.
I hadn't considered it since my focus had been on the fact that the destruction of 9/11 was not perpetrated by Muslim nations as stated categorically by the New York Post, ignoring the very possible involvement of Israel, which has a history of false-flag attacks.
I received a second email from the Corbett Report, a video report whose Sunday stories were the Ground Zero Mosque Distraction, Israel Lobby, Apple and Orwell, the first with some fascinating information about Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, who heads up the Cordoba Initiative, i.e., the building of the Ground Zero Islamic center. Eureka!
The Cordoba Initiative, and Imam Rauf, Corbett went on to say, were affiliated with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and support for that came from fellow Council on Foreign Relations members. Imam Rauf himself was on the Council on Foreign Relations Religious Advisory Committee. The Cordoba initiatives website cited Christian support for the Cordoba House from a Christian publication, Sojourners, which is owned by evangelical Christian writer and political activist Jim Wallis, also a sitting member of the CFRs Religious Advisory Committee. Wow!
At some point, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (asma.org) was shown on the screen along with: Our Supporters: U.S. Foundations. After wincing, I froze the frame and downloaded the list, which included the Carnegie Corporations of New York, Rockefeller Brothers, Rockefeller Philanthropy, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Henry Luce Foundation, and Hunt Alternatives, to mention a few of the globalist pack.
There was also a clip of David Rockefeller speechifying at the CFR and welcoming back Dick Cheney to a meeting. Of course, Cheney remarked that he was happy to be there, was once director of the organization though he didnt mention it when he was running for Congress from his native Wyoming. This drew a big laugh from the elite insiders present.
Next Corbett referred to Nancy Pelosi, who had recently questioned who was funding the Cordoba Initiative given how it was being politicized (at Democratic expense given Obamas for it but not where statements). We cut to a call from Pelosi for an investigation. We cut back to Corbett who pointed out that it was rather embarrassing for her and others when the information above was revealed; that this money was not coming from Muslims or Middle Eastern nations.
This despite a scene, in which a Cordoba employee claimed to an inquiring reporter that the money came from Muslims, corporations, and interested groups, and that it wasnt really necessary for everyone to know who contributed.
Corbett, having discredited the claim of Muslim funding rather thoroughly, moved on to several related stories, including Israel�s spending some $35 million dollars to control articles favorable to it in the US press and to tamp down the negative press on Dimona and Palestine.
He also mentioned the $50,000 given to the Atlantic monthly to write an attack piece on Iran, because it was the greatest threat to Israel since Hitler. Parenthetically, the writer was a former member of the Israel Defense Force, which might account for the hyperbole, seeing how it is Israel that has hundreds of nuclear warheads at their nuclear facility at Dimona in the Negev desert.
Corbetts last piece focused on ideas for coming advancements in Apple i-Pods and i-Phones that seemed to be straight out of Orwells 1984, forecasting coming police-friendly improvements/intrusions on every conceivable form of personal privacy from Apple.
I also took a step back to corroborate Raufs deep ties to the CFR, seeing how the NY Post had painted him more as a co-conspirator with al-Qaeda, writing, Clearly, though this is a complicated issue. The 9/11 mass murder, after all, was committed in the name of Islam.
That explosive statement was followed by a quote from a letter by Dan Senor of the Council on Foreign Relations in the Wall Street Journal (also owned by Rupert Murdoch, owner of the New York Post) that whatever the stated goals of the Islamic center and Rauf, in the minds of many who are swayed by the most radical interpretations of Islam . . . it will be celebrated as a Muslim monument erected on the site of a great Muslim military victory. And . . .thats why the question of who precisely will pay to build the $100 million project is so compelling. Amazing!
Here is a CFR member, whose organization is bankrolling the Islamic center with one hat on, switches hats and demands to know precisely who will pay to cough up the $100 million.
Well, Dan, its your very own CFR sponsors who are picking up the tab. And if you think Corbett and I are the only ones who caught you with your two hats on, and your pants down, let me go to writer Steve Watson of PrisonPlanet.com, who wrote pretty much the same thing in Ground Zero Mosque Imam is Globalist Stooge.
The Imam of the now infamous ground zero mosque is a member of the ultra elitist Council On Foreign Relations and receives financial backing from powerful globalist sources including the Rockefellers, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation.
This information provides a compelling backdrop to the theory that the move to establish the mosque is a deliberate attempt to further stoke religious tensions and and divert attention away from the real enemy of free humanity, the corporate globalist elite who continue to profit from global war and division.
Meanwhile, Americans all over the country, especially in lower New York City, are out in droves screaming at each other in fear over Muslim appropriation of the building site, feeling as if Muslims were at their doors with scimitars, when, in fact, its our own Council on Foreign Relations whipping up the synthetic terror. Doesnt that point, too, to CFR involvement in the 9/11 event, producing the same feelings?
As to the Globalist stooge Rauf, Im sure theres a special place in hell for him, betraying his Muslim community to the danger of angry Americans to the synthetic terror threat, and frightening the latter to even more debilitating scare tactics. Let�s hope this doesn�t spill into the 9/11 commemoration ceremonies or the coinciding 9/11 As Inside Job rally that parallels them. Perhaps, if Rauf and the CFR are sufficiently exposed, that claim will have more meaning for more people than ever.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6274.shtml
Ground Zero Islamic center's funding leads to CFR
My first whiff of the news was an unsettling email from a reader of my article, Ground Zero Mosque inflating Islamophobia, indicating The Council on Foreign Relations, i.e. the Rockefeller Globalist cabal, had a hand in this. The writer was annoyed at my not considering it.
I hadn't considered it since my focus had been on the fact that the destruction of 9/11 was not perpetrated by Muslim nations as stated categorically by the New York Post, ignoring the very possible involvement of Israel, which has a history of false-flag attacks.
I received a second email from the Corbett Report, a video report whose Sunday stories were the Ground Zero Mosque Distraction, Israel Lobby, Apple and Orwell, the first with some fascinating information about Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, who heads up the Cordoba Initiative, i.e., the building of the Ground Zero Islamic center. Eureka!
The Cordoba Initiative, and Imam Rauf, Corbett went on to say, were affiliated with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and support for that came from fellow Council on Foreign Relations members. Imam Rauf himself was on the Council on Foreign Relations Religious Advisory Committee. The Cordoba initiatives website cited Christian support for the Cordoba House from a Christian publication, Sojourners, which is owned by evangelical Christian writer and political activist Jim Wallis, also a sitting member of the CFRs Religious Advisory Committee. Wow!
At some point, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (asma.org) was shown on the screen along with: Our Supporters: U.S. Foundations. After wincing, I froze the frame and downloaded the list, which included the Carnegie Corporations of New York, Rockefeller Brothers, Rockefeller Philanthropy, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Henry Luce Foundation, and Hunt Alternatives, to mention a few of the globalist pack.
There was also a clip of David Rockefeller speechifying at the CFR and welcoming back Dick Cheney to a meeting. Of course, Cheney remarked that he was happy to be there, was once director of the organization though he didnt mention it when he was running for Congress from his native Wyoming. This drew a big laugh from the elite insiders present.
Next Corbett referred to Nancy Pelosi, who had recently questioned who was funding the Cordoba Initiative given how it was being politicized (at Democratic expense given Obamas for it but not where statements). We cut to a call from Pelosi for an investigation. We cut back to Corbett who pointed out that it was rather embarrassing for her and others when the information above was revealed; that this money was not coming from Muslims or Middle Eastern nations.
This despite a scene, in which a Cordoba employee claimed to an inquiring reporter that the money came from Muslims, corporations, and interested groups, and that it wasnt really necessary for everyone to know who contributed.
Corbett, having discredited the claim of Muslim funding rather thoroughly, moved on to several related stories, including Israel�s spending some $35 million dollars to control articles favorable to it in the US press and to tamp down the negative press on Dimona and Palestine.
He also mentioned the $50,000 given to the Atlantic monthly to write an attack piece on Iran, because it was the greatest threat to Israel since Hitler. Parenthetically, the writer was a former member of the Israel Defense Force, which might account for the hyperbole, seeing how it is Israel that has hundreds of nuclear warheads at their nuclear facility at Dimona in the Negev desert.
Corbetts last piece focused on ideas for coming advancements in Apple i-Pods and i-Phones that seemed to be straight out of Orwells 1984, forecasting coming police-friendly improvements/intrusions on every conceivable form of personal privacy from Apple.
I also took a step back to corroborate Raufs deep ties to the CFR, seeing how the NY Post had painted him more as a co-conspirator with al-Qaeda, writing, Clearly, though this is a complicated issue. The 9/11 mass murder, after all, was committed in the name of Islam.
That explosive statement was followed by a quote from a letter by Dan Senor of the Council on Foreign Relations in the Wall Street Journal (also owned by Rupert Murdoch, owner of the New York Post) that whatever the stated goals of the Islamic center and Rauf, in the minds of many who are swayed by the most radical interpretations of Islam . . . it will be celebrated as a Muslim monument erected on the site of a great Muslim military victory. And . . .thats why the question of who precisely will pay to build the $100 million project is so compelling. Amazing!
Here is a CFR member, whose organization is bankrolling the Islamic center with one hat on, switches hats and demands to know precisely who will pay to cough up the $100 million.
Well, Dan, its your very own CFR sponsors who are picking up the tab. And if you think Corbett and I are the only ones who caught you with your two hats on, and your pants down, let me go to writer Steve Watson of PrisonPlanet.com, who wrote pretty much the same thing in Ground Zero Mosque Imam is Globalist Stooge.
The Imam of the now infamous ground zero mosque is a member of the ultra elitist Council On Foreign Relations and receives financial backing from powerful globalist sources including the Rockefellers, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation.
This information provides a compelling backdrop to the theory that the move to establish the mosque is a deliberate attempt to further stoke religious tensions and and divert attention away from the real enemy of free humanity, the corporate globalist elite who continue to profit from global war and division.
Meanwhile, Americans all over the country, especially in lower New York City, are out in droves screaming at each other in fear over Muslim appropriation of the building site, feeling as if Muslims were at their doors with scimitars, when, in fact, its our own Council on Foreign Relations whipping up the synthetic terror. Doesnt that point, too, to CFR involvement in the 9/11 event, producing the same feelings?
As to the Globalist stooge Rauf, Im sure theres a special place in hell for him, betraying his Muslim community to the danger of angry Americans to the synthetic terror threat, and frightening the latter to even more debilitating scare tactics. Let�s hope this doesn�t spill into the 9/11 commemoration ceremonies or the coinciding 9/11 As Inside Job rally that parallels them. Perhaps, if Rauf and the CFR are sufficiently exposed, that claim will have more meaning for more people than ever.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6274.shtml
SHOCKING VIDEO Glenn Beck Uses Vicks To Cry On Cue
SHOCKING VIDEO Glenn Beck Uses Vicks To Cry On Cue (this guy is such a sc*mbag !!)
Control Of Food Supply To Be Handed Over To Department Of Homeland Security
Control Of Food Supply To Be Handed Over To Department Of Homeland Security
S.510 deceptively titled “Food Safety and Modernization Act” written by and for Monsanto lobbyists
Alan Villegas
Official Wire
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The words “homeland security” are found 41 times in the text of the bill S. 510, also known as the Food Safety Modernization Act. Unprecedented powers over food are set to be handed over to Homeland Security if the bill is not stopped.
The bill opens opens the door to even more federal control over the everyday lives of American citizens. Since they are already engaging in organic raw milk raids without the increased powers of S. 510, the question is going to be how many more guns-drawn raids are we to expect after the bill becomes law?
It gets worse. Not only does the bill grant the FDA more power, Michael R. Taylor was named deputy commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January 2010.
(Michael R. Taylor also worked for Monsanto, was a lobbyist for them, according to Wikipedia. And all of this activity is happening at a time when a flourishing self-sufficiency movement is taking hold in this country, at a time when demand for fresh, local, and organic food is at an all time high.
The question is: Do America’s small farmers want a pro-Monsanto lobbyist in charge of the nation’s food supply?
The answer is clear and this may turn out to be a draw-the-line-in-the-sand moment for many people. May God bless America!
S.510 deceptively titled “Food Safety and Modernization Act” written by and for Monsanto lobbyists
Alan Villegas
Official Wire
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The words “homeland security” are found 41 times in the text of the bill S. 510, also known as the Food Safety Modernization Act. Unprecedented powers over food are set to be handed over to Homeland Security if the bill is not stopped.
The bill opens opens the door to even more federal control over the everyday lives of American citizens. Since they are already engaging in organic raw milk raids without the increased powers of S. 510, the question is going to be how many more guns-drawn raids are we to expect after the bill becomes law?
It gets worse. Not only does the bill grant the FDA more power, Michael R. Taylor was named deputy commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January 2010.
(Michael R. Taylor also worked for Monsanto, was a lobbyist for them, according to Wikipedia. And all of this activity is happening at a time when a flourishing self-sufficiency movement is taking hold in this country, at a time when demand for fresh, local, and organic food is at an all time high.
The question is: Do America’s small farmers want a pro-Monsanto lobbyist in charge of the nation’s food supply?
The answer is clear and this may turn out to be a draw-the-line-in-the-sand moment for many people. May God bless America!
Even tiny exposure to BPA turns offspring into genetic mutants
Even tiny exposure to BPA turns offspring into genetic mutants
(NaturalNews) A recent study published online in the journal Biology of Reproduction further reveals the disruptive nature of bisphenol A (BPA) in gene expression. According to the data, pregnant mice exposed to BPA experience significant genetic changes in their fetal ovaries, indicating that the next generation of their offspring will likely be born with serious genetic defects.
Dr. Patricia A. Hunt and her colleagues at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, Wash., exposed female mice to levels of BPA roughly equivalent to the levels humans are exposed to on a regular basis. The team discovered that in as little as 12 hours after exposure, egg production in exposed mice suffered reproductive damage. They believe exposure even altered the reproductive capacity of the mice's grandchildren.
According to the study report, BPA exposure negatively affects mitosis, the process by which cells divide their nuclei chromosomes in order to reproduce into new cells. BPA also disrupts other normal cell cycle functions and DNA replication, which researchers say can potentially shorten the "reproductive lifespan" of females.
What makes BPA particularly dangerous is the fact that very low levels of exposure to it can cause significant harm. According to reports, there have already been more than 200 studies conducted about BPA's dangers, many of which implicate the chemical as being highly dangerous even at extremely low levels.
One such study that appeared in the journal Reproductive Toxicology found that newborn animals exposed to BPA experience uterine damage.
"The researchers indicated that such damage is a possible predictor of reproductive diseases in women, including fibroids, endometriosis, cystic ovaries and cancers," explains Andreas Moritz in his book Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You.
Editor's Note: NaturalNews is strongly against the use of all forms of animal testing. We fully support the implementation of humane medical experimentation that promotes the health and well-being of all living creatures.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...
http://www.naturalpedia.com/bisphen...
(NaturalNews) A recent study published online in the journal Biology of Reproduction further reveals the disruptive nature of bisphenol A (BPA) in gene expression. According to the data, pregnant mice exposed to BPA experience significant genetic changes in their fetal ovaries, indicating that the next generation of their offspring will likely be born with serious genetic defects.
Dr. Patricia A. Hunt and her colleagues at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, Wash., exposed female mice to levels of BPA roughly equivalent to the levels humans are exposed to on a regular basis. The team discovered that in as little as 12 hours after exposure, egg production in exposed mice suffered reproductive damage. They believe exposure even altered the reproductive capacity of the mice's grandchildren.
According to the study report, BPA exposure negatively affects mitosis, the process by which cells divide their nuclei chromosomes in order to reproduce into new cells. BPA also disrupts other normal cell cycle functions and DNA replication, which researchers say can potentially shorten the "reproductive lifespan" of females.
