U.N. Pulls Out of Tripoli After Libyan Mob Attacks Offices
The U.N. is withdrawing all its international staff from the Libyan capital Tripoli following a mob attack on its offices. U.N. buildings and some foreign missions were targeted by angry crowds following a Nato air strike that reportedly killed a son of Col Gaddafi. Read More…
NATO in Deep JuJu After Murder of Gaddafi Son, Grandchildren
Russia and Venezuela join Libyan regime in accusing Nato of attempting to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi. In a rare acknowledgement that security around Gaddafi may not be watertight, Ibrahim told reporters that intelligence about Gaddafi’s whereabouts or plans must have been leaked to NATO. Read More…
Regional Armies on Alert as Libya Crisis Deepens
Army chiefs from Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Algeria are on alert as the crisis in nearby Libya deteriorates, placing the entire region at risk, a military source said on Saturday. Read More…
Uganda Riots Reach Capital as Anger Against Museveni Grows
Riots have swept across the Ugandan capital as protesters called for an Egyptian-style uprising against their autocratic president. At least two people were killed and more than 100 wounded in Kampala after soldiers fired live bullets and tear gas and beat demonstrators with sticks. Civilians fought back by blocking roads with burning tyres and pelting vehicles with rocks. The growing unrest, sparked by rising food and fuel prices, gained fresh impetus after the brutal arrest on Thursday of top opposition leader Kizza Besigye. But President Yoweri Museveni, in firm control for a quarter of a century, has met the challenge with an aggressive show of force. Read More…
Revisited: Brits Selling Aircraft Carrier in “Bid” – Could China Buy?
C’mon guys, hurry up and bid. Does China really need to buy another Western carrier? And yes, we did cover the pending sale of Ark Royal earlier this year. Read More…
Leahy Bill Passes Senate to Rob American Public of Natural Food
A once dormant bill to criminalize natural food and supplement producers is back in action. Attaching a prison sentence of up to 10 years is pretty serious for a possible ambiguous crime of adulteration and misbranding. Senator Patrick Leahy introduced this bill last year as S.3767, The Food Safety Accountability Act. Although amended, it is still too vague and ultimately considered a bad bill, even by the folks who effected its amendment. Read More…
Trade Unions Join Reform Protests for May Day Marches
Moroccan trade unions took to the streets Sunday for May Day marches, adding their numbers to those of youth-led protesters who have been holding a sit-in to demand democratic reforms. Read More…
Two Japanese May be Deported for Joining Anti-Nuclear Rally
Two Japanese citizens could be deported for attending an anti-nuclear rally in Taipei Saturday, as Taiwan officials said the pair’s participation in the protest was contrary to the stated purpose of their visit to Taiwan. Read More…
Woman ‘Shot Dead by Police After Driving into Force Car’
Jeanette Odendaal, 45, is reported to have gone to the Kempton Park police station near to her home in the east of Johannesburg on Tuesday night to report a disturbance of the peace. According to a security guard, she drove into a police patrol van parked on the road outside as she attempted to reverse her Volkwagen Golf. Sipho Baloyi said that moments later, a police sergeant walked out of the station and shot her in the upper torso, before walking back inside. Read More…
Intel Agencies: ‘No Evidence’ of Viagra-Fueled Libyan Rape Campaign
There are conflicting reports out of Libya as to whether or not troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have been engaging in systematic rape-sprees fueled by the prescription anti-impotency drug Viagra. Thursday, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Susan Rice reported to the Security Council that rape is increasingly being used as a weapon against women in rebel areas. However, a report from NBC News states that diplomats questioned about the allegations indicated that Rice provided no evidence for the Viagra allegation, which they said “was made in an attempt to persuade doubters the conflict in Libya was not just a standard civil war but a much nastier fight”. Read More…
Pre-Crime: Turkish Police Detain 70 Political “Agitators”
Turkish police have detained 70 members of a group allegedly formed to cause agitation during demonstrations ahead of June’s elections. Read More…
Obama Pledges Help for Illegal Immigrant Grads
Stepping up his demand to change the nation’s immigration laws, President Barack Obama on Friday promised graduates at a vast, multicultural community college that he’ll keep working to help students not legally in the U.S. to become American citizens. Read More…
Report: FBI Cybersecurity Agents Often Lack Necessary Skills
Many of the FBI field agents assigned to combat cyber threats say they do not have enough expertise to do it, according to a new report from the Justice Department’s inspector general. Read More…
Muslim Brotherhood Will Run for Half of Egypt’s Parliament
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and best-organized Islamist faction in Egypt, announced Saturday the formation of its new political party and said it plans to contest half the seats in parliament in the first post-revolution elections scheduled for next fall. Read More…
Egyptian Coptic Christian Leader Calls on Jews for Suppor
A U.S.-based Egyptian Coptic Christian leader has called for Jewish support to help prevent Egypt from becoming a “jihadist state hostile to Israel.” Read More…
Middle East Politics at Play in Passport Dispute
Menachem Zivotofsky was born in a Jerusalem hospital in 2002. Two months later, his mother showed up at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, to get a passport for her infant son. Menachem’s parents, Ari and Naomi, were born in the United States so there was no question that he was American, too. But when the mother asked that her son’s passport show he was born in Israel, State Department officials refused, citing longstanding U.S. policy to refrain from expressing an official view about Jerusalem’s status. Israel has proclaimed the once-divided city as its capital; the U.S. and most nations do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital. Read More…
Here are some more recent of photos of world-wide protests against nuclear power. Note: The health and enviromental concerns in case of a meltdown are subverted by the meshing of communist ideology in the crowds. Read More…
Panasonic Reports Loss, Plans to Cut 17,000 Jobs
Panasonic Corp., Japan’s biggest home appliance maker, is cutting about 17,000 jobs worldwide over two years as its losses swell from restructuring costs and damage from the March 11 disasters. Read More…
California May Let Locals Opt Out of Immigration Checks
California lawmakers are the latest to weigh joining efforts in other American states to gain control over a controversial U.S. federal program that automatically checks the immigration status of arrestees. California accounts for more than a third of the deportations under the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, and some local officials are saying they were misled by the federal government about the program’s extent. Read More…
Obama: World Intelligence Agencies
From intelligence agencies around the world, the verdict on President Obama’s newly-released certificate of live birth from Hawaii is in: the certificate is a rank forgery on the same level as the Niger “yellow cake” uranium and Iraq Oil Ministry forged documents. Intelligence and law enforcement services are experts on fake documents since they have to deal with large numbers of counterfeit documents, such as birth certificates, passports, identity cards and driver’s licenses, as well as currency. Intelligence agencies are also experts at forging their own documents for their clandestine agents. Read More…
The Demise of the West: E.U. Biodiversity Strategy to Account for Value of Nature
The E.U.’s 2020 biodiversity strategy, to be presented next week, will pave the way for the value of nature to be taken into account across all policies, including factoring the environment and ecosystems into national economic plans. Read More…
Biotech Industry Allowed to Conduct Their Own GMO Assessments
In recent years, biotech opponents have won lawsuits claiming the agency violated environmental law by inadequately supporting its decision to deregulate transgenic alfalfa and sugar beets. By allowing biotech developers to conduct their own environmental assessments, the process becomes subject to conflicts of interest, said Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center For Food Safety and a biotech opponent. The pilot program basically treats the environmental review process as a “rubber stamp” for getting biotech crops to market more quickly, said Freese. Read More…
Finns Pushed Out of Own Cities by Illegal Alien Foreigners
Native-born Finns have started to move out of suburbs in the greater Helsinki area, where the proportion of foreign-born residents is increasing. The trend is reflected in a sharp increase in residents speaking languages other than Finnish or Swedish. Read More…