What makes BPA particularly dangerous is the fact that very low levels of exposure to it can cause significant harm. According to reports, there have already been more than 200 studies conducted about BPA's dangers, many of which implicate the chemical as being highly dangerous even at extremely low levels.
One such study that appeared in the journal Reproductive Toxicology found that newborn animals exposed to BPA experience uterine damage.
"The researchers indicated that such damage is a possible predictor of reproductive diseases in women, including fibroids, endometriosis, cystic ovaries and cancers," explains Andreas Moritz in his book Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You.
Editor's Note: NaturalNews is strongly against the use of all forms of animal testing. We fully support the implementation of humane medical experimentation that promotes the health and well-being of all living creatures.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...
http://www.naturalpedia.com/bisphen...
Monday, August 30, 2010
Vaccine Deaths And Injuries Skyrocket As Cover-Up Implodes
Vaccine Deaths And Injuries Skyrocket As Cover-Up Implodes
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, August 30, 2010
Global revolt against deadly vaccines spreads as cases of debilitating illnesses, soft-kill side-effects and even instant deaths become widespread
Cases of debilitating illnesses, soft-kill side-effects and even instant deaths as a result of vaccinations across the world are skyrocketing as the cover-up of deadly inoculations implodes and more people than ever become suspicious about what they are being injected with by health authorities who have proven they cannot be trusted.
The implosion of the vaccine cover-up is sure to discourage more parents from vaccinating their children in the coming months, with the swine flu shot now being combined with the regular seasonal flu jab. A recent Rasmussen poll found that 52 per cent of Americans were concerned about the safety of vaccines as we approach the start of school and college terms, where many children and teenagers will be “required” to take shots before they can attend.
A global revolt against dangerous vaccines is brewing following a series of cases where children have been killed as a direct result of inoculations.
A measles vaccination program in India was halted after four children died almost immediately after receiving the shot. “Four children died within minutes of receiving a vaccine for measles followed by drops of Vitamin A solution on Saturday,” reports MedGuru.
Indian newspaper reports carried eyewitness accounts of what happened. “The four children were reported to have fainted soon after they were vaccinated and witnesses reported seeing the children’s eyes roll back as they began to have seizures,” reports Blitz.
Furious villagers reacted to the tragedy by going on a rampage, attacking health workers and holding government doctors hostage.
Health professionals and doctors with government ties were also blamed in Finland and Sweden after a H1N1 vaccination program was halted following a 300 per cent increase in cases of the neurological disorder narcolepsy amongst children and young people who had received the shot over the last six months.
According to Kari Lankinen, head physician of the Finnish Medicines Agency, doctors were complicit in hiding the link between the swine flu shot and narcolepsy and did so to advance their careers.
Meanwhile, concerned mothers whose daughters have been injured or killed by the Gardasil vaccine have put together a website that documents the truth about how the vaccine has killed and injured thousands of young girls since it was introduced in 2006. Thousands of teenagers have suffered adverse reactions and at least 71 have died from the vaccine since the HPV program was launched four years ago.
The global vaccine cover-up took a massive blow after it was confirmed that the 2009 swine flu outbreak was, as we predicted from the start, a contrived scam centered around making vast profits for pharmaceutical companies while endangering the health of the public.
As we reported earlier this year, Chair of the Council of Europe’s Sub-committee on Health Wolfgang Wodarg’s investigation into the 2009 swine flu outbreak found that the pandemic was a fake hoax manufactured by pharmaceutical companies in league with the WHO.
Wodarg said that governments were “threatened” by special interest groups within the pharmaceutical industry as well as the WHO to buy the vaccines and inject their populations without any reasonable scientific reason for doing so, and yet in countries like Germany and France only around 6 per cent took the vaccine despite enough being available to cover 90 per cent of the population.
Wodarg said there was “no other explanation” for what happened than the fact that the WHO worked in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry to manufacture the panic in order to generate vast profits, agreeing with host Alex Jones that the entire farce was a hoax.
He also explained how health authorities were “already waiting for something to happen” before the pandemic started and then exploited the virus for their own purposes.
Professor Ulrich Keil, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Epidemiology, also slammed the swine flu epidemic as an overblown “angst campaign”, devised in conjunction with major drug companies to boost profits for vaccine manufacturers.
As Natural News’ Mike Adams reported, several members of the Emergency Committee expert panel that advised the World Health Organization (WHO) during the swine flu scare were receiving financial support from pharmaceutical manufacturers either during or prior to the epidemic.
Both H1N1 and seasonal flu shots have been linked with a number of different side-effects across the globe, including Guillain-Barré Syndrome as well as dystonia, a paralyzing neurological disorder.
The seasonal flu vaccine has also been linked with convulsions and fits in under-5′s.
Many batches of the swine flu vaccine included squalene and mercury amongst their ingredients, two substances that have been directly connected with the explosion of autism amongst children as well as other diseases. Individuals within government and the military were privileged to receive additive free shots that did not include these substances. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and government ministers, as well as German soldiers, were amongst those who received access to the so-called “friendly” version of the vaccine.
In order to head off legal claims for side-effects caused by the swine flu vaccination program, the U.S. government provided vaccine makers with blanket legal immunity before the shots began to be dispersed.
Citing concerns over safety, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Health Minister Ewa Kopacz, with the broad support of the public, ensured that Poland was the only country in the world to completely reject the H1N1 vaccine.
“We are making this decision only in the interest of the Polish patient and the taxpayer,” Tusk said. “We will not take part because it’s not honest and it’s not safe for the patient.”
In a 2008 trial for a bird flu vaccine, three Polish doctors and six nurses faced criminal charges after the vaccine killed 21 homeless people who were participating in the test.
The Czech Republic rejected a swine flu vaccine produced by pharmaceutical manufacturer Baxter after the company was caught shipping vaccines contaminated with deadly live H5N1 avian flu virus to 18 countries by a lab at an Austrian branch of Baxter.
Given the routinely stated goal on behalf of mega-rich foundations that fund vaccination programs around the world, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, to use vaccines as a way of sterilizing the planet’s population as part of the global eugenics soft-kill assault on humanity, it’s unsurprising that as more people become aware of this agenda, take-up rates of new as well as seasonal vaccines continue to decline.
As Jurriaan Maessen recently documented in his Infowars exclusive, in its 1968 yearly report, the Rockefeller Foundation acknowledged funding the development of so-called “anti-fertility vaccines” and their implementation on a mass-scale.
This program was then launched by a group that was created under auspices of the World Health Organization, World Bank and UN Population Fund entitled “Task Force on Vaccines for Fertility Regulation”. In the 1990′s, the WHO was mired in controversy after it distributed a “tetanus vaccine” to poor girls and women in the third world that was contaminated with human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), a hormone that induces involuntary abortion.
During a TED conference earlier this year, Bill Gates openly stated that vaccines would be used to lower the earth’s population in the name of combating climate change. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the major funders of vaccine research and production in the third world.
Warning that the global population was heading towards 9 billion, Gates said, “If we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services (abortion), we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 per cent.”
Quite how an improvement in health care and vaccines that supposedly save lives would lead to a lowering in global population is an oxymoron, unless Gates was referring to vaccines that sterilize people, which is precisely the same method advocated in White House science advisor John P. Holdren’s 1977 textbook Ecoscience, which calls for a dictatorial “planetary regime” to enforce draconian measures of population reduction via all manner of oppressive techniques, including sterilization.
With people globally becoming increasingly aware of the role of vaccines in the agenda to reduce world population, the cover-up of debilitating diseases, soft kill side-effects, and instant fatalities as a result of vaccinations will continue to implode, until authorities are forced by law to implement vastly more stringent screening procedures and remove the toxic additives from vaccines that are causing these deaths and diseases.
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, August 30, 2010
Global revolt against deadly vaccines spreads as cases of debilitating illnesses, soft-kill side-effects and even instant deaths become widespread
Cases of debilitating illnesses, soft-kill side-effects and even instant deaths as a result of vaccinations across the world are skyrocketing as the cover-up of deadly inoculations implodes and more people than ever become suspicious about what they are being injected with by health authorities who have proven they cannot be trusted.
The implosion of the vaccine cover-up is sure to discourage more parents from vaccinating their children in the coming months, with the swine flu shot now being combined with the regular seasonal flu jab. A recent Rasmussen poll found that 52 per cent of Americans were concerned about the safety of vaccines as we approach the start of school and college terms, where many children and teenagers will be “required” to take shots before they can attend.
A global revolt against dangerous vaccines is brewing following a series of cases where children have been killed as a direct result of inoculations.
A measles vaccination program in India was halted after four children died almost immediately after receiving the shot. “Four children died within minutes of receiving a vaccine for measles followed by drops of Vitamin A solution on Saturday,” reports MedGuru.
Indian newspaper reports carried eyewitness accounts of what happened. “The four children were reported to have fainted soon after they were vaccinated and witnesses reported seeing the children’s eyes roll back as they began to have seizures,” reports Blitz.
Furious villagers reacted to the tragedy by going on a rampage, attacking health workers and holding government doctors hostage.
Health professionals and doctors with government ties were also blamed in Finland and Sweden after a H1N1 vaccination program was halted following a 300 per cent increase in cases of the neurological disorder narcolepsy amongst children and young people who had received the shot over the last six months.
According to Kari Lankinen, head physician of the Finnish Medicines Agency, doctors were complicit in hiding the link between the swine flu shot and narcolepsy and did so to advance their careers.
Meanwhile, concerned mothers whose daughters have been injured or killed by the Gardasil vaccine have put together a website that documents the truth about how the vaccine has killed and injured thousands of young girls since it was introduced in 2006. Thousands of teenagers have suffered adverse reactions and at least 71 have died from the vaccine since the HPV program was launched four years ago.
The global vaccine cover-up took a massive blow after it was confirmed that the 2009 swine flu outbreak was, as we predicted from the start, a contrived scam centered around making vast profits for pharmaceutical companies while endangering the health of the public.
As we reported earlier this year, Chair of the Council of Europe’s Sub-committee on Health Wolfgang Wodarg’s investigation into the 2009 swine flu outbreak found that the pandemic was a fake hoax manufactured by pharmaceutical companies in league with the WHO.
Wodarg said that governments were “threatened” by special interest groups within the pharmaceutical industry as well as the WHO to buy the vaccines and inject their populations without any reasonable scientific reason for doing so, and yet in countries like Germany and France only around 6 per cent took the vaccine despite enough being available to cover 90 per cent of the population.
Wodarg said there was “no other explanation” for what happened than the fact that the WHO worked in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry to manufacture the panic in order to generate vast profits, agreeing with host Alex Jones that the entire farce was a hoax.
He also explained how health authorities were “already waiting for something to happen” before the pandemic started and then exploited the virus for their own purposes.
Professor Ulrich Keil, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Epidemiology, also slammed the swine flu epidemic as an overblown “angst campaign”, devised in conjunction with major drug companies to boost profits for vaccine manufacturers.
As Natural News’ Mike Adams reported, several members of the Emergency Committee expert panel that advised the World Health Organization (WHO) during the swine flu scare were receiving financial support from pharmaceutical manufacturers either during or prior to the epidemic.
Both H1N1 and seasonal flu shots have been linked with a number of different side-effects across the globe, including Guillain-Barré Syndrome as well as dystonia, a paralyzing neurological disorder.
The seasonal flu vaccine has also been linked with convulsions and fits in under-5′s.
Many batches of the swine flu vaccine included squalene and mercury amongst their ingredients, two substances that have been directly connected with the explosion of autism amongst children as well as other diseases. Individuals within government and the military were privileged to receive additive free shots that did not include these substances. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and government ministers, as well as German soldiers, were amongst those who received access to the so-called “friendly” version of the vaccine.
In order to head off legal claims for side-effects caused by the swine flu vaccination program, the U.S. government provided vaccine makers with blanket legal immunity before the shots began to be dispersed.
Citing concerns over safety, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Health Minister Ewa Kopacz, with the broad support of the public, ensured that Poland was the only country in the world to completely reject the H1N1 vaccine.
“We are making this decision only in the interest of the Polish patient and the taxpayer,” Tusk said. “We will not take part because it’s not honest and it’s not safe for the patient.”
In a 2008 trial for a bird flu vaccine, three Polish doctors and six nurses faced criminal charges after the vaccine killed 21 homeless people who were participating in the test.
The Czech Republic rejected a swine flu vaccine produced by pharmaceutical manufacturer Baxter after the company was caught shipping vaccines contaminated with deadly live H5N1 avian flu virus to 18 countries by a lab at an Austrian branch of Baxter.
Given the routinely stated goal on behalf of mega-rich foundations that fund vaccination programs around the world, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, to use vaccines as a way of sterilizing the planet’s population as part of the global eugenics soft-kill assault on humanity, it’s unsurprising that as more people become aware of this agenda, take-up rates of new as well as seasonal vaccines continue to decline.
As Jurriaan Maessen recently documented in his Infowars exclusive, in its 1968 yearly report, the Rockefeller Foundation acknowledged funding the development of so-called “anti-fertility vaccines” and their implementation on a mass-scale.
This program was then launched by a group that was created under auspices of the World Health Organization, World Bank and UN Population Fund entitled “Task Force on Vaccines for Fertility Regulation”. In the 1990′s, the WHO was mired in controversy after it distributed a “tetanus vaccine” to poor girls and women in the third world that was contaminated with human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), a hormone that induces involuntary abortion.
During a TED conference earlier this year, Bill Gates openly stated that vaccines would be used to lower the earth’s population in the name of combating climate change. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the major funders of vaccine research and production in the third world.
Warning that the global population was heading towards 9 billion, Gates said, “If we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services (abortion), we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 per cent.”
Quite how an improvement in health care and vaccines that supposedly save lives would lead to a lowering in global population is an oxymoron, unless Gates was referring to vaccines that sterilize people, which is precisely the same method advocated in White House science advisor John P. Holdren’s 1977 textbook Ecoscience, which calls for a dictatorial “planetary regime” to enforce draconian measures of population reduction via all manner of oppressive techniques, including sterilization.
With people globally becoming increasingly aware of the role of vaccines in the agenda to reduce world population, the cover-up of debilitating diseases, soft kill side-effects, and instant fatalities as a result of vaccinations will continue to implode, until authorities are forced by law to implement vastly more stringent screening procedures and remove the toxic additives from vaccines that are causing these deaths and diseases.
Ron Paul’s Shocking Message To The Tea Party
Ron Paul’s Shocking Message To The Tea Party
Ron Paul has some surprising news for the Tea Party:
You’re being taken for a ride.
At least this is what many libertarians like Ron Paul believe when they see someone like Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin trying to lead the Tea Party at the “restoring honor” rally this weekend. In fact, Ron Paul believes, if you’re looking for real freedom, you should really go back to the core of the constitution and the bill of rights, which Beck and Palin do not fully endorse when you really look at their beliefs. Whether it be Palin’s support for starting more wars or Beck’s beliefs on paying the private Federal Reserve MORE interest on our money by means of a VAT tax.
Ron Paul believes in neither of the above.
Here was Ron Paul’s message to the Tea Party via The New York Times just the other day:
“As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.”
While the Tea Party will be out supporting Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin this weekend, you wonder how many of them will be in full support of more wars and paying more interest to a group of untouchable and unauditable private bankers otherwise known as the FED? This is precisely what Ron Paul is asking the American public to consider when looking at the Tea Party leaders and see if they really stand for what they believe in.
Ron Paul believes the Tea Party is not about “left” or “right” like a lot of political pundits make it out to be. It’s about the constitution, and limited government.
Ron Paul has some surprising news for the Tea Party:
You’re being taken for a ride.