PA Judge Rules in Favor of Sharia in U.S. Court of Law
Pennsylvania court gives twice as much to sons as to daughters in inheritance case after will calls for distribution “according to Islamic Laws and Sharia”. Read More…
25,000 Gallons of Radioactive Water Released on Plant Workers in Madrid
A leak of 25,000 gallons of radioactive water at the Asco I nuclear (Tarragona) contaminated liquid poured over 14 plant operators working in the containment building which houses the reactor, which is stopped for refueling. Read More…
NATO Kills More Children in Libya
Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, the youngest son of the Libyan leader, and three of his grandchildren have been killed in a NATO air strike, a Libyan government spokesman saidd. Gaddafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, when it was hit by at least one missile fired by a NATO warplane late on Saturday. Read More…
Major Corporations Changing Statements on Safety of Fluoride
In a stunning development certain to gain the attention of risk managers at water utilities around the world, key toothpaste manufacturers and other organizations are changing how they portray the safety or risks of fluorides and water fluoridation. Read More…
More Illegal Aliens Brought to U.S. by Gov’t – Now in Grand Island, NE
As if America and the state of Nebraska don’t have enough illegal alien destroying the land, now NE will recieve a gift from the District of Criminals (D.C.) in the form of southeast asian foreigners. Read More…
Egypt Warns Israel: Don’t Interfere with Opening of Gaza Border Crossing
Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces General Sami Anan warned Israel against interfering with Egypt’s plan to open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza on a permanent basis, saying it was not a matter of Israel’s concern, Army Radio reported on Saturday. Read More…
NRA Chief Wants Holder Resignation
The National Rifle Association’s CEO Saturday said Attorney General Eric Holder should step down for allowing an ATF operation to occur on his watch that involved the sale of guns to suspicious customers with ties to Mexican drug cartels. Read More…
Chaos in Dearborn: Muslims Assault Police at Protest
The Rev. Terry Jones’ rally for free-speech rights at Dearborn City Hall Friday night degenerated into chaos as several hundred protesters broke through police lines and rushed toward the controversial Florida pastor. The outburst occurred about an hour into Mr. Jones’ Stand Up America Now protest on the steps of city hall, which had a large American flag flying over its cupola under clear blues skies. When the minister removed a wireless microphone from the podium and strode down the steps toward Michigan Avenue, a crowd of about 600 that had been restricted to a sidewalk across the street broke through wooden barricades and Dearborn police, storming across the busy four-lane road. Read More…
Chinese Buildup Upsets Strategic Balance
Defense analysts and U.S. Navy brass agree – China’s recent successes in developing an anti-ship ballistic missile and a more robust navy have made the powerhouse Asian nation a much greater military force to reckon with. China’s muscle-flexing, they say, will most certainly upset the balance of power in the region and force the U.S. to rethink its long-term military and geopolitical strategies for Asia and the Pacific Rim. Read More…
Captain Obvious: Walmart Hoping to Boost Sales by Selling Guns
Walmart is hoping to boost sales by putting guns on the shelves at more of its U.S. stores. About 1300 stores currently sell rifles, shotguns and ammunition – but not handguns, except in Alaska. Now Walmart will sell guns at about 2,000 stores. The company stopped selling guns at a majority of its locations several years ago, blaming low demand. But the company says because of struggling sales – its adding more merchandise. Read More…
New California Bill Calls for GMO Labeling
California Assembly member Jared Huffman and Ocean Conservancy’s George Leonard appeared before the Assembly Committee on Health Tuesday to discuss AB 88, which would require any genetically engineered fish sold in California to be clearly labeled. This is a timely bill, as the FDA comes ever closer to approving the first genetically engineered fish, GE Salmon, despite receiving over than 360,000 public comments against the genetically modified fish. Read More…
Nuclear Adviser Quits Over Handling of Crisis
A special advisor to the Japanese government on radiation safety resigned Friday, saying that he was dissatisfied with the handling of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Read More…
St. Louis Fed Stunner: Admits QE May Lead to Rise Rather than Drop in Unemployment
It’s one thing for bloggers and even various non-mainstream economists to charge the Fed with pandering exclusively to Wall Street’s interests, and accuse Ben Bernanke of hypocrisy when he says that the Fed’s ultimate goal is the strengthening of the economy through a decrease in unemployment (recall that one of the original two mandates of the Fed is “maximum employment”… that is until it was supplanted by the third and only one: “Russell 2000 to 2000″) and caring for “lower-income households.” It is something far more serious when the one doing the accusing is… the Federal Reserve. Read More…
Brewer Signs Bill Authorizing Volunteer State Militia
Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill creating a state militia that she could deploy at any time, and for any reason. The bill, SB1495, creates a volunteer state militia, separate and apart from the National Guard. Rep. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, who sponsored a near identical House bill, said this type of legislation couldn’t have come at a better time. Read More…
Saudi King Intensifies Media Censorship
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has issued a decree prohibiting media from reporting anything that contradicts Islamic sharia law or serves “foreign interests and undermines national security”. Read More…
Rothschild Money Has Directly and Chiefly Funded, Promoted George Soros
The Gnomes of Zurich were derogatory caricatures of secretive, greedy, stiff Swiss-German bankers, pince-nez aquiver, who ruled over the land of secret numbered accounts for tax dodgers the world over. With the world’s best financial intelligence service, they knew their stuff and seldom spoke, even in retirement. Their Geneva counterparts in French-speaking Switzerland were more sophisticated, relaxed in the company of global wheeler-dealers, and weren’t afraid to speak their minds, albeit off the record. Such was George C. Karlweis, the brain behind Banque Privee, owned by the late Baron Edmond de Rothschild. His biggest claim to fame: George Soros and the launch of his Quantum Fund in 1969. Read More…
Greece Trying to Extend Payment Period on Bailout Loans in Last Gasp Attempt to Avoid Restructuring
Greece may attempt to push back interest payments on its bailout loans in an effort to avoid restructuring its debt, according to Expansion. These payments make up a little more than a third of the country’s 2012 interest charges. Read More…
Thousands Protest Against Nuclear Plant in Taiwan
Thousands of Taiwanese took to the streets on Saturday to protest against a new nuclear power station as safety concerns mounted in the wake of the atomic crisis in Japan, an organiser said. Read More…
Eurabia: Muslim ‘Imam’ Wants Russia to Put Muslim Symbols on Christian National Coat of Arms
A top Muslim cleric on Friday called for a crescent moon to be added to Russia’s double-headed eagle coat of arms to represent the country’s multi-million-strong Muslim population. Read More…
Thailand, Cambodia Inch Closer to Full Scale War
The government has voiced disappointment over the clashes at the Thai-Cambodian border which broke out only 10 hours after a ceasefire agreement was reached. Read More…
E.U. Support of Georgian Claims May Trigger New Conflict – South Ossetia
Comments by E.U.’s top diplomat Catherine Ashton which has backed Georgia’s rootless territorial claims to South Ossetia, may incite Georgia into new acts of aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Ossetia said on Saturday. Read More…
Utah Suing Federal Government Over Wilderness Plan
The state of Utah filed a lawsuit Friday against the federal government over an Obama administration plan to make millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West eligible for federal wilderness protection. Read More…
Italy Persecuted by E.U. for Defending Itself from Illegal Alien Takeover
The “European Court of Justice rules that illegal immigration is not a crime,” headlines La Repubblica. In its judgement on an appeal filed by Algerian Hassan El Dridi, the court ruled that a law introduced by the Italian government in 2009, which allows illegal immigrants to be sentenced to up to four years in prison if they refuse to leave the country, does not comply with European legislation. Read More…
Facebook Taking Down More Activist Pages?
Activists are claiming that dozens of politically linked Facebook accounts have been removed or suspended by the company in the last 12 hours. The list of suspended pages include those for the anti cuts group U.K. Uncut, and pages that were created by students during last December’s university occupations. Read More…
E.U. Investigates Banks Over Credit Default Swaps Use
The E.U.’s competition authorities are investigating the activities of nine of the world’s biggest banks over the market for credit default swaps (CDS). Read More…
Parliament Passes Online Game Curfew Bill for Youth
South Korea’s parliament on Friday passed a game restriction bill that bans teenagers under the age of 16 from online games after midnight in a bid to stem game addition among teenagers, despite opposition from the gaming industry. Read More…
Texas Bill Would Make Invasive Pat-Downs a Felony
The proposed Texas law, aimed at people conducting security checkpoints at airports and public buildings, would make it a felony to intentionally touch someone’s private areas — even on top of clothing — unless the officer or agent has probable cause to believe the person is carrying something illegal. Read More…
Video: Muslims Creating No-Go Areas in Europe
While the authorities in the United States appear to base their treatment of Muslim groups upon the failed models that are employed in Europe, how long will it be before parts of America will become no-go zones for non-Muslims? Read More…
Belgium Moves Closer to Burqa Ban
Belgium has taken a major step towards banning burka-type Islamic dress in public after its lower house of parliament overwhelmingly backed the measure. Read More…
Gold Luring Central Banks Buyers May Extend Record Rally
Central banks that were net sellers of gold a decade ago are buying the precious metal to reduce their reliance on the dollar as a reserve currency, signaling demand that may extend a record rally in prices. Read More…
More Whites in South Africa Murdered, World Silent
Another case of Whites being killed by wild men upon the earth while the nation of South Africa and the world remain silent on the crises. Read More…
China May Buy $1 Trillion in Gold
China has been diversifying away from the dollar, and into commodities and other, sounder currencies for years now. Such a large amount would signal a sharp rebuke to the dollar’s status as reserve currency, to say the least. Read More…
Debt Ceiling: More Democrats Threaten to Vote Against Raising Borrowing Limit
A growing number of Democrats are threatening to defy the White House over the national debt, joining Republican calls for deficit cuts as a requirement for consenting to lift the country’s borrowing limit. Read More…
Change.org Attacked After Backing China Dissident
China’s latest crackdown on dissidents has reached a San Francisco website. So far, neither the U.S. government nor our local representatives have had much to say about it. This month, Change.org began a petition drive, initiated by the Guggenheim Foundation, calling for the release of imprisoned Chinese artist and government critic Ai Weiwei. Read More…
Dutch Teachers Told to Allow Violant Muslims Students to Keep Being Violant
Schools are putting teachers under pressure to keep silent if they receive death threats from pupils. Teachers are advised against going to the police and sometimes even offered hush-money, according to TV programme EenVandaag. A teacher recounted on EenVandaag how the school management instructed her to give a higher mark to an aggresive pupil for fear he would turn to violence if he did not receive this. This pupil had at that time already made death threats to six teachers. There was reason to assume that the pupil was dangerous because he was a friend of the Turkish boy who shot a teacher through the head in a school in The Hague in 2008. But instead of informing the police, the school management tried to please him. Read More…
Where’s the ‘Recovery’? Bank Failures #35 through #39 in 2011
Here are the latest banks that have been shut down by the FDIC. Full details are provided on financial institutions in Florida, Georgia, and Michigan. Read More…
Captain Obvious: Strict Immigration Laws ‘Save Denmark Billions’
Denmark’s strict immigration laws have saved the country 6.7 billion euros, a government report has claimed. Even though Denmark already has some of the toughest immigration laws in Europe, right-wing populist politicians are now trying to make them even more restrictive. Read More…
The Royal Wedding, American Idol, Dancing With The Stars and 7 Other Distractions from Our Real Problems
Have you caught “royal wedding fever” yet? The union of Prince William and Kate Middleton is already being called “the wedding of the century” and it will almost certainly be the most watched event in the entire world this year. The mainstream media is spending endless hours covering every conceivable angle of this wedding. With all of the hype surrounding this wedding, you would almost be tempted to think that America has now officially adopted British royalty as our own. Worship and adoration of the royal family is at a fever pitch in the United States right now, which is kind of ironic considering the fact that we fought two wars against the tyranny of that monarchy. If only George Washington and the boys could see us now. Sadly, the American people love to be entertained and they are very easily distracted from the very real problems facing this nation. In past years, celebrities such as OJ Simpson, Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Jackson and Britney Spears dominated the news. Today Americans are distracted by the royal wedding, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. In our entertainment-addicted society, the time for average Americans to set aside the distractions and focus on real issues never seems to come. Read More…
Second Friday Night Economic Bomb Sends Gold Surging to $1,566 as Ireland Slashes Outlook
And another economic fail, this time an attempt from Ireland to bury bad news on a royal wedding, later afternoon Friday. Which only means more stimulus. And since fiscal is out of the question (austerity remember, duh) it means monetary. Which means gold surges to $1,566. Read More…
FBI Warns U.S. Businesses of New Chinese Cybercrime Scheme
FBI agents combating international cybercrime are currently battling hackers on two new fronts – from a remote corner of China to the virtual battlefields of “Call of Duty” emanating from the family playroom. On the international stage, FBI cybersleuths have informed U.S. businesses that millions of dollars have been fraudulently wired from business accounts in U.S. banks to banks in a remote coastal region of China near the Russian border. The FBI says apparently legitimately licensed Chinese economic and trade companies have successfully stolen at least $11 million dollars in a series of wire transfers to Heilongjiang province. Read More…
Riots Erupt in Ugandan Capital
In a sign that Uganda’s political protests may be gaining steam, security forces faced off against rioting demonstrators in downtown Kampala on Friday, the first time the growing protest movement had reached the country’s capital. Read More…
Renters Still Feeling Increasing Pressure of Economic Crisis
Economic pressures are greater than ever for renters in the United States, as more non-homeowners find the majority of their paychecks going to pay the landlord and utility companies. Read More…
Are You Enjoying Your Daily Chemical Cocktail?