At least this is what many libertarians like Ron Paul believe when they see someone like Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin trying to lead the Tea Party at the “restoring honor” rally this weekend. In fact, Ron Paul believes, if you’re looking for real freedom, you should really go back to the core of the constitution and the bill of rights, which Beck and Palin do not fully endorse when you really look at their beliefs. Whether it be Palin’s support for starting more wars or Beck’s beliefs on paying the private Federal Reserve MORE interest on our money by means of a VAT tax.
Ron Paul believes in neither of the above.
Here was Ron Paul’s message to the Tea Party via The New York Times just the other day:
“As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.”
While the Tea Party will be out supporting Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin this weekend, you wonder how many of them will be in full support of more wars and paying more interest to a group of untouchable and unauditable private bankers otherwise known as the FED? This is precisely what Ron Paul is asking the American public to consider when looking at the Tea Party leaders and see if they really stand for what they believe in.
Ron Paul believes the Tea Party is not about “left” or “right” like a lot of political pundits make it out to be. It’s about the constitution, and limited government.
The Death Of Cash? All Over The World Governments Are Banning Large Cash Transactions
The Death Of Cash? All Over The World Governments Are Banning Large Cash Transactions
Economic Collapse Blog
Monday, August 30, 2010
Are we witnessing the slow but certain death of cash in this generation? Is a truly cashless society on the horizon? Legislation currently pending in the Mexican legislature would ban a vast array of large cash transactions, but the truth is that Mexico is far from alone in trying to restrict cash. All over the world, governments are either placing stringent reporting requirements on large cash transactions or they are banning them altogether. We are being told that such measures are needed to battle illegal drug traffic, to catch tax evaders and to fight the war on terror. But are we rapidly getting to the point where we will have no financial privacy left whatsoever? Should we just accept that we have entered a time when the government will watch, track and trace all financial transactions? Is it inevitable that at some point in the near future ALL transactions will go through the banking system in one form or another (check, credit card, debit card, etc.)?
The truth is that we now live at a time when people who use large amounts of cash are looked upon with suspicion. In fact, authorities in many countries are taught that anyone involved in a large expenditure of cash is trying to hide something and is probably a criminal.
And yes, a lot of criminals do use cash, but millions upon millions of normal, law-abiding citizens simply prefer to use cash as well. Should we take the freedom to use cash away from the rest of us just because a small minority abuses it?
Unfortunately, the freedom to use cash is being slowly stripped away from us in an increasingly large number of countries.
In fact, as countries like Mexico “tighten the noose” around big-ticket cash purchases, our freedom to use cash is going to erode rather rapidly.
The following is a summary of some of the very tight restrictions being placed on large cash transactions around the globe right now….
Mexico
In Mexico, a bill before the legislature would completely ban the purchase of real estate in cash. In addition, the new law would ban anyone from spending more than MXN 100,000 (about $7,700) in cash on vehicles, boats, airplanes and luxury goods.
$7,700 is not a very high limit, and this legislation has some real teeth to it. Anyone violating this law would face up to 15 years in prison.
Greece
In Europe, some of the “austerity packages” being introduced in various European nations include very severe restrictions on the use of cash.
In Greece, all cash transactions above 1,500 euros are being banned starting next year. The following is a comment by Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou at a press conference discussing the new austerity measures as reported by Reuters….
“From 1. Jan. 2011, every transaction above 1,500 euros between natural persons and businesses, or between businesses, will not be considered legal if it is done in cash. Transactions will have to be done through debit or credit cards”
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
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Italy
Even Italy has gotten into the act. As part of Italy’s new “austerity measures”, all cash transactions over 5,000 euros will be banned. It is said this is being done to crack down on tax evasion, but even if this is being done to take down the mafia this is still quite severe.
The United States
The U.S. government has not banned any large cash transactions, and hopefully it will not do so any time soon, but it sure has burdened large cash transactions with some heavy-duty reporting requirements.
For example, your bank is required to file a currency transaction report with the government for every deposit, withdrawal or exchange over $10,000 in cash.
Not only that, but if a bank “knows, suspects, or has reason to suspect” that a transaction involving at least $5,000 is “suspicious”, then another report must be filled out. This second type of report is known as a suspicious activity report, and it is also filed with the government.
But the reporting does not stop there. As Jeff Schnepper explained in an article for MSN Money, if you are in business and you receive over $10,000 in cash in a single transaction you must report it to the IRS or you will go to prison…..
If you’re in a business and receive more than $10,000 in cash from a single transaction, or from related transactions within a 12-month period, you have to file Form 8300 and report the buyer to the IRS. Don’t file, and you go to jail.
The IRS isnt kidding. I had a client who was a dealer in Corvette sports cars. He told me he didnt have time to file the forms. I told him several times to file. He thought he knew better. He went to jail. So did his children who were involved in the business.
This is very, very serious.
Just because someone forgets to file a certain form with the IRS, that person can go do serious jail time?
Yes.
According to Schnepper, quite a few Americans have already received very substantial sentences for this kind of thing….
In fiscal 2004, the Internal Revenue Service initiated 1,789 criminal investigations. There were 1,304 indictments and 687 convictions — and an 89.1% incarceration rate. The average sentence: 63 months.
In fiscal 2005, the IRS started 4,269 investigations, winning 2,406 indictments and 2,151 convictions and an 83% incarceration rate. Average sentence: 42 months.
The reality is that governments around the world are getting very, very sensitive about large amounts of cash and they are not messing around.
They don’t want all of us running around with big piles of cash. They want our money in the banks where they can track it, trace it and keep a close eye on it.
On the one hand, it is a good thing to catch criminals and terrorists, but on the other hand how much privacy and freedom are we willing to lose just so that we can feel a little safer?
And as cash becomes criminalized, are all of us going to be forced into the banking system whether we like it or not? If we cannot pay for things in cash, what other choices are we going to have?
The truth is that the more you think about this issue, the more disturbing it becomes.
Economic Collapse Blog
Monday, August 30, 2010
Are we witnessing the slow but certain death of cash in this generation? Is a truly cashless society on the horizon? Legislation currently pending in the Mexican legislature would ban a vast array of large cash transactions, but the truth is that Mexico is far from alone in trying to restrict cash. All over the world, governments are either placing stringent reporting requirements on large cash transactions or they are banning them altogether. We are being told that such measures are needed to battle illegal drug traffic, to catch tax evaders and to fight the war on terror. But are we rapidly getting to the point where we will have no financial privacy left whatsoever? Should we just accept that we have entered a time when the government will watch, track and trace all financial transactions? Is it inevitable that at some point in the near future ALL transactions will go through the banking system in one form or another (check, credit card, debit card, etc.)?
The truth is that we now live at a time when people who use large amounts of cash are looked upon with suspicion. In fact, authorities in many countries are taught that anyone involved in a large expenditure of cash is trying to hide something and is probably a criminal.
And yes, a lot of criminals do use cash, but millions upon millions of normal, law-abiding citizens simply prefer to use cash as well. Should we take the freedom to use cash away from the rest of us just because a small minority abuses it?
Unfortunately, the freedom to use cash is being slowly stripped away from us in an increasingly large number of countries.
In fact, as countries like Mexico “tighten the noose” around big-ticket cash purchases, our freedom to use cash is going to erode rather rapidly.
The following is a summary of some of the very tight restrictions being placed on large cash transactions around the globe right now….
Mexico
In Mexico, a bill before the legislature would completely ban the purchase of real estate in cash. In addition, the new law would ban anyone from spending more than MXN 100,000 (about $7,700) in cash on vehicles, boats, airplanes and luxury goods.
$7,700 is not a very high limit, and this legislation has some real teeth to it. Anyone violating this law would face up to 15 years in prison.
Greece
In Europe, some of the “austerity packages” being introduced in various European nations include very severe restrictions on the use of cash.
In Greece, all cash transactions above 1,500 euros are being banned starting next year. The following is a comment by Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou at a press conference discussing the new austerity measures as reported by Reuters….
“From 1. Jan. 2011, every transaction above 1,500 euros between natural persons and businesses, or between businesses, will not be considered legal if it is done in cash. Transactions will have to be done through debit or credit cards”
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
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Italy
Even Italy has gotten into the act. As part of Italy’s new “austerity measures”, all cash transactions over 5,000 euros will be banned. It is said this is being done to crack down on tax evasion, but even if this is being done to take down the mafia this is still quite severe.
The United States
The U.S. government has not banned any large cash transactions, and hopefully it will not do so any time soon, but it sure has burdened large cash transactions with some heavy-duty reporting requirements.
For example, your bank is required to file a currency transaction report with the government for every deposit, withdrawal or exchange over $10,000 in cash.
Not only that, but if a bank “knows, suspects, or has reason to suspect” that a transaction involving at least $5,000 is “suspicious”, then another report must be filled out. This second type of report is known as a suspicious activity report, and it is also filed with the government.
But the reporting does not stop there. As Jeff Schnepper explained in an article for MSN Money, if you are in business and you receive over $10,000 in cash in a single transaction you must report it to the IRS or you will go to prison…..
If you’re in a business and receive more than $10,000 in cash from a single transaction, or from related transactions within a 12-month period, you have to file Form 8300 and report the buyer to the IRS. Don’t file, and you go to jail.
The IRS isnt kidding. I had a client who was a dealer in Corvette sports cars. He told me he didnt have time to file the forms. I told him several times to file. He thought he knew better. He went to jail. So did his children who were involved in the business.
This is very, very serious.
Just because someone forgets to file a certain form with the IRS, that person can go do serious jail time?
Yes.
According to Schnepper, quite a few Americans have already received very substantial sentences for this kind of thing….
In fiscal 2004, the Internal Revenue Service initiated 1,789 criminal investigations. There were 1,304 indictments and 687 convictions — and an 89.1% incarceration rate. The average sentence: 63 months.
In fiscal 2005, the IRS started 4,269 investigations, winning 2,406 indictments and 2,151 convictions and an 83% incarceration rate. Average sentence: 42 months.
The reality is that governments around the world are getting very, very sensitive about large amounts of cash and they are not messing around.
They don’t want all of us running around with big piles of cash. They want our money in the banks where they can track it, trace it and keep a close eye on it.
On the one hand, it is a good thing to catch criminals and terrorists, but on the other hand how much privacy and freedom are we willing to lose just so that we can feel a little safer?
And as cash becomes criminalized, are all of us going to be forced into the banking system whether we like it or not? If we cannot pay for things in cash, what other choices are we going to have?
The truth is that the more you think about this issue, the more disturbing it becomes.
DOJ Demonizes Constitutionalists As Extremist Criminals
DOJ Demonizes Constitutionalists As Extremist Criminals
Constitutionalist, defined by Random House’s 2010 Dictionary as an “adherent or advocate of constitutionalism or of an existing constitution”, is described in the report as a “generic term for members of the ‘patriot’ movement”. Survivalists are described in the document as fearing a “coming collapse of civilization” and are trying to prepare themselves for this collapse. Such individuals are said to have “typically stockpiled food, water, and weapons, especially the latter, and instructed themselves on topics ranging from first aid to childbirth to edible plants”.
The guide defines the term “New World Order” as being “used by conspiracy theorists to refer to a global conspiracy designed to implement worldwide socialism”. The Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, and Council on Foreign Relations are described as organizations “targeted by right-wing extremists for conspiring to dominate the world”. The guide also defines “One World Government” as the “concept that there will ultimately be a single governing body that will control the world”, adding that “some right-wing extremists fear this occurring, believing that white people will be in the minority, with Jewish people ultimately controlling the world”.
While the document’s introduction does state that “the fact that an entry appears in this publication does not imply a connection to illegal activity”, it goes on to say that the guide consists of “terms that may be germane to members of an extremist movement” or are “singularly employed by specific extremist groups”. The obvious result of the inclusion of terms such as “Bilderberg Group” and “Trilateral Commission” in a report titled “Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism” is that law enforcement officials unaware of these groups will tend to associate legitimate discussion as “extremist” speech. This diminishes the credibility of any person attempting to rationally discuss such groups and fosters a perception that any discussion of such groups could be associated with a supposedly “extremist” ideology.
Examples of “Extremist” Terminology
To see the full list read the U.S. Department of Justice Terrorism and Criminal Extremism Terms 2005-2009.
Black Helicopters: Unmarked dark helicopters allegedly observed by many members of the “patriot” movement, who claim that the helicopters are part of some vast conspiracy, perhaps involving the United Nations or the “New World Order.” Various explanations have been offered for some of the sightings, but the term has since entered the popular vocabulary and is often used as a generic, sometimes satirical reference to conspiracy-related beliefs.
Bilderbergers (Bilderberg Group): Along with the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the three groups targeted by right-wing extremists for conspiring to dominate the world.
Collection (of Information): The identification, location, and recording/storage of unanalyzed information, typically from an original source and using both human and technological means, for input into the intelligence cycle to determine its usefulness in meeting a defined tactical or strategic intelligence goal.
Concentration Camps: Detention camps supposedly being built or already built by the United States government, according to conspiracy theorists.
Constitutionalists: A generic term for members of the “patriot” movement. It is now often used to refer to members of the sovereign citizen or common law court movement. Sometimes the word “constitutionist” is also used.
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR ): Along with the Bilderbergers and the Trilateral Commission, one of the three key groups that conspiracy theorists claim operate behind the scenes to control the world and to establish the “New World Order.”
Executive Orders: The formal means by which the President of the United States determines the conduct of business in the Executive Branch. Typically, such executive orders take two forms: (1) orders governing administrative or policy matters in Executive Branch agencies or (2) orders for which the authority is derived from congressional authorizations. The “patriot” movement, however, contends that executive orders are “presidential laws” that bypass Congress and subvert the Constitution.
Flag of Peace: The American flag preferred by the “patriot” movement; a red, white, and blue flag without any gold trim, braid, balls, tassels, eagles, fringe, or spear on the flag or pole. Patriots believe that any other American flag is a military flag that denotes military jurisdiction. Only under the “flag of peace” do U.S. citizens receive their constitutional rights and due process.
Globalization: This term generally refers to the denationalization of economies, markets, products, and populations brought about by ever faster travel, improved communications, and advances in technology.
Illuminati: An intellectual society and social club formed by a university professor, Adam Weishaupt (1748–1811), in southern Germany in the 1770s in the spirit of the Enlightenment. It was suppressed by Bavarian authorities in the 1780s. Weishaupt spent the rest of his life writing about the Illuminati. People who believe Illuminati conspiracy theories believe the society never died away but lived on, run by people intent on controlling the world through devious means.
Information Warfare: Synonymous with cyberwarfare, information warfare is the offensive and defensive use of information and information systems to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy an adversary’s information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks while protecting one’s own. Such actions are designed to achieve advantages over military or business adversaries.
Jack-Booted Thug (JBT ): A law enforcement officer (especially federal) draped in combat fatigues or other military or paramilitary uniform, wearing a ski mask or similar headgear guaranteeing anonymity, wielding powerful military weapons, and utilizing other military vehicles and gear.
New World Order: A term used by conspiracy theorists to refer to a global conspiracy designed to implement worldwide socialism.
One-World Government: The concept that there will ultimately be a single governing body that will control the world. Some right-wing extremists fear this occurring, believing that white people will be in the minority, with Jewish people ultimately controlling the world.
Open Source Information or Intelligence: Individual data, records, reports, and assessments that may shed light on an investigatory target or event and do not require any legal process or any type of clandestine collection techniques for a law enforcement agency to obtain. Such information is obtained through means that meet copyright and commercial requirements of vendors, as well as being free of legal restrictions to access by anyone who seeks that information.
Patriot Movement: The “patriot” movement is a general term used by its members to describe the collective movements and individuals on the extreme right wing. In one form or another, this practice dates back many decades; in the 1930s, many on the far right referred to themselves as “superpatriots.” In the 1960s and 1970s, it was common to refer to the “Christian Patriot” movement, but this term is less common now than then. Among the types of individuals that can be found within the “patriot” movement are white supremacists, sovereign citizens, tax protesters, militia members, and sometimes antiabortion or anti-environmental groups.
Patriots for Profit: A term used to describe those individuals in the “patriot” movement who perpetrate scams and frauds against other people, usually fellow members of the movement. It also refers to people who attempt to make money by selling various products and “kits” to members of the movement. By far the most numerous of the “patriots for profit” are the people who cater to would-be tax protesters.
Pirate Radio: The operation of radio transmitters without a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Although some of the most notable pirate stations, such as Free Radio Berkeley, have been primarily left-wing in orientation, a large number of pirate stations adhere to right-wing or antigovernment philosophies.
Sovereign Citizen: A term used to describe adherents to a philosophy derived from the group Posse Comitatus that posits that there are two types of citizens: “Fourteenth Amendment Citizens,” who are subject to the laws and taxes of the federal and state governments, and sovereign citizens, who are subject only to “the common law.” Sovereign citizens claim that they have absolute mastery over all their property (including freedom from taxes, regulations, ordinances, or zoning restrictions), that they essentially do not have to pay taxes (aside from tariffs and a few other insignificant taxes), that they are not citizens of the United States but are “nonresident aliens” with respect to that “illegal corporation,” that the only court which has jurisdiction to try them for any matter is a common law court, and that they can never be arrested or tried for a crime or matter in which there is no complaining victim, as well as various other notions. Typical signs that someone is a sovereign citizen include the use of punctuation between their middle and last names (i.e., John Wayne; Doe); a refusal to have a social security card or any paper, license, or document related to automobile ownership or driving; a refusal to use zip codes; and the displaying on various items—from envelopes to paper money, to time cards, or to forms—of the phrase “UCC 1-207,” or variants thereof. Sovereign citizens are often also known as state citizens, freemen, preamble citizens, common law citizens, or other appellations.
Survivalists: The survivalist movement feared a coming collapse of civilization, generally as the result of nuclear war, and tried to prepare themselves to survive it. Survivalists typically stockpiled food, water, and weapons, especially the latter, and instructed themselves on topics ranging from first aid to childbirth to edible plants.
Tax-Protest Movement: A movement consisting of people who do not simply want to avoid paying taxes but generally claim they should not have to pay them. The right-wing movement started in the 1950s and 1960s and has concentrated on interpreting the Constitution, U.S. law, and the tax code, in particular, in such a way as to be able to claim that most people do not have to pay income taxes. The motivating force behind the right-wing tax-protest movement was to find loopholes, actual or manufactured, that would allow people to claim that they had no tax obligation.
Trilateral Commission: A group, along with the Bilderbergers and the Council on Foreign Relations, that is viewed by the “patriot” movement as being one of the major organizations seeking to implement the “New World Order.” Formed in 1973 by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Trilateral Commission consists of slightly over 300 members from Europe, Japan, and North America (the three main democratic-industrial regions of the world, thus the term “trilateral”). Members include prominent figures in the media, politics, business, and academia. Conspiracy theorists claim it is a group of elitists determined to promote a one-world government.
Constitutionalist, defined by Random House’s 2010 Dictionary as an “adherent or advocate of constitutionalism or of an existing constitution”, is described in the report as a “generic term for members of the ‘patriot’ movement”. Survivalists are described in the document as fearing a “coming collapse of civilization” and are trying to prepare themselves for this collapse. Such individuals are said to have “typically stockpiled food, water, and weapons, especially the latter, and instructed themselves on topics ranging from first aid to childbirth to edible plants”.
The guide defines the term “New World Order” as being “used by conspiracy theorists to refer to a global conspiracy designed to implement worldwide socialism”. The Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, and Council on Foreign Relations are described as organizations “targeted by right-wing extremists for conspiring to dominate the world”. The guide also defines “One World Government” as the “concept that there will ultimately be a single governing body that will control the world”, adding that “some right-wing extremists fear this occurring, believing that white people will be in the minority, with Jewish people ultimately controlling the world”.
While the document’s introduction does state that “the fact that an entry appears in this publication does not imply a connection to illegal activity”, it goes on to say that the guide consists of “terms that may be germane to members of an extremist movement” or are “singularly employed by specific extremist groups”. The obvious result of the inclusion of terms such as “Bilderberg Group” and “Trilateral Commission” in a report titled “Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism” is that law enforcement officials unaware of these groups will tend to associate legitimate discussion as “extremist” speech. This diminishes the credibility of any person attempting to rationally discuss such groups and fosters a perception that any discussion of such groups could be associated with a supposedly “extremist” ideology.
Examples of “Extremist” Terminology
To see the full list read the U.S. Department of Justice Terrorism and Criminal Extremism Terms 2005-2009.
Black Helicopters: Unmarked dark helicopters allegedly observed by many members of the “patriot” movement, who claim that the helicopters are part of some vast conspiracy, perhaps involving the United Nations or the “New World Order.” Various explanations have been offered for some of the sightings, but the term has since entered the popular vocabulary and is often used as a generic, sometimes satirical reference to conspiracy-related beliefs.
Bilderbergers (Bilderberg Group): Along with the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the three groups targeted by right-wing extremists for conspiring to dominate the world.
Collection (of Information): The identification, location, and recording/storage of unanalyzed information, typically from an original source and using both human and technological means, for input into the intelligence cycle to determine its usefulness in meeting a defined tactical or strategic intelligence goal.
Concentration Camps: Detention camps supposedly being built or already built by the United States government, according to conspiracy theorists.
Constitutionalists: A generic term for members of the “patriot” movement. It is now often used to refer to members of the sovereign citizen or common law court movement. Sometimes the word “constitutionist” is also used.
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR ): Along with the Bilderbergers and the Trilateral Commission, one of the three key groups that conspiracy theorists claim operate behind the scenes to control the world and to establish the “New World Order.”
Executive Orders: The formal means by which the President of the United States determines the conduct of business in the Executive Branch. Typically, such executive orders take two forms: (1) orders governing administrative or policy matters in Executive Branch agencies or (2) orders for which the authority is derived from congressional authorizations. The “patriot” movement, however, contends that executive orders are “presidential laws” that bypass Congress and subvert the Constitution.
Flag of Peace: The American flag preferred by the “patriot” movement; a red, white, and blue flag without any gold trim, braid, balls, tassels, eagles, fringe, or spear on the flag or pole. Patriots believe that any other American flag is a military flag that denotes military jurisdiction. Only under the “flag of peace” do U.S. citizens receive their constitutional rights and due process.
Globalization: This term generally refers to the denationalization of economies, markets, products, and populations brought about by ever faster travel, improved communications, and advances in technology.
Illuminati: An intellectual society and social club formed by a university professor, Adam Weishaupt (1748–1811), in southern Germany in the 1770s in the spirit of the Enlightenment. It was suppressed by Bavarian authorities in the 1780s. Weishaupt spent the rest of his life writing about the Illuminati. People who believe Illuminati conspiracy theories believe the society never died away but lived on, run by people intent on controlling the world through devious means.
Information Warfare: Synonymous with cyberwarfare, information warfare is the offensive and defensive use of information and information systems to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy an adversary’s information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks while protecting one’s own. Such actions are designed to achieve advantages over military or business adversaries.
Jack-Booted Thug (JBT ): A law enforcement officer (especially federal) draped in combat fatigues or other military or paramilitary uniform, wearing a ski mask or similar headgear guaranteeing anonymity, wielding powerful military weapons, and utilizing other military vehicles and gear.
New World Order: A term used by conspiracy theorists to refer to a global conspiracy designed to implement worldwide socialism.
One-World Government: The concept that there will ultimately be a single governing body that will control the world. Some right-wing extremists fear this occurring, believing that white people will be in the minority, with Jewish people ultimately controlling the world.
Open Source Information or Intelligence: Individual data, records, reports, and assessments that may shed light on an investigatory target or event and do not require any legal process or any type of clandestine collection techniques for a law enforcement agency to obtain. Such information is obtained through means that meet copyright and commercial requirements of vendors, as well as being free of legal restrictions to access by anyone who seeks that information.
Patriot Movement: The “patriot” movement is a general term used by its members to describe the collective movements and individuals on the extreme right wing. In one form or another, this practice dates back many decades; in the 1930s, many on the far right referred to themselves as “superpatriots.” In the 1960s and 1970s, it was common to refer to the “Christian Patriot” movement, but this term is less common now than then. Among the types of individuals that can be found within the “patriot” movement are white supremacists, sovereign citizens, tax protesters, militia members, and sometimes antiabortion or anti-environmental groups.
Patriots for Profit: A term used to describe those individuals in the “patriot” movement who perpetrate scams and frauds against other people, usually fellow members of the movement. It also refers to people who attempt to make money by selling various products and “kits” to members of the movement. By far the most numerous of the “patriots for profit” are the people who cater to would-be tax protesters.
Pirate Radio: The operation of radio transmitters without a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Although some of the most notable pirate stations, such as Free Radio Berkeley, have been primarily left-wing in orientation, a large number of pirate stations adhere to right-wing or antigovernment philosophies.
Sovereign Citizen: A term used to describe adherents to a philosophy derived from the group Posse Comitatus that posits that there are two types of citizens: “Fourteenth Amendment Citizens,” who are subject to the laws and taxes of the federal and state governments, and sovereign citizens, who are subject only to “the common law.” Sovereign citizens claim that they have absolute mastery over all their property (including freedom from taxes, regulations, ordinances, or zoning restrictions), that they essentially do not have to pay taxes (aside from tariffs and a few other insignificant taxes), that they are not citizens of the United States but are “nonresident aliens” with respect to that “illegal corporation,” that the only court which has jurisdiction to try them for any matter is a common law court, and that they can never be arrested or tried for a crime or matter in which there is no complaining victim, as well as various other notions. Typical signs that someone is a sovereign citizen include the use of punctuation between their middle and last names (i.e., John Wayne; Doe); a refusal to have a social security card or any paper, license, or document related to automobile ownership or driving; a refusal to use zip codes; and the displaying on various items—from envelopes to paper money, to time cards, or to forms—of the phrase “UCC 1-207,” or variants thereof. Sovereign citizens are often also known as state citizens, freemen, preamble citizens, common law citizens, or other appellations.
Survivalists: The survivalist movement feared a coming collapse of civilization, generally as the result of nuclear war, and tried to prepare themselves to survive it. Survivalists typically stockpiled food, water, and weapons, especially the latter, and instructed themselves on topics ranging from first aid to childbirth to edible plants.
Tax-Protest Movement: A movement consisting of people who do not simply want to avoid paying taxes but generally claim they should not have to pay them. The right-wing movement started in the 1950s and 1960s and has concentrated on interpreting the Constitution, U.S. law, and the tax code, in particular, in such a way as to be able to claim that most people do not have to pay income taxes. The motivating force behind the right-wing tax-protest movement was to find loopholes, actual or manufactured, that would allow people to claim that they had no tax obligation.
Trilateral Commission: A group, along with the Bilderbergers and the Council on Foreign Relations, that is viewed by the “patriot” movement as being one of the major organizations seeking to implement the “New World Order.” Formed in 1973 by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Trilateral Commission consists of slightly over 300 members from Europe, Japan, and North America (the three main democratic-industrial regions of the world, thus the term “trilateral”). Members include prominent figures in the media, politics, business, and academia. Conspiracy theorists claim it is a group of elitists determined to promote a one-world government.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Boats reach Gaza despite blockade - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
Boats reach Gaza despite blockade - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
Two vessels carrying 46 international human rights activists have reached the Gaza Strip, despite Israel's strict 14-month siege of the Palestinian territory.
The end of the mission to symbolically break the siege came after Israel backed down from an earlier warning to the 'Free Gaza' protest group not to breach the blockade.
Al Jazeera's Ashraf Amritti in Gaza said: "The arrival of these two boats is a very symbolic gesture for the Palestinian cause, to end the siege, end the occupation.
In fact, those phrases are written across the peace boats which carry flags from more than 70 nationalities."
The boats set sail on Friday on a 370km voyage from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus carrying activists from 17 countries, including Israel, with the aim of drawing attention to Israel's blockade of Gaza and its affect on the people there.
The boats sailed through choppy waters into Gaza City's main port on Saturday, where they were greeted by thousands of people waving Palestinian flags, many of them sailing around the harbour in boats.
Unity call
Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader and dismissed Palestinian prime minster, called on the world to follow the example of the international activists movement and "break the siege on Gaza".
"We deeply appreciate and salute the activists on the two boats", Haniya told Al Jazeera in a phone interview.
Haniya said that it was time for Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing and end the siege once and for all.
Egypt reopened the crossing last January after Palestinians blew up part of the border barrier, allowing thousands to stock up on supplies from border towns.
Cairo sealed the crossing three days later under pressure from both the United States and the Israeli government, to "protect its own sovereignty."
Jibril al-Rjoub, a senior Fatah leader, also welcomed the "breach of the embargo", describing the international activists as "humanists".
"The two boats defiance the of the Israeli blockade is a glimmer of hope that could be an opening of an end of the siege", the former Palestinian security chief told Al Jazeera in an interview from the West Bank of Ramallah.
Rjoub called for both an immediate reconcilation between Fatah and Hamas to unite the efforts to restore national unity, and to forge ahead with efforts to alleviate Palestinian suffering.
'Overjoyed'
Local activists and charity workers had feared Israel's military would step in to prevent the activists from reaching their destination.
Andrew Mumcie, one of the activists on board one of the boats, told Al Jazeera he was "overjoyed" by their success in reaching Gaza's shore.
"Now we will go back to Cyprus and organise another trip," Mumcie said, adding the group would continue its activities until Israel's siege of Gaza was lifted.
Israel's foreign ministry said it had been closely monitoring the 21-metre-long "Free Gaza" and 18-metre-long "Liberty" boats after they left the Cypriot port of Larnaca.
Aviv Sharon, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, earlier said: "They want provocation at sea, but they won't get it.
"We know who the passengers are and what they are bringing with them, and so we have no problem letting them through."
'Death threats'
Sharon had said earlier in the day that "all options" were being considered to prevent the ships from entering embargoed waters.
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, a Jerusalem-based spokeswoman for the Free Gaza Movement which organised the event, said the boats' communications systems had been attacked by "electronic piracy" earlier in the day.
The activists' group was comprised of people between 22 and 81, included students, lawyers, doctors, journalists and an online poker player, organisers said.
Mostly American and British, they included Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is now a Middle East envoy.
Many of the activists said they had received death threats before they set sail, leading some to drop out.
Israel has tightened its blockade of Gaza since Hamas seized power in June 2007.
Two vessels carrying 46 international human rights activists have reached the Gaza Strip, despite Israel's strict 14-month siege of the Palestinian territory.
The end of the mission to symbolically break the siege came after Israel backed down from an earlier warning to the 'Free Gaza' protest group not to breach the blockade.
Al Jazeera's Ashraf Amritti in Gaza said: "The arrival of these two boats is a very symbolic gesture for the Palestinian cause, to end the siege, end the occupation.
In fact, those phrases are written across the peace boats which carry flags from more than 70 nationalities."
The boats set sail on Friday on a 370km voyage from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus carrying activists from 17 countries, including Israel, with the aim of drawing attention to Israel's blockade of Gaza and its affect on the people there.
The boats sailed through choppy waters into Gaza City's main port on Saturday, where they were greeted by thousands of people waving Palestinian flags, many of them sailing around the harbour in boats.