Chemicals and additives found in the food supply and other consumer products are making headlines regularly as more and more groups raise concern over the safety of these substances. In a statement released this week, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) asked for reform to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. The group is particularly concerned about the effects these substances have on children and babies. Read More…
China Hackers Behind Indo-Kazakh Cyber Pact
Chinese hackers may have inspired memorandum between India and Kazakhstan on cyber security. The agreement, specifically mentioned to by Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev during his joint press conference with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was proposed by the Indian side but found ready acceptance with the Central Asian government. Kazakhstan, an oil and gas-rich nation, was targeted by coordinated cyber attacks by a group of hackers who sought to break into the computers of energy firms and secure data on oil, gas and petrochemicals. The attacks also covered energy firms in the United States, Taiwan and Greece. Roughly a dozen energy firms, including major multinationals, were attacked. Five firms later confirmed the attacks. Read More…
CDC Vaccine Scientist Who Downplayed Links to Autism Indicted by DOJ in Alleged Fraud Scheme
CDC researcher Poul Thorsen, who famously headed up the “Denmark Study” that many claim disproved any link between autism and vaccines, has been indicted in Atlanta by a federal grand jury on charges of wire fraud, money laundering and defrauding research institutions of grant money. Read More…
U.K. Republicans Slam Royal Wedding
Video: Not everybody in Britain is celebrating the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton. About ten million people in the U.K., about one sixth of the population, say they are against the monarchy. Read More…
Samsung Continues Barrage Against Apple with New Lawsuit in the U.S.
Samsung has launched another counterattack against Apple’s patent, trademark, and trade dress lawsuit in the form of a US patent suit filed in California this week. The lawsuit comes after three patent suits were filed in Europe and Asia last Friday, in counter to Apple’s lawsuit filed earlier this month. Read More…
Pakistan Tests Nuclear Capable Cruise Missile
Pakistan on Friday successfully conducted flight test of indigenously developed air launched cruise missile, which “can deliver nuclear and conventional warheads with great pin point accuracy,” the army said. Read More…
Uruguay to Legalize Marijuana Cultivation and Possession
Uruguay may once again prove to live up to its official motto of “liberty or death.” Already considered one of the freest countries in the world in terms of economic and political liberties, the Uruguayan government has agreed on draft legislation that will legalize possession and cultivation of marijuana for personal consumption. Read More…
Feds Sting Amish Farmer Selling Raw Milk Locally
A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area. The product in question: unpasteurized milk. Read More…
Dutch Fighter Pilot Arrested for Divulging State Secrets
A former Dutch fighter pilot has been arrested in The Hague and was being held on suspicion of divulging “one or more state secrets,” a prosecution official said April 28. Read More…
Three Convicted in Terror-Related Cases Later Granted U.S. Citizenship by Obama Administration
Three people convicted of crimes as a result of a terrorism-related investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) were later naturalized as U.S. citizens by the Obama administration, according to federal auditors. Read More…
Pump Prices Jump to $3.91 on Tightening Supplies
Average gas pump prices across the country rose to within a dime of $4 a gallon Friday, as weather-related refinery outages tightened supplies and pushed up prices. Read More…
Black Chamber of Commerce President Blasts “Marxist,” “Brownshirt” Obama
Video: Today on The Laura Ingraham Show, Harry Alford, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, blasted President Obama’s anti-business administration in an explosive interview. Alford, a 2008 Obama supporter, labeled the administration “Marxist” and “fanatical.” “They might as well put on the brown shirts and swastikas,” he said. Read More…
Syria SNAFU Reaching Critical Mass
Tens of thousands of Syrians take to the streets after Friday prayers despite government warnings. Syrian security forces shot dead at least seven people when tens of thousands of protesters rallied for a “day of rage” after Friday prayers, defying warnings of a harsh crackdown, activists said. Read More…
Coca-Cola Rejects Growing Calls for Bisphenol A Disclosure
Coca-Cola is facing mounting pressure on bisphenol A (BPA) after 26 per cent of its shareholders called on the company to reveal its plans over the continued use of the chemical in its packaging. But the beverage giant’s chief rejected the call made at the company’s annual general meeting yesterday – despite the fact that the motion received 20 per cent more support than when it was first proposed last year. Read More…
Worst WikiLeaks Cables Yet to Come
Video: The man behind WikiLeaks says his website’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. In an exclusive interview with RT, Julian Assange said it is only a matter of time before more damaging information becomes known. Read More…
Obama Working “Under the Radar” to Sneak Attack Second Amendment
Administration has cited gun smuggling from U.S. to Mexico as reason to chill gun rights, despite the fact that federal government program deliberately delivered firearms to Mexican drug lords. Read More…
Royal Family Enforces Media Embargo Against Australia to Prevent Nazi Jokes
Still think the British Royal Family has no power and fulfils merely a ceremonial purpose? Think again. In order to prevent an Australian comedy show from making jokes about Prince Philip being a Nazi during the Royal Wedding, the Royals ordered broadcasters in Britain to enforce a media embargo that would have completely severed live coverage to Australia’s biggest broadcaster if they refused to cancel the satirical show. Read More…
Americans are Preparing at Unprecedented Levels
Do you have enough larder to feed your family and some friends if grocery stores ran out of food? How about several assault rifles and a few thousand rounds of ammo? Solar panels, a water filter, medical kits, bug-out bags, fire starters, tents, sleeping bags, some junk silver and reserve gasoline? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Read More…
France Fights for Survival from Illegal Alien N. African Tidal Wave
French police have been rounding up refugees, mostly Tunisians, who have moved on to France from Italy. The operation has drawn criticism from many NGOs, who fear the refugees could be deported. Read More…
India Dabbles in Fish Genetic Experiments
Video: India’s ornamental fish industry, worth millions of dollars, has put a number of species at risk. Now genetic engineering is increasingly being used to develop new and unusual breeds, and it is not always regulated. Read More…
‘Egypt to Permanently Open Rafah Border Crossing’
Egyptian FM Elaraby tells Al-Jazeera that Gaza crossing could be opened within 7 to 10 days; “steps taken to alleviate suffering of Palestinians.” The opening of the crossing would allow greater freedom of movement for people on both sides of the border, as well as goods in and out of Gaza without Israeli permission. Read More…
U.S. Permits Oil Deals with Libya Opposition
The United States voiced confidence in Libya’s main opposition council on Tuesday as the U.S. Treasury moved to permit oil deals with the group – a potential financial lifeline for the anti-Gaddafi uprising. The United States this week took steps to boost aid to the opposition council and to approve oil exports made under its auspices, creating a loophole in U.S. sanctions that could mean millions of dollars in revenue for rebel coffers. Read More…
Bahrain Update: Dozens Killed, Thousand Detained Under Al-Khalifa Regime
It has been more than two months that the ruling Al-Khalifa regime began its brutal crackdown on anti-regime protesters in Bahrain. Since then dozens of people have been killed and more than a thousand have reportedly been detained. Read More…
Libya: Tunisia Indignant Over Border Clashes
Tunisia has condemned a violation of its territory after fighting between Libyan rebels and forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi spilled over the border. Tunisia said it had informed Libya of its “extreme indignation”. Rebels and pro-Gaddafi troops were fighting for control of the border post between Dahiba and Wazin, which rebels captured a week ago. Shells fired by pro-Gaddafi forces are said to have landed within Tunisia. The government troops apologised to their Tunisian counterparts after briefly crossing the border, Reuters news agency reported. But Tunisian authorities warned of a “dangerous military escalation”. Read More…
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Photos 13
Here are 18 new photos from Japan showing the ongoing devastation from the March earthquake and tsunami disaster which has caused the meltdown of one of Japan’s larget nuclear powerplants. Note: Think these people care about the ‘Royal’ wedding? Read More…
Muslim Brotherhood Urges Protests in Syria
The banned Muslim Brotherhood has called on Syrians to take to the streets to protest against the regime ahead of Friday prayers. The declaration is the first time that the Brotherhood, whose leadership is in exile, have called directly for demonstrations since pro-democracy demonstrations against President Bashar al Assad’s autocratic rule erupted six weeks ago. Read More…
Quake Shock Prompts BOJ to Cut Economic Outlook
The Bank of Japan on Thursday downgraded its economic growth forecast for fiscal 2011 to 0.6 percent from an earlier projected 1.6 percent as the country has been seriously damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Read More…
State Trooper Who Arrested Photographer Now a Photographer
It was less than four years ago that Arkansas State Trooper Thomas Weindruch arrested a photojournalist for taking his picture, claiming he feared for his life because a flash was used. Now Weindruch is a photographer who enjoys taking pictures of pretty flowers and sunsets. Read More…
Charlie Veitch Arrested in Pre-Crime Raid Prior to Royal Wedding
We received the following email from Charlie Veitch’s girlfriend. Veitch, who many of you will know as the leader of the Love Police activist group, has been arrested by British police in a pre-crime raid on charges of “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” at tomorrow’s Royal Wedding. Veitch was in contact with police before the arrest, reassuring them that his plans were completely peaceful and merely centered around voicing his free speech, which evidently no longer exists as a human right in the United Kingdom. Read More…
Rising Tension in the Caucasus and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
2010 was marked as the year of increasing tension in the Caucasus. Increase in bombing activities in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia, adding armed conflicts in the Nagorno-Karabakh brought the questions of stability in near southeast of Turkey. It is clear that the region has significant importance for Turkey regarding to be the main exit gate to Russia and Caspian Basin as well as a transit route of energy resources. Therefore, increase of tension in the region will bring significant results for Turkey. Also it has some capacity to generate some negative impacts on the political atmosphere and causing problems for ongoing and future projects. Read More…
Obama Administration Punishes Reporter for Using Multimedia
The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights. White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news. Read More…
Big Sugar Sues Big Corn Over “Corn Sugar” Ad Campaign For HFCS
Last year, the Corn Refiners Association began a campaign to rebrand controversial sweetener high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as “corn sugar.” Well that has managed to rankle the folks behind non-corn sugar, who say it is false advertising and have now taken their complaint to a U.S. District Court. Read More…
21st Century Eugenics: Outrage as ‘How-to-Die Helpline’ is Launched by Euthanasia Charity
A right-to-die pressure group provoked outrage yesterday over plans to sponsor the U.K.’s first helpline aimed at speeding the terminally ill towards ‘a good death’. The free phone line, to be set up by a charity called Compassion in Dying, will ‘promote greater patient choice and control where possible’. The charity is an offshoot of euthanasia campaign Dignity in Dying and is led by the right-to-die group’s chief executive Sarah Wootton, a former sex equality and abortion campaigner. Read More…
Former DHS Official: ACTA ‘Sweetheart Deal for IP Owners; Free Gov’t Enforcement of Private Rights’
We recently wrote about a 2008 memo and position paper from Homeland Security to the USTR warning that ACTA was a bad idea that could harm national security, and transfer private civil issues to the government to enforce. The author of the original memo, Stewart Baker, who is no longer at DHS, has now commented on our coverage of this issue, stating that DHS did not like ACTA as it was drafted. Read More…
A Great Idea from an American on How to Let Other Americans Know about Being in the Know
The Sticky Note Campaign is making deliveries in Georgia Supermarkets now. Super-Charged with Conservative ideals REAL Americans all over the country and even an awakened Democrat or two are now participating in this grass roots initiative. Its not a partisan issue either, no one can afford these rising prices at the gas pump or the grocery store. Read More…
Google Sued Over Android Location Tracking
Two Oakland County women have filed a $50 million class-action lawsuit against Google Inc. to stop the company from selling phones with Android software that can track a user’s location. Read More…
William Suspects Conspiracy, Dodi Fayed’s Father Claims – English ‘Royals’ Killed Diana
On the eve of the royal wedding, the father of the man killed in the car crash with the late Princess Diana is making new charges about a palace conspiracy he claims led to the death of his son Dodi. Mohamed Al-Fayed, who has long claimed that a conspiracy within the royal family plotted the deaths of Princess Diana and his son, charged Thursday that Diana’s son William suspects a palace plot as well. Read More…
The Assualt on Christians Continues in Crapistan
Anti-Christian violence continues in Pakistan, after Easter was celebrated in memory of Shahbaz Bhatti, the country’s Minority Affairs minister assassinated in March. Yesterday, an extremist group ambushed a Protestant clergyman travelling with his family, seriously wounding his 24-year-old son. A few days ago, a young Christian woman was abducted and raped over several days by a man claiming to be a police officer. After she was let go, he fled without leaving a trace. Read More…
U.S. at Risk of War with China, Russia
The U.S. is at the risk of a war with Russia and China as its main objective behind engineering the Libyan war and Syrian unrest is to remove the two world powers out of the Mediterranean, a former U.S. official warns. Read More…
Modern history and current events are aligned in this excellent text from Dilip Hiro. Beginning with a short, concise back ground history on the arraignment of empires before and after World War II, “After Empire” then focuses more closely on the New World Order following on two main events. The first was the self-inflicted collapse of the Soviet Union following on Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, followed by Yeltsin’s inebriated attempts to throw the country wide open to the capitalist free market west and the Washington consensus of the IMF and World Bank. The second event, a decade later, was the attack on the World Trade Center and the subsequent series of attacks and manipulations around the world combined with the stealthy annexation of the powers of the constitution towards executive supremacy in the U.S. government. Read More…