Unity call
Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader and dismissed Palestinian prime minster, called on the world to follow the example of the international activists movement and "break the siege on Gaza".
"We deeply appreciate and salute the activists on the two boats", Haniya told Al Jazeera in a phone interview.
Haniya said that it was time for Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing and end the siege once and for all.
Egypt reopened the crossing last January after Palestinians blew up part of the border barrier, allowing thousands to stock up on supplies from border towns.
Cairo sealed the crossing three days later under pressure from both the United States and the Israeli government, to "protect its own sovereignty."
Jibril al-Rjoub, a senior Fatah leader, also welcomed the "breach of the embargo", describing the international activists as "humanists".
"The two boats defiance the of the Israeli blockade is a glimmer of hope that could be an opening of an end of the siege", the former Palestinian security chief told Al Jazeera in an interview from the West Bank of Ramallah.
Rjoub called for both an immediate reconcilation between Fatah and Hamas to unite the efforts to restore national unity, and to forge ahead with efforts to alleviate Palestinian suffering.
'Overjoyed'
Local activists and charity workers had feared Israel's military would step in to prevent the activists from reaching their destination.
Andrew Mumcie, one of the activists on board one of the boats, told Al Jazeera he was "overjoyed" by their success in reaching Gaza's shore.
"Now we will go back to Cyprus and organise another trip," Mumcie said, adding the group would continue its activities until Israel's siege of Gaza was lifted.
Israel's foreign ministry said it had been closely monitoring the 21-metre-long "Free Gaza" and 18-metre-long "Liberty" boats after they left the Cypriot port of Larnaca.
Aviv Sharon, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, earlier said: "They want provocation at sea, but they won't get it.
"We know who the passengers are and what they are bringing with them, and so we have no problem letting them through."
'Death threats'
Sharon had said earlier in the day that "all options" were being considered to prevent the ships from entering embargoed waters.
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, a Jerusalem-based spokeswoman for the Free Gaza Movement which organised the event, said the boats' communications systems had been attacked by "electronic piracy" earlier in the day.
The activists' group was comprised of people between 22 and 81, included students, lawyers, doctors, journalists and an online poker player, organisers said.
Mostly American and British, they included Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is now a Middle East envoy.
Many of the activists said they had received death threats before they set sail, leading some to drop out.
Israel has tightened its blockade of Gaza since Hamas seized power in June 2007.
“Monetary Shock and Awe”: The Fed prepared to launch most Radical Intervention in History
“Monetary Shock and Awe”: The Fed prepared to launch most Radical Intervention in History
Mike Whitney
Black Listed News
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The equities markets are in disarray while the bond markets continue to surge. The avalanche of bad news has started to take its toll on investor sentiment. Barry Ritholtz’s “The Big Picture” reports that the bears have taken the high-ground and bullishness has dropped to its lowest level since March ‘09 when the market did a quick about-face and began a year-long rally. Could it happen again? No one knows, but the mood has definitely darkened along with the data. There’s no talk of green shoots any more, and even the deficit hawks have gone into hibernation. It feels like the calm before the storm, which is why all eyes were on Jackson Hole this morning where Fed chairman Ben Bernanke delivered his verdict on the state of the economy on Friday.
Wall Street was hoping the Fed would “go big” and promise another hefty dose of quantitative easing to push down long-term interest rates and jolt consumers out of their lethargy. But Bernanke provided few details choosing instead this vague commitment:
“The Committee is prepared to provide additional monetary accommodation through unconventional measures if it proves necessary, especially if the outlook were to deteriorate significantly.”
Check. There’s no doubt that Helicopter Ben would be in mid-flight right now tossing bundles of $100 bills into the jet-stream like confetti if he had the option. But Bernanke is fighting a rearguard action from inside the FOMC where a fractious group of rebels want to wait and see if the recent downturn is just a blip on the radar or something more serious, another tumble into recessionary hell.
This week, the markets were blindsided by two days of dismal housing news, grim durable goods orders, a slowdown in manufacturing, and modest gains in employment. 4 years later, and housing is still mired in a depression. When does it end? Households and consumers are buried under a mountain of debt; personal bankruptcies, delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures continue to mount while politicians threaten to tighten the purse-strings putting more pressure on families who can barley put food on the table let alone pay the mortgage.
Just months ago, 57 out of 57 economists surveyed predicted that the economy would avoid a double dip recession. Now they’re not so sure. Stock market gains have been wiped out and the S&P 500 has dropped 14 percent from its high in April. All of the main economic indicators are testing new lows. The so-called “soft patch” is looking like another hard landing. The fear is palpable. On Thursday, the Dow slipped another 74 points by the end of the session. It could have been worse. The markets have been holding on by their fingernails hoping that Bernanke will bail them out. But it’s going to take more than the usual promise of low interest rates for an “extended period” to boost enthusiasm. Wall Street is looking for the “big fix”, a trillion dollar resumption of the Fed’s bond purchasing program (QE) to pump up flaccid asset prices, electro-shock demand, and raise consumer inflation expectations. The big banks and the brokerage houses want Bernanke to rout the Cassandras and the gloomsters and pump some adrenalin into sluggish indexes. The Fed chairman promised to help…..but not just yet, which is why the markets continue to seesaw.
Bernanke takes the threat of deflation seriously. His earlier speeches laid out a deflation-fighting strategy that is so radical it would shock the public and Wall Street alike. Here’s an excerpt from a speech he gave in 2002 which illustrates the Fed boss’s willingness to move heaven and earth to fend off the scourge of pernicious deflation:
Ben Bernanke: “My thesis here is that cooperation between the monetary and fiscal authorities in Japan could help solve the problems that each policymaker faces on its own. Consider for example a tax cut for households and businesses that is explicitly coupled with incremental BOJ purchases of government debt – so that the tax cut is in effect financed by money creation. Moreover, assume that the Bank of Japan has made a commitment, by announcing a price-level target, to reflate the economy, so that much or all of the increase in the money stock is viewed as permanent.
Under this plan, the BOJ’s balance sheet is protected by the bond conversion program, and the government’s concerns about its outstanding stock of debt are mitigated because increases in its debt are purchased by the BOJ rather than sold to the private sector. Moreover, consumers and businesses should be willing to spend rather than save the bulk of their tax cut: They have extra cash on hand, but – because the BOJ purchased government debt in the amount of the tax cut – no current or future debt service burden has been created to imply increased future taxes.
Essentially, monetary and fiscal policies together have increased the nominal wealth of the household sector, which will increase nominal spending and hence prices….from a fiscal perspective, the policy would almost certainly be stabilizing, in the sense of reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio….
Potential roles for monetary-fiscal cooperation are not limited to BOJ support of tax cuts. BOJ purchases of government debt could also support spending programs, to facilitate industrial restructuring, for example. The BOJ’s purchases would mitigate the effect of the new spending on the burden of debt and future interest payments perceived by households, which should reduce the offset from decreased consumption. More generally, by replacing interest-bearing debt with money, BOJ purchases of government debt lower current deficits and interest burdens and thus the public’s expectations of future tax obligations.” (Some Thoughts on Monetary Policy in Japan, Governor Ben S. Bernanke, The Federal Reserve Board Tokyo, Japan, May 31, 2003)
Yikes! This is monetization writ large. Anyone who thought Bernanke lacked cohones should reread this passage. The Fed chair is prepared to launch the most radical intervention in history, monetary Shock and Awe. But will the bewhiskered professor be able to persuade congress to follow his lead, after all, the fiscal component is critical to the program’s success. They’re two spokes on the same wheel. Here’s how (I imagine) it would work: Congress passes emergency legislation to suspend the payroll tax for two years stuffing hundreds of billions instantly into the pockets of struggling consumers. The Fed makes up the difference by purchasing an equal amount of long-term Treasuries keeping the yields low while the economy resets, employment rises, asset prices balloon, and markets soar. As the economy accelerates, the dollar steadily loses ground triggering a sharp increase in exports and sparking a viscous trade war with foreign trading partners. Then……it’s anyone’s guess? Either Bernanke’s “nuclear option” succeeds in resuscitating the comatose economy or foreign holders of dollars and dollar-backed assets dump their gargantuan trove of US loot in a pile and set it ablaze. It’s all a roll of the dice.
Mike Whitney
Black Listed News
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The equities markets are in disarray while the bond markets continue to surge. The avalanche of bad news has started to take its toll on investor sentiment. Barry Ritholtz’s “The Big Picture” reports that the bears have taken the high-ground and bullishness has dropped to its lowest level since March ‘09 when the market did a quick about-face and began a year-long rally. Could it happen again? No one knows, but the mood has definitely darkened along with the data. There’s no talk of green shoots any more, and even the deficit hawks have gone into hibernation. It feels like the calm before the storm, which is why all eyes were on Jackson Hole this morning where Fed chairman Ben Bernanke delivered his verdict on the state of the economy on Friday.
Wall Street was hoping the Fed would “go big” and promise another hefty dose of quantitative easing to push down long-term interest rates and jolt consumers out of their lethargy. But Bernanke provided few details choosing instead this vague commitment:
“The Committee is prepared to provide additional monetary accommodation through unconventional measures if it proves necessary, especially if the outlook were to deteriorate significantly.”
Check. There’s no doubt that Helicopter Ben would be in mid-flight right now tossing bundles of $100 bills into the jet-stream like confetti if he had the option. But Bernanke is fighting a rearguard action from inside the FOMC where a fractious group of rebels want to wait and see if the recent downturn is just a blip on the radar or something more serious, another tumble into recessionary hell.
This week, the markets were blindsided by two days of dismal housing news, grim durable goods orders, a slowdown in manufacturing, and modest gains in employment. 4 years later, and housing is still mired in a depression. When does it end? Households and consumers are buried under a mountain of debt; personal bankruptcies, delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures continue to mount while politicians threaten to tighten the purse-strings putting more pressure on families who can barley put food on the table let alone pay the mortgage.
Just months ago, 57 out of 57 economists surveyed predicted that the economy would avoid a double dip recession. Now they’re not so sure. Stock market gains have been wiped out and the S&P 500 has dropped 14 percent from its high in April. All of the main economic indicators are testing new lows. The so-called “soft patch” is looking like another hard landing. The fear is palpable. On Thursday, the Dow slipped another 74 points by the end of the session. It could have been worse. The markets have been holding on by their fingernails hoping that Bernanke will bail them out. But it’s going to take more than the usual promise of low interest rates for an “extended period” to boost enthusiasm. Wall Street is looking for the “big fix”, a trillion dollar resumption of the Fed’s bond purchasing program (QE) to pump up flaccid asset prices, electro-shock demand, and raise consumer inflation expectations. The big banks and the brokerage houses want Bernanke to rout the Cassandras and the gloomsters and pump some adrenalin into sluggish indexes. The Fed chairman promised to help…..but not just yet, which is why the markets continue to seesaw.
Bernanke takes the threat of deflation seriously. His earlier speeches laid out a deflation-fighting strategy that is so radical it would shock the public and Wall Street alike. Here’s an excerpt from a speech he gave in 2002 which illustrates the Fed boss’s willingness to move heaven and earth to fend off the scourge of pernicious deflation:
Ben Bernanke: “My thesis here is that cooperation between the monetary and fiscal authorities in Japan could help solve the problems that each policymaker faces on its own. Consider for example a tax cut for households and businesses that is explicitly coupled with incremental BOJ purchases of government debt – so that the tax cut is in effect financed by money creation. Moreover, assume that the Bank of Japan has made a commitment, by announcing a price-level target, to reflate the economy, so that much or all of the increase in the money stock is viewed as permanent.
Under this plan, the BOJ’s balance sheet is protected by the bond conversion program, and the government’s concerns about its outstanding stock of debt are mitigated because increases in its debt are purchased by the BOJ rather than sold to the private sector. Moreover, consumers and businesses should be willing to spend rather than save the bulk of their tax cut: They have extra cash on hand, but – because the BOJ purchased government debt in the amount of the tax cut – no current or future debt service burden has been created to imply increased future taxes.
Essentially, monetary and fiscal policies together have increased the nominal wealth of the household sector, which will increase nominal spending and hence prices….from a fiscal perspective, the policy would almost certainly be stabilizing, in the sense of reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio….
Potential roles for monetary-fiscal cooperation are not limited to BOJ support of tax cuts. BOJ purchases of government debt could also support spending programs, to facilitate industrial restructuring, for example. The BOJ’s purchases would mitigate the effect of the new spending on the burden of debt and future interest payments perceived by households, which should reduce the offset from decreased consumption. More generally, by replacing interest-bearing debt with money, BOJ purchases of government debt lower current deficits and interest burdens and thus the public’s expectations of future tax obligations.” (Some Thoughts on Monetary Policy in Japan, Governor Ben S. Bernanke, The Federal Reserve Board Tokyo, Japan, May 31, 2003)
Yikes! This is monetization writ large. Anyone who thought Bernanke lacked cohones should reread this passage. The Fed chair is prepared to launch the most radical intervention in history, monetary Shock and Awe. But will the bewhiskered professor be able to persuade congress to follow his lead, after all, the fiscal component is critical to the program’s success. They’re two spokes on the same wheel. Here’s how (I imagine) it would work: Congress passes emergency legislation to suspend the payroll tax for two years stuffing hundreds of billions instantly into the pockets of struggling consumers. The Fed makes up the difference by purchasing an equal amount of long-term Treasuries keeping the yields low while the economy resets, employment rises, asset prices balloon, and markets soar. As the economy accelerates, the dollar steadily loses ground triggering a sharp increase in exports and sparking a viscous trade war with foreign trading partners. Then……it’s anyone’s guess? Either Bernanke’s “nuclear option” succeeds in resuscitating the comatose economy or foreign holders of dollars and dollar-backed assets dump their gargantuan trove of US loot in a pile and set it ablaze. It’s all a roll of the dice.
Statin drugs may soon be given to fast food customers with meals
Statin drugs may soon be given to fast food customers with meals
Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
Sunday, August 29, 2010
(NaturalNews) A new study out of Imperial College London suggests that fast food chains start giving out free statin drugs to customers in order to help balance out the negative effects of the junk food on their bodies. The scientists who worked on the study actually say that taking a statin drug with a fast food meal undoes most of the damage otherwise caused by eating it.
“Statins don’t cut out all of the unhealthy effects of burgers and fries. It’s better to avoid fatty food altogether. But we’ve worked out that in terms of your likelihood of having a heart attack, taking a statin can reduce your risk to more or less the same degree as a fast food meal increases it,” explained Dr. Darrel Francis from the National Heart and Lung Institute at the college, author of the study.
The team is suggesting that statin drugs be handed out for free — without a prescription — to fast food customers with their meals. Dr. Francis even referred to statins in an interview as “supplements” rather than drugs, comparing them to the condiments one would put on a burger and fries.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
Having A Supply Of Healthy Foods That Last Just Makes Sense (AD)
But the belief that statin drugs are no different than food or supplements and are safe to hand out to people like candy is preposterous. Not only do statin drugs deplete the body of necessary enzymes like coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and prevent the body from producing it, but they damage cells and muscle tissue in the body.
“We know that statins cause muscle damage, but even in people without any symptoms or abnormal blood tests, muscle biopsy shows cell injury,” explains Mark Hyman, MD, in his book The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea…
http://www.naturalpedia.com/statins…
Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
Sunday, August 29, 2010
(NaturalNews) A new study out of Imperial College London suggests that fast food chains start giving out free statin drugs to customers in order to help balance out the negative effects of the junk food on their bodies. The scientists who worked on the study actually say that taking a statin drug with a fast food meal undoes most of the damage otherwise caused by eating it.