India Snubs U.S., Russia in Jet Deal
India shortlisted France’s Dassault Aviation SA and Eurofighter GmbH for one of the country’s largest-ever defense deals, a contract to supply 126 fighter jets to the Indian Air Force, dealing a major setback to aerospace giants Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. and to U.S. efforts to expand military sales to India. Read More…
Syrian Army Splits, Turns Against Itself
Syrian army units have clashed with each other over following President Bashar Assad’s orders to crack down on protesters in Daraa, a besieged city at the heart of the uprising, witnesses and human rights groups said Thursday. Read More…
Bombing in Morocco Not Seen in a Long Time
A bomb blast killed at least 15 people at a café in Marrakesh’s tourist-filled main square of Jamaa el-Fna on Thursday. State television reported that there were 10 foreigners among the casualties, six of which were identified as French nationals. Read More…
Here’s a question for you: Would you rather pay the current state gas tax of 20 cents a gallon (on top of the federal tax of 18.4 cents a gallon) or instead pay a tax based on how much you actually drive? Read More…
Sony Faces Global Legal Action Over Data Theft; Shares Fall
Sony Corp could face legal action across the globe after it delayed disclosing a security breach of its popular PlayStation Network, infuriating gamers and sending the firm’s shares down nearly 5 percent in Tokyo Thursday. Read More…
Student Loan Debt Hell: 21 Statistics that Will Make You Think Twice About Going to College
Is going to college a worthwhile investment? Is the education that our young people are receiving at our colleges and universities really worth all of the time, money and effort that is required? Decades ago, a college education was quite inexpensive and it was almost an automatic ticket to the middle class. But today all of that has changed. At this point, college education is a big business. There are currently more than 18 million students enrolled at the nearly 5,000 colleges and universities currently in operation throughout the United States. There are quite a few “institutions of higher learning” that now charge $40,000 or even $50,000 a year for tuition. That does not even count room and board and other living expenses. Meanwhile, as you will see from the statistics posted below, the quality of education at our colleges and universities has deteriorated badly. When graduation finally arrives, many of our college students have actually learned very little, they find themselves unable to get good jobs and yet they end up trapped in student loan debt hell for essentially the rest of their lives. Read More…
Drones Spray, Track the Unwilling in Air Force Plan
Here’s how the U.S. Air Force wants to hunt the next generation of its enemies: A tiny drone sneaks up to a suspect, paints him with an unnoticed powder or goo that allows American forces to follow him everywhere he goes – until they train a missile on him. Read More…
IRS Likely to Expand Mortgage Industry Coverup by Whitewashing REMIC Violations
As established readers know, we’ve been writing since mid 2010 about the widespread, possibly pervasive, failure of mortgage securitization originators to convey the notes (the borrower IOU) to securitization trusts as stipulated in the deal documents, well before the robo signing scandal broke. This abuse matters because the transaction procedures were designed carefully to satisfy certain legal requirements, among them rules contained in the 1986 Tax Reform Act regarding REMICs, or real estate mortgage investment conduits, which required that the securitization trust receive all its assets by 90 days after closing and that all assets conveyed to the trust have to be “performing”, as in not in default. Failure to comply with the rules is a prohibited act and subject to taxation at a rate of 100%, and additional penalties may apply. Now, with the Federal government under enormous budget pressure, shouldn’t the authorities be keen to go after tax cheats? The headline of a Reuters article, “IRS weighs tax penalties on mortgage securities,” would suggest so. But don’t get your hopes up. The lesson is don’t jump to conclusions when big finance is involved. Read More…
Time for the U.S. to Get Out of NATO
Today, the alliance’s main functions seem to be forcing the U. S. taxpayer to subsidize Europe’s generous welfare states, and periodically embroiling us in conflicts, like Kosovo and Libya, that we’d be smarter to avoid. There are lessons to be learned from the Libyan debacle. For us, the main lesson is that NATO long ago outlived its usefulness. For Europe, it’s that foreign adventurism doesn’t come cheap. If you think these things are worth doing, pay your own way, and finish the fights you start. Read More…
Deeper China Ties Spark Autonomy Concerns
Sixty-two percent of respondents are concerned about a crisis of political autonomy and increased difficulty maintaining the “status quo” because of deeper economic exchanges with China, according to a recent public opinion survey published by the Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology. The survey also showed that the allure of economic benefits had not changed people’s national identification. Read More…
NATO Mental Giant Air Strike Kills 12 MORE Libyan ‘Rebel’ Buddies in Misrata by “Mistake”
For the second time this month, NATO warplanes have accidentally bombed the Libyan rebel forces that were mistaken for Gadhafi regime troops. Today’s strike came in Misrata, and saw the warplane kill 12 rebels and wound five others. Read more…
Russia Warns Against Interference in Syria
Members of the U.N. Security Council have failed to agree upon a statement condemning the Syrian government’s violence against the opposition. Great Britain, France, Germany and Portugal suggested that the U.N. condemn Damascus for its disproportionate use of force against the peaceful population and urged an independent enquiry into all the related facts. Responding to this proposal, U.N. Envoy in Syria Bashar Ja’afari said that Damascus has nothing to hide and is ready to carry out its own investigation. The Syrian army’s military operations are not targeted against the peaceful population but aim to do away with extremist terrorist groups, the official stressed. Russia, China and Lebanon, which is the only Arab country in the U.N. Security Council, have taken a stand against the draft statement. Russian deputy U.N. Ambassador Alexander Pankin urged members not to ignore the fact that Syrian violence “does not all originate from one side.” He referred to the killing of a military convoy by anti-government forces, armed assaults on military facilities and checkpoints, as well as murders of police officers. The Russian diplomat does not however consider the conflict in Syria a threat to international security. Read More…
Aussie PM Opens the Countries Gates: Chinese Navy to Now Use Australian Ports
Chinese warships could be heading to Australian ports this year after the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, took “a few small steps” towards military transparency and co-operation with President Hu Jintao. Read More…
Dollar Weakens, Treasuries Gain as U.S. GDP Growth Slows
The Dollar Index slid to an almost three-year low, Treasuries fell and gold rallied to a record after economic growth slowed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed to the highest level since June 2008 as rising earnings and takeovers overshadowed the report on gross domestic product. Read More…
Yankees Reveal Fans Personnel Info. in Massive Data Link