“Statins don’t cut out all of the unhealthy effects of burgers and fries. It’s better to avoid fatty food altogether. But we’ve worked out that in terms of your likelihood of having a heart attack, taking a statin can reduce your risk to more or less the same degree as a fast food meal increases it,” explained Dr. Darrel Francis from the National Heart and Lung Institute at the college, author of the study.
The team is suggesting that statin drugs be handed out for free — without a prescription — to fast food customers with their meals. Dr. Francis even referred to statins in an interview as “supplements” rather than drugs, comparing them to the condiments one would put on a burger and fries.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
Having A Supply Of Healthy Foods That Last Just Makes Sense (AD)
But the belief that statin drugs are no different than food or supplements and are safe to hand out to people like candy is preposterous. Not only do statin drugs deplete the body of necessary enzymes like coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and prevent the body from producing it, but they damage cells and muscle tissue in the body.
“We know that statins cause muscle damage, but even in people without any symptoms or abnormal blood tests, muscle biopsy shows cell injury,” explains Mark Hyman, MD, in his book The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea…
http://www.naturalpedia.com/statins…
PressTV - Mexico to ban payment in cash
PressTV - Mexico to ban payment in cash
Mexico says it is planning to tighten the noose around big-ticket cash purchases to curtail the flow of smuggled dollars and fight money laundering.
President Felipe Calderon put forward the sweeping new measures Thursday to crack down on billions of dollars of the illicit money gained by the drug cartels and spent by them for more profit.
"This illicit money is vital for the criminal. That is what they seek, this money. It is also vital to finance their activities," said Calderon, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.
If approved by the legislature, the legislation would not allow anyone to buy real estate in cash. Neither would it permit anyone to spend more than MXN 100,000 (USD 7,700) in cash on vehicles, boats, airplanes and luxury goods.
Violators of the new legislation would face up to 15 years in prison.
According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, around USD 18 billion to USD 39 billion in drug money is smuggled from the United States into Mexico where it is laundered.
"In the criminal world, cash is king, and in Mexico you have to go after the cash if you want to disrupt their operations," said Jerry Robinette, a special agent in charge of the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency in San Antonio, wrote the Post.
However, so far very little has been done "to either impede the movement of drug money into the formal economy or significantly reduce the flow of bulk cash across the US-Mexico border," says Douglas Farah, a consultant for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
US and Mexican agents seize no more than 1 percent of this southbound cash, according to a Washington Post analysis, based on figures provided by both governments.
In Mexico, about three-fourths of all transactions are in cash.
Mexico says it is planning to tighten the noose around big-ticket cash purchases to curtail the flow of smuggled dollars and fight money laundering.
President Felipe Calderon put forward the sweeping new measures Thursday to crack down on billions of dollars of the illicit money gained by the drug cartels and spent by them for more profit.
"This illicit money is vital for the criminal. That is what they seek, this money. It is also vital to finance their activities," said Calderon, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.
If approved by the legislature, the legislation would not allow anyone to buy real estate in cash. Neither would it permit anyone to spend more than MXN 100,000 (USD 7,700) in cash on vehicles, boats, airplanes and luxury goods.
Violators of the new legislation would face up to 15 years in prison.
According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, around USD 18 billion to USD 39 billion in drug money is smuggled from the United States into Mexico where it is laundered.
"In the criminal world, cash is king, and in Mexico you have to go after the cash if you want to disrupt their operations," said Jerry Robinette, a special agent in charge of the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency in San Antonio, wrote the Post.
However, so far very little has been done "to either impede the movement of drug money into the formal economy or significantly reduce the flow of bulk cash across the US-Mexico border," says Douglas Farah, a consultant for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
US and Mexican agents seize no more than 1 percent of this southbound cash, according to a Washington Post analysis, based on figures provided by both governments.
In Mexico, about three-fourths of all transactions are in cash.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Watch The Ad One Million New Yorkers Will See!
BuildingWhat: Watch The Ad One Million New Yorkers Will See
How to Start Tomato Plants from Cuttings « Surviving the Middle Class Crash
How to Start Tomato Plants from Cuttings « Surviving the Middle Class Crash
Gardeners may be familiar with starting new perennials and shrubs from cuttings, but you may not realize that veggies can be started this way, too! The tomato plant, in particular, lends itself easily to cutting propagation because even the cells in its stems can become roots.
Starting tomato plants from cuttings comes in handy when you’re perusing someone else’s garden and they have a particular tomato plant that you admire. Be considerate and ask first, but it’s easy enough to take a few snips and off you go. It also gives you the opportunity of buying just a couple of plants and then creating a few more for yourself free of charge.
While you’re at it, pop in a couple more and bring some to close friends. Tuck a little tomato plant that you propagated yourself into a colorful pot, complete with planting instructions. I can’t think of a better hostess gift for an early summer BBQ.
One of the advantages of propagating tomato plants by stem cuttings is that it can take tomato seedlings (started from seed) 6 to 8 weeks before they reach transplanting size. If you keep tomato cuttings warm, the transplanting time frame is cut down to a mere 10 – 14 days.
Even if you’ve never tried propagating plants with cuttings before, you’re practically guaranteed success. Tomato cuttings are such incredibly easy rooters, they will even root in a cup of water. That being said, the plants are stronger if they are rooted in soil.
What you’ll need:
• 6 inch long tomato cuttings from the tips of the plant
• 4 inch clean containers
• Potting soil that had been dampened thoroughly
• A pencil
How to start tomato plants from cuttings:
1. First, you want to fill your 4 inch containers with the dampened potting soil.
2. Take the 6 inch cuttings and clip off any flowers or buds. Clip off the bottom leaves leaving only two leaves on the cutting.
3. Make a hole in the potting soil with the pencil–you don’t want to be trying to shove the soft stem into the soil.
4. Put the cuttings into the soil and press the soil up around them. Make sure the places where you cut off the lower leaves is buried.
5. Keep them in a warm place, but shaded form any direct sun. I prefer a kitchen window to protect them from the elements, but where ever they are protected is fine.
6. Leave them moist and in this spot for about a week.
7. You’ll then want to gradually expose them to stronger light until they are in the sun for most of the day. This may take another week.
8. At this point you can transplant them into the garden bed or maybe a large pot, where they will continue to grow and produce some lovely tomatoes for you! This is the best time to give the baby tomato plants to friends so they can start them in their gardens right away.
Gardeners may be familiar with starting new perennials and shrubs from cuttings, but you may not realize that veggies can be started this way, too! The tomato plant, in particular, lends itself easily to cutting propagation because even the cells in its stems can become roots.
Starting tomato plants from cuttings comes in handy when you’re perusing someone else’s garden and they have a particular tomato plant that you admire. Be considerate and ask first, but it’s easy enough to take a few snips and off you go. It also gives you the opportunity of buying just a couple of plants and then creating a few more for yourself free of charge.
While you’re at it, pop in a couple more and bring some to close friends. Tuck a little tomato plant that you propagated yourself into a colorful pot, complete with planting instructions. I can’t think of a better hostess gift for an early summer BBQ.
One of the advantages of propagating tomato plants by stem cuttings is that it can take tomato seedlings (started from seed) 6 to 8 weeks before they reach transplanting size. If you keep tomato cuttings warm, the transplanting time frame is cut down to a mere 10 – 14 days.
Even if you’ve never tried propagating plants with cuttings before, you’re practically guaranteed success. Tomato cuttings are such incredibly easy rooters, they will even root in a cup of water. That being said, the plants are stronger if they are rooted in soil.
What you’ll need:
• 6 inch long tomato cuttings from the tips of the plant
• 4 inch clean containers
• Potting soil that had been dampened thoroughly
• A pencil
How to start tomato plants from cuttings:
1. First, you want to fill your 4 inch containers with the dampened potting soil.
2. Take the 6 inch cuttings and clip off any flowers or buds. Clip off the bottom leaves leaving only two leaves on the cutting.
3. Make a hole in the potting soil with the pencil–you don’t want to be trying to shove the soft stem into the soil.
4. Put the cuttings into the soil and press the soil up around them. Make sure the places where you cut off the lower leaves is buried.
5. Keep them in a warm place, but shaded form any direct sun. I prefer a kitchen window to protect them from the elements, but where ever they are protected is fine.
6. Leave them moist and in this spot for about a week.
7. You’ll then want to gradually expose them to stronger light until they are in the sun for most of the day. This may take another week.
8. At this point you can transplant them into the garden bed or maybe a large pot, where they will continue to grow and produce some lovely tomatoes for you! This is the best time to give the baby tomato plants to friends so they can start them in their gardens right away.
Gates Foundation Invests In Monsanto
Gates Foundation Invests In Monsanto
Farmers and civil society organizations around the world are outraged by the recent discovery of further connections between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and agribusiness titan Monsanto.
Both will profit at expense of small-scale African farmers
Seattle Global Justice
Friday, August 27, 2010
Seattle, WA – Farmers and civil society organizations around the world are outraged by the recent discovery of further connections between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and agribusiness titan Monsanto. Last week, a financial website published the Gates Foundation’s investment portfolio, including 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock with an estimated worth of $23.1 million purchased in the second quarter of 2010 (see the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission). This marks a substantial increase from its previous holdings, valued at just over $360,000 (see the Foundation’s 2008 990 Form).
“The Foundation’s direct investment in Monsanto is problematic on two primary levels,” said Dr. Phil Bereano, University of Washington Professor Emeritus and recognized expert on genetic engineering. “First, Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast serious doubt on the Foundation’s heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an enormous conflict of interests.”
Monsanto has already negatively impacted agriculture in African countries. For example, in South Africa in 2009, Monsanto’s genetically modified maize failed to produce kernels and hundreds of farmers were devastated. According to Mariam Mayet, environmental attorney and director of the Africa Centre for Biosafety in Johannesburg, some farmers suffered up to an 80% crop failure. While Monsanto compensated the large-scale farmers to whom it directly sold the faulty product, it gave nothing to the small-scale farmers to whom it had handed out free sachets of seeds.
“When the economic power of Gates is coupled with the irresponsibility of Monsanto, the outlook for African smallholders is not very promising,” said Mayet. Monsanto’s aggressive patenting practices have also monopolized control over seed in ways that deny farmers control over their own harvest, going so far as to sue—and bankrupt—farmers for “patent infringement.”
News of the Foundation’s recent Monsanto investment has confirmed the misgivings of many farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates in Africa, among them the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, who commented, “We have long suspected that the founders of AGRA—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—had a long and more intimate affair with Monsanto.” Indeed, according to Travis English, researcher with AGRA Watch, “The Foundation’s ownership of Monsanto stock is emblematic of a deeper, more long-standing involvement with the corporation, particularly in Africa.” In 2008, AGRA Watch, a project of the Seattle-based organization Community Alliance for Global Justice, uncovered many linkages between the Foundation’s grantees and Monsanto. For example, some grantees (in particular about 70% of grantees in Kenya) of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)—considered by the Foundation to be its “African face”—work directly with Monsanto on agricultural development projects. Other prominent links include high-level Foundation staff members who were once senior officials for Monsanto, such as Rob Horsch, formerly Monsanto Vice President of International Development Partnerships and current Senior Program Officer of the Gates Agricultural Development Program.
Transnational corporations like Monsanto have been key collaborators with the Foundation and AGRA’s grantees in promoting the spread of industrial agriculture on the continent. This model of production relies on expensive inputs such as chemical fertilizers, genetically modified seeds, and herbicides. Though this package represents enticing market development opportunities for the private sector, many civil society organizations contend it will lead to further displacement of farmers from the land, an actual increase in hunger, and migration to already swollen cities unable to provide employment opportunities. In the words of a representative from the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, “AGRA is poison for our farming systems and livelihoods.
Under the philanthropic banner of greening agriculture, AGRA will eventually eat away what little is left of sustainable small-scale farming in Africa.”
A 2008 report initiated by the World Bank and the UN, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), promotes alternative solutions to the problems of hunger and poverty that emphasize their social and economic roots. The IAASTD concluded that small-scale agroecological farming is more suitable for the third world than the industrial agricultural model favored by Gates and Monsanto. In a summary of the key findings of IAASTD, the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) emphasizes the report’s warning that “continued reliance on simplistic technological fixes—including transgenic crops—will not reduce persistent hunger and poverty and could exacerbate environmental problems and worsen social inequity.” Furthermore, PANNA explains, “The Assessment’s 21 key findings suggest that small-scale agroecological farming may offer one of the best means to feed the hungry while protecting the planet.”
The Gates Foundation has been challenged in the past for its questionable investments; in 2007, the L.A. Times exposed the Foundation for investing in its own grantees and for its “holdings in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices.” The Times chastised the Foundation for what it called “blind-eye investing,” with at least 41% of its assets invested in “companies that countered the foundation’s charitable goals or socially-concerned philosophy.”
Although the Foundation announced it would reassess its practices, it decided to retain them. As reported by the L.A. Times, chief executive of the Foundation Patty Stonesifer defended their investments, stating, “It would be naïve…to think that changing the foundation’s investment policy could stop the human suffering blamed on the practices of companies in which it invests billions of dollars.” This decision is in direct contradiction to the Foundation’s official “Investment Philosophy”, which, according to its website, “defined areas in which the endowment will not invest, such as companies whose profit model is centrally tied to corporate activity that [Bill and Melinda] find egregious. This is why the endowment does not invest in tobacco stocks.”
More recently, the Foundation has come under fire in its own hometown. This week, 250 Seattle residents sent postcards expressing their concern that the Foundation’s approach to agricultural development, rather than reducing hunger as pledged, would instead “increase farmer debt, enrich agribusiness corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta, degrade the environment, and dispossess small farmers.” In addition to demanding that the Foundation instead fund “socially and ecologically appropriate practices determined locally by African farmers and scientists” and support African food sovereignty, they urged the Foundation to cut all ties to Monsanto and the biotechnology industry.
AGRA Watch, a program of Seattle-based Community Alliance for Global Justice, supports African initiatives and programs that foster farmers’ self-determination and food sovereignty. AGRA Watch also supports public engagement in fighting genetic engineering and exploitative agricultural policies, and demands transparency and accountability on the part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and AGRA.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/gates-foundation-invests-in-monsanto.html
Farmers and civil society organizations around the world are outraged by the recent discovery of further connections between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and agribusiness titan Monsanto.
Both will profit at expense of small-scale African farmers
Seattle Global Justice
Friday, August 27, 2010
Seattle, WA – Farmers and civil society organizations around the world are outraged by the recent discovery of further connections between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and agribusiness titan Monsanto. Last week, a financial website published the Gates Foundation’s investment portfolio, including 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock with an estimated worth of $23.1 million purchased in the second quarter of 2010 (see the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission). This marks a substantial increase from its previous holdings, valued at just over $360,000 (see the Foundation’s 2008 990 Form).
“The Foundation’s direct investment in Monsanto is problematic on two primary levels,” said Dr. Phil Bereano, University of Washington Professor Emeritus and recognized expert on genetic engineering. “First, Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast serious doubt on the Foundation’s heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an enormous conflict of interests.”
Monsanto has already negatively impacted agriculture in African countries. For example, in South Africa in 2009, Monsanto’s genetically modified maize failed to produce kernels and hundreds of farmers were devastated. According to Mariam Mayet, environmental attorney and director of the Africa Centre for Biosafety in Johannesburg, some farmers suffered up to an 80% crop failure. While Monsanto compensated the large-scale farmers to whom it directly sold the faulty product, it gave nothing to the small-scale farmers to whom it had handed out free sachets of seeds.
“When the economic power of Gates is coupled with the irresponsibility of Monsanto, the outlook for African smallholders is not very promising,” said Mayet. Monsanto’s aggressive patenting practices have also monopolized control over seed in ways that deny farmers control over their own harvest, going so far as to sue—and bankrupt—farmers for “patent infringement.”
News of the Foundation’s recent Monsanto investment has confirmed the misgivings of many farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates in Africa, among them the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, who commented, “We have long suspected that the founders of AGRA—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—had a long and more intimate affair with Monsanto.” Indeed, according to Travis English, researcher with AGRA Watch, “The Foundation’s ownership of Monsanto stock is emblematic of a deeper, more long-standing involvement with the corporation, particularly in Africa.” In 2008, AGRA Watch, a project of the Seattle-based organization Community Alliance for Global Justice, uncovered many linkages between the Foundation’s grantees and Monsanto. For example, some grantees (in particular about 70% of grantees in Kenya) of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)—considered by the Foundation to be its “African face”—work directly with Monsanto on agricultural development projects. Other prominent links include high-level Foundation staff members who were once senior officials for Monsanto, such as Rob Horsch, formerly Monsanto Vice President of International Development Partnerships and current Senior Program Officer of the Gates Agricultural Development Program.
Transnational corporations like Monsanto have been key collaborators with the Foundation and AGRA’s grantees in promoting the spread of industrial agriculture on the continent. This model of production relies on expensive inputs such as chemical fertilizers, genetically modified seeds, and herbicides. Though this package represents enticing market development opportunities for the private sector, many civil society organizations contend it will lead to further displacement of farmers from the land, an actual increase in hunger, and migration to already swollen cities unable to provide employment opportunities. In the words of a representative from the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, “AGRA is poison for our farming systems and livelihoods.
Under the philanthropic banner of greening agriculture, AGRA will eventually eat away what little is left of sustainable small-scale farming in Africa.”
A 2008 report initiated by the World Bank and the UN, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), promotes alternative solutions to the problems of hunger and poverty that emphasize their social and economic roots. The IAASTD concluded that small-scale agroecological farming is more suitable for the third world than the industrial agricultural model favored by Gates and Monsanto. In a summary of the key findings of IAASTD, the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) emphasizes the report’s warning that “continued reliance on simplistic technological fixes—including transgenic crops—will not reduce persistent hunger and poverty and could exacerbate environmental problems and worsen social inequity.” Furthermore, PANNA explains, “The Assessment’s 21 key findings suggest that small-scale agroecological farming may offer one of the best means to feed the hungry while protecting the planet.”
The Gates Foundation has been challenged in the past for its questionable investments; in 2007, the L.A. Times exposed the Foundation for investing in its own grantees and for its “holdings in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices.” The Times chastised the Foundation for what it called “blind-eye investing,” with at least 41% of its assets invested in “companies that countered the foundation’s charitable goals or socially-concerned philosophy.”
Although the Foundation announced it would reassess its practices, it decided to retain them. As reported by the L.A. Times, chief executive of the Foundation Patty Stonesifer defended their investments, stating, “It would be naïve…to think that changing the foundation’s investment policy could stop the human suffering blamed on the practices of companies in which it invests billions of dollars.” This decision is in direct contradiction to the Foundation’s official “Investment Philosophy”, which, according to its website, “defined areas in which the endowment will not invest, such as companies whose profit model is centrally tied to corporate activity that [Bill and Melinda] find egregious. This is why the endowment does not invest in tobacco stocks.”
More recently, the Foundation has come under fire in its own hometown. This week, 250 Seattle residents sent postcards expressing their concern that the Foundation’s approach to agricultural development, rather than reducing hunger as pledged, would instead “increase farmer debt, enrich agribusiness corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta, degrade the environment, and dispossess small farmers.” In addition to demanding that the Foundation instead fund “socially and ecologically appropriate practices determined locally by African farmers and scientists” and support African food sovereignty, they urged the Foundation to cut all ties to Monsanto and the biotechnology industry.
AGRA Watch, a program of Seattle-based Community Alliance for Global Justice, supports African initiatives and programs that foster farmers’ self-determination and food sovereignty. AGRA Watch also supports public engagement in fighting genetic engineering and exploitative agricultural policies, and demands transparency and accountability on the part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and AGRA.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/gates-foundation-invests-in-monsanto.html
Conclusive: Global Distribution of Rockefeller-Funded Anti-Fertility Vaccine Coordinated by WHO
Conclusive: Global Distribution of Rockefeller-Funded Anti-Fertility Vaccine Coordinated by WHO
Conclusive: Global Distribution of Rockefeller-Funded Anti-Fertility Vaccine Coordinated by WHO
Jurriaan Maessen
Prison Planet.com
Friday, August 27, 2010
In addition to the recent PrisonPlanet-exclusive Rockefeller Foundation Developed Vaccines For “Mass-Scale” Fertility Reduction — which outlines the Rockefeller Foundation’s efforts in the 1960s funding research into so-called “anti-fertility vaccines”– another series of documents has surfaced, proving beyond any doubt that the UN Population Fund, World Bank and World Health Organization picked up on it, further developing it under responsibility of a “Task Force on Vaccines for Fertility Regulation”.
WHO and the Rockefeller Foundation have worked together on “anti-fertility” vaccine since the 1960s.
Just four years after the Rockefeller Foundation launched massive funding-operations into anti-fertility vaccines, the Task Force was created under auspices of the World Health Organization, World Bank and UN Population Fund. Its mission, according to one of its members, to support:
“basic and clinical research on the development of birth control vaccines directed against the gametes or the preimplantation embryo. These studies have involved the use of advanced procedures in peptide chemistry, hybridoma technology and molecular genetics as well as the evaluation of a number of novel approaches in general vaccinology. As a result of this international, collaborative effort, a prototype anti-HCG vaccine is now undergoing clinical testing, raising the prospect that a totally new family planning method may be available before the end of the current decade.”
In regards to the scope of the Task Force’s jurisdiction, the Biotechnology and Development Monitor reported:
“The Task Force acts as a global coordinating body for anti-fertility vaccine R&D in the various working groups and supports research on different approaches, such as anti-sperm and anti-ovum vaccines and vaccines designed to neutralize the biological functions of hCG.
The Task Force has succeeded in developing a prototype of an anti-hCG-vaccine.”
One of the Task Force members, P.D. Griffin, outlined the purpose and trajectory of these Fertility Regulating Vaccines. Griffin:
“The Task Force has continued to coordinate its research activities with other vaccine development programmes within WHO and with other international and national programmes engaged in the development of fertility regulating vaccines.”
Griffin also admitted to the fact that one of the purposes of the vaccines is the implementation in developing countries.
Griffin:
“If vaccines could be developed which could safely and effectively inhibit fertility, without producing unacceptable side effects, they would be an attractive addition to the present armamentarium of fertility regulating methods and would be likely to have a significant impact on family planning programmes.”
Also, one of the advantages of the FRVs over “currently available methods of fertility regulation” the Task Force states, is the following (179):
“low manufacturing cost and ease of delivery within existing health services.”
Already in 1978, the WHO’s Task Force (then called Task Force on Immunological Methods for Fertility Regulation) underlined the usefulness of these vaccines in regards to the possibility of “large scale synthesis and manufacture” of the vaccine:
“The potential advantages of an immunological approach to fertility regulation can be summarized as follows: (a) the possibility of infrequent administration, possibly by paramedical personnel; (b) the use of antigens or antigen fragments, which are not pharmacologically active; and (c) in the case of antigens of known chemical structure, there is the possibility of large-scale synthesis and manufacture of vaccine at relatively low cost.”
In 1976, the WHO Expanded Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction published a report, stating:
“In 1972 the Organization (…) expanded its programme of research in human reproduction to provide an international focus for an intensified effort to improve existing methods of fertility regulation, to develop new methods and to assist national authorities in devising the best ways of providing them on a continuing basis. The programme is closely integrated with other WHO research on the delivery of family planning care by health services, which in turn feeds into WHO’s technical assistance programme to governments at the service level.”
Although the term “Anti-Fertility Vaccine”, coined by the Rockefeller Foundation, was replaced by the more bureaucratic sounding “Fertility Regulating Vaccine (FRV), the programme was obviously the same. Besides, The time line shows conclusively that the WHO, UN Population Fund and World Bank continued on a path outlined by the Rockefellers in the late 1960s. By extensions, it proves that all these organization are perfectly interlocked, best captured under the header “Scientific Dictatorship”. The relationshipbetween the WHO and the Rockefeller Foundation is intense. In the 1986 bulletin of the World Health Organization, this relationship is being described in some detail. While researching the effectiveness of “gossypol” as an “antifertility agent”, the bulletin states:
“The Rockefeller Foundation has supported limited clinical trials in China and smallscale clinical studies in Brazil and Austria. The dose administered in the current Chinese trial has been reduced from 20 mg to 10-15 mg/day during the loading phase in order to see if severe oligospermia rather than consistent azoospermia would be adequate for an acceptable, non-toxic and reversible effect. Meanwhile, both the WHO human reproduction programme and the Rockefeller Foundation are supporting animal studies to better define the mechanism of action of gossypol.”
In August of 1992, a series of meetings was held in Geneva, Switzerland, regarding “fertility regulating vaccines”. According to the document Fertility Regulating Vaccines (classified by the WHO with a limited distribution) present at those meetings were scientists and clinicians from all over the globe, including then biomedical researcher of the American Agency for International development, and current research-chief of USAID, Mr. Jeff Spieler.
In 1986 Mr. Spieler declared:
“A new approach to fertility regulation is the development of vaccines directed against human substances required for reproduction. Potential candidates for immunological interference include reproductive hormones, ovum and sperm antigens, and antigens derived from embryonic or fetal tissue.(…). An antifertility vaccine must be capable of safely and effectively inhibiting a human substance, which would need somehow to be rendered antigenic. A fertility-regulating vaccine, moreover, would have to produce and sustain effective immunity in at least 95% of the vaccinated population, a level of protection rarely achieved even with the most successful viral and bacterial vaccines. But while these challenges looked insuperable just a few years ago, recent advances in biotechnology- particularly in the fields of molecular biology, genetic engineering and monoclonal antibody production- are bringing antifertility vaccines into the realm of the feasible.”
“Vaccines interfering with sperm function and fertilization could be available for human testing by the early 1990s”, Spieler wrote.
In order for widespread use of these vaccines, Spieler writes, the vaccine must conquer “variations in individual responses to immunization with fertility-regulating vaccines”.
“Research”, he goes on to say,”is also needed in the field of “basic vaccinology”, to find the best carrier proteins, adjuvants, vehicles and delivery systems.”
In the 1992 document, the problem of “variations in individual responses” is also discussed:
“Because of the genetic diversity of human populations”, states the document, “immune responses to vaccines often show marked differences from one individual to another in terms of magnitude and duration. These differences may be partly or even completely overcome with appropriately engineered FRVs (Fertility Regulating Vaccines) and by improvements in our understanding of what is required to develop and control the immune response elicited by different vaccines.”
The picture emerging from these facts is clear. The WHO, as a global coordinating body, has since the early 70s continued the development of the Rockefeller-funded “anti-fertility vaccine”. What also is becoming clear, is that extensive research has been done to the delivery systems in which these anti-fertility components can be buried, such as regular anti-viral vaccines. It’s a mass-scale anti-fertilization programme with the aim of reducing the world’s population: a dream long cherished by the global elite
http://www.prisonplanet.com/conclusive-global-distribution-of-rockefeller-funded-anti-fertility-vaccine-coordinated-by-who.html
Conclusive: Global Distribution of Rockefeller-Funded Anti-Fertility Vaccine Coordinated by WHO
Jurriaan Maessen
Prison Planet.com
Friday, August 27, 2010
In addition to the recent PrisonPlanet-exclusive Rockefeller Foundation Developed Vaccines For “Mass-Scale” Fertility Reduction — which outlines the Rockefeller Foundation’s efforts in the 1960s funding research into so-called “anti-fertility vaccines”– another series of documents has surfaced, proving beyond any doubt that the UN Population Fund, World Bank and World Health Organization picked up on it, further developing it under responsibility of a “Task Force on Vaccines for Fertility Regulation”.
WHO and the Rockefeller Foundation have worked together on “anti-fertility” vaccine since the 1960s.
Just four years after the Rockefeller Foundation launched massive funding-operations into anti-fertility vaccines, the Task Force was created under auspices of the World Health Organization, World Bank and UN Population Fund. Its mission, according to one of its members, to support:
“basic and clinical research on the development of birth control vaccines directed against the gametes or the preimplantation embryo. These studies have involved the use of advanced procedures in peptide chemistry, hybridoma technology and molecular genetics as well as the evaluation of a number of novel approaches in general vaccinology. As a result of this international, collaborative effort, a prototype anti-HCG vaccine is now undergoing clinical testing, raising the prospect that a totally new family planning method may be available before the end of the current decade.”
In regards to the scope of the Task Force’s jurisdiction, the Biotechnology and Development Monitor reported:
“The Task Force acts as a global coordinating body for anti-fertility vaccine R&D in the various working groups and supports research on different approaches, such as anti-sperm and anti-ovum vaccines and vaccines designed to neutralize the biological functions of hCG.
The Task Force has succeeded in developing a prototype of an anti-hCG-vaccine.”
One of the Task Force members, P.D. Griffin, outlined the purpose and trajectory of these Fertility Regulating Vaccines. Griffin:
“The Task Force has continued to coordinate its research activities with other vaccine development programmes within WHO and with other international and national programmes engaged in the development of fertility regulating vaccines.”
Griffin also admitted to the fact that one of the purposes of the vaccines is the implementation in developing countries.
Griffin:
“If vaccines could be developed which could safely and effectively inhibit fertility, without producing unacceptable side effects, they would be an attractive addition to the present armamentarium of fertility regulating methods and would be likely to have a significant impact on family planning programmes.”
Also, one of the advantages of the FRVs over “currently available methods of fertility regulation” the Task Force states, is the following (179):
“low manufacturing cost and ease of delivery within existing health services.”
Already in 1978, the WHO’s Task Force (then called Task Force on Immunological Methods for Fertility Regulation) underlined the usefulness of these vaccines in regards to the possibility of “large scale synthesis and manufacture” of the vaccine:
“The potential advantages of an immunological approach to fertility regulation can be summarized as follows: (a) the possibility of infrequent administration, possibly by paramedical personnel; (b) the use of antigens or antigen fragments, which are not pharmacologically active; and (c) in the case of antigens of known chemical structure, there is the possibility of large-scale synthesis and manufacture of vaccine at relatively low cost.”
In 1976, the WHO Expanded Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction published a report, stating:
“In 1972 the Organization (…) expanded its programme of research in human reproduction to provide an international focus for an intensified effort to improve existing methods of fertility regulation, to develop new methods and to assist national authorities in devising the best ways of providing them on a continuing basis. The programme is closely integrated with other WHO research on the delivery of family planning care by health services, which in turn feeds into WHO’s technical assistance programme to governments at the service level.”
Although the term “Anti-Fertility Vaccine”, coined by the Rockefeller Foundation, was replaced by the more bureaucratic sounding “Fertility Regulating Vaccine (FRV), the programme was obviously the same. Besides, The time line shows conclusively that the WHO, UN Population Fund and World Bank continued on a path outlined by the Rockefellers in the late 1960s. By extensions, it proves that all these organization are perfectly interlocked, best captured under the header “Scientific Dictatorship”. The relationshipbetween the WHO and the Rockefeller Foundation is intense. In the 1986 bulletin of the World Health Organization, this relationship is being described in some detail. While researching the effectiveness of “gossypol” as an “antifertility agent”, the bulletin states:
“The Rockefeller Foundation has supported limited clinical trials in China and smallscale clinical studies in Brazil and Austria. The dose administered in the current Chinese trial has been reduced from 20 mg to 10-15 mg/day during the loading phase in order to see if severe oligospermia rather than consistent azoospermia would be adequate for an acceptable, non-toxic and reversible effect. Meanwhile, both the WHO human reproduction programme and the Rockefeller Foundation are supporting animal studies to better define the mechanism of action of gossypol.”