A bonehead Yankees employee accidentally e-mailed the sensitive, private information of about 17,000 season-ticket holders to hundreds of people, the team admitted last night. The stunning security screw-up released the names, home addresses, fax numbers, e-mail accounts and exact seat location of the fans, about half of the total number of season-ticket holders. Read More…
U.S. Government Takes Down HAARP Website to Conceal Evidence of U.S. Weather Modification
The HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) website has been down for the past 3 weeks. It was ordered taken down by the U.S. government to conceal U.S. weather modification and earthquake inducing warfare activities against foreign states. The HAARP website was publishing very damaging evidence of U.S. military weather modification and earthquake triggering operations against foreign states. HAARP’s waterfall charts and magnetometer charts gave evidence of an ongoing weather war between the United States government and foreign states. Read More…
19 Studies Link GMO Foods to Organ Disruption
A new paper demonstrates that consuming genetically modified (GM) food leads to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice. Researchers reviewed data from 19 studies and found that parameters including blood and urine biochemistry and organ weights were significantly disrupted in the GM-fed animals. Read More…
British Troops Could be Deployed to Tunisia
British troops could be deployed to the Libyan border to guard refugees fleeing the Gaddafi regime, Liam Fox signalled yesterday. Although the Government has repeatedly stressed it would not send ground troops into Libya, Dr. Fox suggested U.K. soldiers could be dispatched to its border with Tunisia to enforce “safe havens” protecting refugees from attacks by Gaddafi’s troops. Read More…
Serbs to Vote on Scrapping Bastard Child EU/NATO/UN/IMF/WTO/US/etc. Bosnian Court
MPs in the Republika Srpska parliament have approved a referendum on whether the region should continue to cooperate with the state court, which they say is biased against Serbs. Read More…
U.S. Marines get More “Training” to Accept Homosexuals in Ranks
If a Marine spots two men in his battalion kissing off-duty at a shopping mall, he should react as if he were seeing a man and woman. If he turns on the television news to see a fellow Marine dressed as a civilian and marching in a parade with a banner that reads, “Support Gays and Lesbians in the Military!” he should accept it as a free right of expression. Prescriptions for those possible scenarios are being played out at Marine bases as the military prepares to allow gays to openly serve, ending a 17-year-old policy commonly known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Training for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines began early this year and is expected to finish by summer’s end. The repeal goes into effect 60 days after the president, defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that lifting the ban won’t hurt the military’s ability to fight. Read More…
Journalism Tops List of the Most Useless College Degrees
“To find the most useless degrees college students can get with their four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, we wanted to know which majors offer not only the fewest job opportunities, but those that tend to pay the least.” Read More…
State Wants to Force Parents to Vaccinate to Cover for Illegal Aliens Spreading Disease
In the midst of one of the worst whooping cough epidemics our country has seen in half a century, the majority of California’s schoolchildren may not be vaccinated against the disease – and that may bar them from attending school. AP recently reported that there were over 21,000 cases of whooping cough in the U.S. last year, and experts are unsure as to the cause. NBC News reported that at least 7,800 of those cases happened in California – the highest since 1947. In response, California’s AB 354 was passed in September of last year, making proof of whooping cough vaccinations mandatory for both public and private school students starting in the 2011-12 school year. However, health representatives told Mercury News that the law makes most students ineligible for attendance. Read More…
Government Drops Cntral Fingerprint Database, for Now at Least
The government and local councils are to stop storing fingerprints taken for biometric passports for eventual use in a central database, home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner confirmed in a statement on Wednesday. Donner says there are currently too many concerns about the security and reliability of the system. However, the long-term aim is still to set up a national data bank, the minister says. Read More…
TomTom Sending Driving Info. to Cops
The CEO of the Dutch company, Harold Goddijn, was reacting to earlier reports that the data collected and made available to local and regional government in the Netherlands was also being used by the police. Some police forces have been using the information to plan roadside speed traps. Read More…
Supreme Court Case: Can Drug Companies Buy Doctors’ Prescription Data?
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday takes up a case examining whether a Vermont law that blocks access to prescription-drug records violates the free-speech rights of pharmaceutical companies. At issue is Vermont’s 2007 Prescription Confidentiality Law. The measure bars drug companies from obtaining and using a doctor’s prescription records for marketing purposes unless the doctor grants prior permission for companies to use the data. Read More…
Fresh Air in France: “I Want to Free France from E.U. Straitjacket”
While the E.U. forces France to accept more and more immigrants, the country has already had enough, with anti-ethnic sentiments growing every year, believes Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right party National Front. Marine follows the political line of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front, who is famous in France and all over the world for his conservative and anti-immigration views. In her interview to RT, Le Pen claims the EU is expanding at France’s expense. Read More…
Oklahoma Senate OKs Bill Targeting Illegal Aliens
The Oklahoma Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would create criminal penalties for undocumented immigrants who work in Oklahoma and those who smuggle them into the state. It would also give police officers more authority to question citizenship status of suspects. Read More…
Wal-Mart: Our Shoppers are ‘Running Out of Money’
Wal-Mart’s core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday. “We’re seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure,” Duke said at an event in New York. “There’s no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact.” Read More…
Farmer Menaced by Gangs, Cops Take Away Farmers Guns to Protect Gangs from Farmer
Having confronted travellers cutting down trees on her farm, terminally-ill Tracy St Clair Pearce found herself subjected to a terrifying ordeal. Some of the group pelted her with rocks while a youth threatened to slit her throat and slaughter her cattle. When she dialled 999 she expected the full weight of the law to be on her side. Instead, however, police officers criticised her for inflaming the situation and confiscated her legally held shotguns – even though they had been locked away in a cabinet at home throughout the incident. Read More…
Why Obama Gets Four More Years in White House: Ralph Nader
The stars are aligned for Barack Obama’s re-election in November 2012. He won’t join Jimmy Carter as the only Democrats in 120 years to miss out on a second term as U.S. president. Five things are playing in Obama’s favor. Read More…
Cairo Holds Massive Anti-Israel Rally
Thousands of Egyptian Protesters have gathered in front of the Israeli embassy in the capital Cairo demanding an end to ties with the Israel. A major Egyptian political party, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), has recently demanded that the country’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces takes immediate measures in breaking the “siege” of Gaza. Read More…