In August of 1992, a series of meetings was held in Geneva, Switzerland, regarding “fertility regulating vaccines”. According to the document Fertility Regulating Vaccines (classified by the WHO with a limited distribution) present at those meetings were scientists and clinicians from all over the globe, including then biomedical researcher of the American Agency for International development, and current research-chief of USAID, Mr. Jeff Spieler.
In 1986 Mr. Spieler declared:
“A new approach to fertility regulation is the development of vaccines directed against human substances required for reproduction. Potential candidates for immunological interference include reproductive hormones, ovum and sperm antigens, and antigens derived from embryonic or fetal tissue.(…). An antifertility vaccine must be capable of safely and effectively inhibiting a human substance, which would need somehow to be rendered antigenic. A fertility-regulating vaccine, moreover, would have to produce and sustain effective immunity in at least 95% of the vaccinated population, a level of protection rarely achieved even with the most successful viral and bacterial vaccines. But while these challenges looked insuperable just a few years ago, recent advances in biotechnology- particularly in the fields of molecular biology, genetic engineering and monoclonal antibody production- are bringing antifertility vaccines into the realm of the feasible.”
“Vaccines interfering with sperm function and fertilization could be available for human testing by the early 1990s”, Spieler wrote.
In order for widespread use of these vaccines, Spieler writes, the vaccine must conquer “variations in individual responses to immunization with fertility-regulating vaccines”.
“Research”, he goes on to say,”is also needed in the field of “basic vaccinology”, to find the best carrier proteins, adjuvants, vehicles and delivery systems.”
In the 1992 document, the problem of “variations in individual responses” is also discussed:
“Because of the genetic diversity of human populations”, states the document, “immune responses to vaccines often show marked differences from one individual to another in terms of magnitude and duration. These differences may be partly or even completely overcome with appropriately engineered FRVs (Fertility Regulating Vaccines) and by improvements in our understanding of what is required to develop and control the immune response elicited by different vaccines.”
The picture emerging from these facts is clear. The WHO, as a global coordinating body, has since the early 70s continued the development of the Rockefeller-funded “anti-fertility vaccine”. What also is becoming clear, is that extensive research has been done to the delivery systems in which these anti-fertility components can be buried, such as regular anti-viral vaccines. It’s a mass-scale anti-fertilization programme with the aim of reducing the world’s population: a dream long cherished by the global elite
http://www.prisonplanet.com/conclusive-global-distribution-of-rockefeller-funded-anti-fertility-vaccine-coordinated-by-who.html
U.S. Postal Service Starts Quoting SDR to Dollar Conversion Rates, and IMF Endorses Replacing Dollars with SDRs
U.S. Postal Service Starts Quoting SDR to Dollar Conversion Rates, and IMF Endorses Replacing Dollars with SDRs
Washington’s Blog
Friday, August 27, 2010
I have repeatedly pointed out that it is possible that the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDRs) will become the world’s reserve currency.
And as I noted in April 2009, there is some possibility that the “Bancor” will ultimately fill that role:
But you probably have not heard that:
China’s government has floated a variant of this idea, suggesting a currency based on 30 commodities along the lines of the “Bancor” proposed by John Maynard Keynes in 1944.
Indeed, the head of the China’s central bank wrote recently:
Though the super-sovereign reserve currency has long since been proposed, yet no substantive progress has been achieved to date. Back in the 1940s, Keynes had already proposed to introduce an international currency unit named “Bancor”, based on the value of 30 representative commodities. Unfortunately, the proposal was not accepted. The collapse of the Bretton Woods system, which was based on the White approach, indicates that the Keynesian approach may have been more farsighted. The IMF also created the SDR in 1969, when the defects of the Bretton Woods system initially emerged, to mitigate the inherent risks sovereign reserve currencies caused. Yet, the role of the SDR has not been put into full play due to limitations on its allocation and the scope of its uses. However, it serves as the light in the tunnel for the reform of the international monetary system.
Keynes proposed that the Bancor was to be fixed in terms of 30 commodities, of which one would be gold. The arguments for currency fixed on a basket of commodities was that it would stabilize the average prices of commodities, and with them the international medium of exchange and a store of value.
As China’s central banker said, the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.
But Keynes’ Bancor proposal did not only entail pegging SDR’s to a basket of currencies:
He proposed a global bank, which he called the International Clearing Union. The bank would issue its own currency – the bancor – which was exchangeable with national currencies at fixed rates of exchange. The bancor would become the unit of account between nations, which means it would be used to measure a country’s trade deficit or trade surplus.
Every country would have an overdraft facility in its bancor account at the International Clearing Union, equivalent to half the average value of its trade over a five-year period. To make the system work, the members of the union would need a powerful incentive to clear their bancor accounts by the end of the year: to end up with neither a trade deficit nor a trade surplus. But what would the incentive be?
Keynes proposed that any country racking up a large trade deficit (equating to more than half of its bancor overdraft allowance) would be charged interest on its account. It would also be obliged to reduce the value of its currency and to prevent the export of capital. But – and this was the key to his system – he insisted that the nations with a trade surplus would be subject to similar pressures. Any country with a bancor credit balance that was more than half the size of its overdraft facility would be charged interest, at a rate of 10%. It would also be obliged to increase the value of its currency and to permit the export of capital. If, by the end of the year, its credit balance exceeded the total value of its permitted overdraft, the surplus would be confiscated. The nations with a surplus would have a powerful incentive to get rid of it. In doing so, they would automatically clear other nations’ deficits.
Having A Supply Of Healthy Foods That Last Just Makes Sense (AD)
As FT Alphaville’s Izabella Kaminska reported recently, the IMF has recently floated the idea of SDR and perhaps ultimately Bancor as world reserve currency:
FT Alphaville missed this IMF paper when it first came out in April, 2010.
Authored by Reza Moghadam, director of the IMF’s strategy, policy and review department, it discusses how the IMF sees the International Monetary System evolving after the financial crisis.
***
In the eyes of the IMF at least, the best way to ensure the stability of the international monetary system (post crisis) is actually by launching a global currency.
And that, the IMF says, is largely because sovereigns — as they stand — cannot be trusted to redistribute surplus reserves, or battle their deficits, themselves.
The ongoing buildup of such imbalances, meanwhile, only makes the system increasingly vulnerable to shocks. It’s also a process that’s ultimately unsustainable for all, says the IMF.
***All in all, the IMF believes there has simply been too much reserve hoarding going on:
Reserve accumulation has accelerated dramatically in the past decade, particularly since the 2003-4. At the end of 2009, reserves had risen to 13 percent of global GDP, doubling from their 2000 level, and over 50 percent of total imports of goods and services. Emerging market holdings rose to 32 percent of their GDP (26 percent excluding China). Twenty-seven of the top 40 reserve holders, accounting for over 90 percent of total reserve holdings, recorded doubledigit average growth in reserves over 1999-2008.
Holdings have also become increasingly concentrated, with over half the total held by only five countries. These numbers exclude substantial foreign assets of the official sector not recorded as reserves, including in sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), and yet invested in liquid, dollar denominated financial instruments, that have grown even more in recent years.1
Of course, in the first instance, the solution probably lies in closer collaboration between sovereigns, most likely via the more active use of such things as special drawing rights, says the IMF.
But in the end, a global currency makes the most sense, the paper concludes — especially since the SDR is currently just an accounting tool that draws on the freely usable currencies of member states , not an actual currency itself.
As they summarise:
48. From SDR to bancor. A limitation of the SDR as discussed previously is that it is not a currency. Both the SDR and SDR-denominated instruments need to be converted eventually to a national currency for most payments or interventions in foreign exchange markets, which adds to cumbersome use in transactions.
And though an SDR-based system would move away from a dominant national currency, the SDR’s value remains heavily linked to the conditions and performance of the major component countries. A more ambitious reform option would be to build on the previous ideas and develop, over time, a global currency. Called, for example, bancor in honor of Keynes, such a currency could be used as a medium of exchange—an “outside money” in contrast to the SDR which remains an “inside money”.
But before you get ready to burn your fiat currency, it’s not actually a turnaround the IMF sees being executed any time soon.
As they conclude:
It is understood that some of the ideas discussed are unlikely to materialize in the foreseeable future absent a dramatic shift in appetite for international cooperation.
However, in a possible indication of how seriously the SDR is being taken, the U.S. Postal Service is quoting SDR to dollar conversion rates:
Convert the U.S. dollar amount to the special drawing right (SDR) value and enter it in the SDR value block. For example:
INSURED VALUE
$100.00 (U.S.)
65.76 SDR
(Here is the original web page, without highlighting.).
A search of the U.S. Postal Office website shows that – as of April 2008 – the relevant web page did not have any reference to SDRs. The most recent revisions to this web page were made on July 30, 2010. However, I cannot tell whether the references to SDRs were added in the most recent July revision, or in a previous edit.
I am not implying that this is nefarious. I’m not entirely sure what this means, but – as far as I can tell – no other currencies other than SDRs and the U.S. dollar are mentioned in this section of the Postal Service website. At the least, it is interesting.
The Swedish postal service is also purportedly giving SDR conversions.
Washington’s Blog
Friday, August 27, 2010
I have repeatedly pointed out that it is possible that the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDRs) will become the world’s reserve currency.
And as I noted in April 2009, there is some possibility that the “Bancor” will ultimately fill that role:
But you probably have not heard that:
China’s government has floated a variant of this idea, suggesting a currency based on 30 commodities along the lines of the “Bancor” proposed by John Maynard Keynes in 1944.
Indeed, the head of the China’s central bank wrote recently:
Though the super-sovereign reserve currency has long since been proposed, yet no substantive progress has been achieved to date. Back in the 1940s, Keynes had already proposed to introduce an international currency unit named “Bancor”, based on the value of 30 representative commodities. Unfortunately, the proposal was not accepted. The collapse of the Bretton Woods system, which was based on the White approach, indicates that the Keynesian approach may have been more farsighted. The IMF also created the SDR in 1969, when the defects of the Bretton Woods system initially emerged, to mitigate the inherent risks sovereign reserve currencies caused. Yet, the role of the SDR has not been put into full play due to limitations on its allocation and the scope of its uses. However, it serves as the light in the tunnel for the reform of the international monetary system.
Keynes proposed that the Bancor was to be fixed in terms of 30 commodities, of which one would be gold. The arguments for currency fixed on a basket of commodities was that it would stabilize the average prices of commodities, and with them the international medium of exchange and a store of value.
As China’s central banker said, the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.
But Keynes’ Bancor proposal did not only entail pegging SDR’s to a basket of currencies:
He proposed a global bank, which he called the International Clearing Union. The bank would issue its own currency – the bancor – which was exchangeable with national currencies at fixed rates of exchange. The bancor would become the unit of account between nations, which means it would be used to measure a country’s trade deficit or trade surplus.
Every country would have an overdraft facility in its bancor account at the International Clearing Union, equivalent to half the average value of its trade over a five-year period. To make the system work, the members of the union would need a powerful incentive to clear their bancor accounts by the end of the year: to end up with neither a trade deficit nor a trade surplus. But what would the incentive be?
Keynes proposed that any country racking up a large trade deficit (equating to more than half of its bancor overdraft allowance) would be charged interest on its account. It would also be obliged to reduce the value of its currency and to prevent the export of capital. But – and this was the key to his system – he insisted that the nations with a trade surplus would be subject to similar pressures. Any country with a bancor credit balance that was more than half the size of its overdraft facility would be charged interest, at a rate of 10%. It would also be obliged to increase the value of its currency and to permit the export of capital. If, by the end of the year, its credit balance exceeded the total value of its permitted overdraft, the surplus would be confiscated. The nations with a surplus would have a powerful incentive to get rid of it. In doing so, they would automatically clear other nations’ deficits.
Having A Supply Of Healthy Foods That Last Just Makes Sense (AD)
As FT Alphaville’s Izabella Kaminska reported recently, the IMF has recently floated the idea of SDR and perhaps ultimately Bancor as world reserve currency:
FT Alphaville missed this IMF paper when it first came out in April, 2010.
Authored by Reza Moghadam, director of the IMF’s strategy, policy and review department, it discusses how the IMF sees the International Monetary System evolving after the financial crisis.
***
In the eyes of the IMF at least, the best way to ensure the stability of the international monetary system (post crisis) is actually by launching a global currency.
And that, the IMF says, is largely because sovereigns — as they stand — cannot be trusted to redistribute surplus reserves, or battle their deficits, themselves.
The ongoing buildup of such imbalances, meanwhile, only makes the system increasingly vulnerable to shocks. It’s also a process that’s ultimately unsustainable for all, says the IMF.
***All in all, the IMF believes there has simply been too much reserve hoarding going on:
Reserve accumulation has accelerated dramatically in the past decade, particularly since the 2003-4. At the end of 2009, reserves had risen to 13 percent of global GDP, doubling from their 2000 level, and over 50 percent of total imports of goods and services. Emerging market holdings rose to 32 percent of their GDP (26 percent excluding China). Twenty-seven of the top 40 reserve holders, accounting for over 90 percent of total reserve holdings, recorded doubledigit average growth in reserves over 1999-2008.
Holdings have also become increasingly concentrated, with over half the total held by only five countries. These numbers exclude substantial foreign assets of the official sector not recorded as reserves, including in sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), and yet invested in liquid, dollar denominated financial instruments, that have grown even more in recent years.1
Of course, in the first instance, the solution probably lies in closer collaboration between sovereigns, most likely via the more active use of such things as special drawing rights, says the IMF.
But in the end, a global currency makes the most sense, the paper concludes — especially since the SDR is currently just an accounting tool that draws on the freely usable currencies of member states , not an actual currency itself.
As they summarise:
48. From SDR to bancor. A limitation of the SDR as discussed previously is that it is not a currency. Both the SDR and SDR-denominated instruments need to be converted eventually to a national currency for most payments or interventions in foreign exchange markets, which adds to cumbersome use in transactions.
And though an SDR-based system would move away from a dominant national currency, the SDR’s value remains heavily linked to the conditions and performance of the major component countries. A more ambitious reform option would be to build on the previous ideas and develop, over time, a global currency. Called, for example, bancor in honor of Keynes, such a currency could be used as a medium of exchange—an “outside money” in contrast to the SDR which remains an “inside money”.
But before you get ready to burn your fiat currency, it’s not actually a turnaround the IMF sees being executed any time soon.
As they conclude:
It is understood that some of the ideas discussed are unlikely to materialize in the foreseeable future absent a dramatic shift in appetite for international cooperation.
However, in a possible indication of how seriously the SDR is being taken, the U.S. Postal Service is quoting SDR to dollar conversion rates:
Convert the U.S. dollar amount to the special drawing right (SDR) value and enter it in the SDR value block. For example:
INSURED VALUE
$100.00 (U.S.)
65.76 SDR
(Here is the original web page, without highlighting.).
A search of the U.S. Postal Office website shows that – as of April 2008 – the relevant web page did not have any reference to SDRs. The most recent revisions to this web page were made on July 30, 2010. However, I cannot tell whether the references to SDRs were added in the most recent July revision, or in a previous edit.
I am not implying that this is nefarious. I’m not entirely sure what this means, but – as far as I can tell – no other currencies other than SDRs and the U.S. dollar are mentioned in this section of the Postal Service website. At the least, it is interesting.
The Swedish postal service is also purportedly giving SDR conversions.
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