Former CIA Chief Hayden Praises Qaddafi
What do former CIA head Michael Hayden and current Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez have in common? The answer: they both seem to admire Libyan dictator and sponsor of terrorism Muammar Qaddafi. Hayden, a retired Air Force General who formerly served as both head of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, described his view of Qaddafi at a conference of the Marine Corps University on April 26. “Whatever you think of Qaddafi and Mussa Kussa,” Hayden said, “they were good and they were good counter-terrorism partners.” Hayden also praised Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, saying he was “pretty good” at fighting Muslim militants. In Syria in recent weeks, hundreds of protestors have been gunned down by government security forces. Read More…
Seljuk Wannabe in Turkey Condemns Canadian PM’s Statement on 1915 Armenian Genocide
Turkey on Wednesday condemned Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s statement on the events of 1915, saying he was just looking after his political benefits and has dealt a blow on efforts to improve ties between the two countries, Anadolu Agency reported. Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Harper expressed one-sided views in his message about the sad part of common history of Turks and Armenians, adding that “it is quite wrong and unfair. We condemn strongly and regretfully, and we reject it.” In his message, Stephen Harper said, “ninety-six years ago, the Armenian people experienced terrible suffering and loss of life. “We must never forget the lessons of history. Nor should we allow the enmities of history to divide us,” he added. In 2006, the Senate of Canada adopted a motion acknowledging the incidents of 1915 as “the first genocide of the twentieth century”. Read More…
Where’s the Global ‘Recovery’? Belarus’s Inflation Exceeds Yearly Estimates During Four Months
Belarus’s inflation rate for a period April 1 – April 19 was 2.5%, the press release of the Belarusian Committee on Statistics says. Consumer prices grew by 6.1% in the first quarter. So, the inflation for 3 months and 20 days of 2011 was 8.75% despite the estimated early rate of 7.5-8.5%, Interfax-Zapad news agency reports. Read More…
Patent Law and Constitutional Limits
Too bad none of the GOP or newly elected TEA Party legislators actually cares about the constitution. The Senate has passed a bill (S.23) to take away the property rights of American inventors. They held a quick poorly publicized hearing that did not include a single inventor, a small-business person, a venture capital person or a constitutional authority. It’s sister bill in the house is now being pushed without any publicity, H.R. 1249. Read More…
After recently undertaking a journey to walk — not fly — across the United States in the “Grounded” storyline and reconnect with the country and everyday Americans, Superman appears to be taking another step that could have major implications for his national identity. Read More…
Legendary Ad Man Sells Everything, Buys Gold, says, “I’m Just Not Ready to Have My Wealth Redistributed”
Jerry Della Femina is a legend in the advertising business. He created some of the nation’s most famous campaigns back in the 60s and 70s. He was the inspiration for the TV series “Mad Men.” And now he’s had it up to here with President Obama. Read More…
Feds Want to Literally Take Over People’s PCs to “Help” Rid of Computer Virus
In an unusual move, federal authorities will be contacting computer users with systems infected by the Coreflood botnet Trojan and asking them to agree to allow them to send commands to the malware so it will delete itself. The move comes in the in the wake of a coordinated takedown earlier this month by the FBI and other authorities, in which the U.S. government essentially substituted its own command-and-control servers in place of those used by Coreflood and issued commands telling the program to shut down on infected PCs. The move reduced activity from the Coreflood botnet by about 90 percent in the United States and by nearly 75 percent worldwide. However, infected PCs still have dormant Coreflood software on them, and the feds would like to get rid of it. Read More…
Man Arrested for Singing ‘Kung Fu Fighting’
A PUB singer was arrested for alleged “racism” after belting out the chart hit Kung Fu Fighting as two Chinese people walked past. One of them complained to cops, who later nicked stunned Simon Ledger – in a Chinese restaurant. Read More…
Why Did The Fed Inc. Lend Billions to Foreign Banks? And 15 Other Questions for Bernanke
The Federal Reserve is being dragged into public scrutiny. It has fought this every step of the way. It is now doing its best to present the illusion of transparency. This is like watching a dancing bear. It is not ready for “Dancing with the Stars.” Bernanke should do more of these. I think the experience will do him no good, but it will do the public a great deal of good. Read More…
Wiretapping Leak Probe Dropped
The Justice Department has dropped its long-running criminal investigation of a lawyer who publicly admitted leaking information about President George W. Bush’s top-secret warrantless wiretapping program to The New York Times – disclosures that Bush vehemently denounced as a breach of national security. They also stoked a congressional debate about whether the government had overstepped its authority as it scrambled to respond to the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Read More…
Syria: Hundreds Quit Ruling Party in Protest Over Crackdown
An additional 203 members of Syria’s ruling Baath party quit on Wednesday, protesting a deadly crackdown on anti-government demonstrations that have gripped the country. It brings the total number of resignations to 233. Read More…
Unions Irate Over Mass. House Vote to Limit Healthcare Bargaining
Hundreds of police and firefighters from across the state swarmed around the entrance to the House Chamber at the Statehouse today, cheering lawmakers who opposed a budget amendment that would strip municipal unions of bargaining rights over health care, and complaining to those who backed the measure. Read More…
‘Dump U.S., be Friends with China: Gilani to Karzai’
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has asked Afghan President Hamid Karzai to dump United States and instead align with China for help in striking a peace deal with Taliban and rebuilding the economy, a media report has claimed. Read More…
Where’s the ‘Recovery’? Nokia to Cut 4,000 Jobs Worldwide
The world’s leading mobile phone maker Nokia said on Wednesday it would cut 4,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2012 and transfer a further 3,000 employees to consulting firm Accenture. Nokia said it would outsource to Accenture the activities of its Symbian smartphone platform, including 3,000 employees, by the end of this year. Read More…
9 Americans Killed by Afghan Army Officer ‘Ally’
Eight American troops and a U.S. contractor died Wednesday after an Afghan military pilot opened fire during a meeting at Kabul airport – the deadliest episode to date of an Afghan turning against his coalition partners, officials said. Read More…
Wealthy Leaving Las Vegas Mansions as Foreclosures Spreading
A growing number of high-end homes are selling at a loss or facing repossession by lenders in Las Vegas, which already has the highest rate of foreclosure filings among large U.S. cities. The wave of defaults that began with subprime borrowers and the unemployed has spread to upscale homeowners who see no point of staying even if they can afford to. Read More…
Mental Giant Cops Bust into Wrong House, Hold Court Judge and Family at Gunpoint
Broward Circuit Court Judge Ilona Holmes, her sister and her sister’s family says they were ordered at gun point by several Broward Sheriffs Deputies on Easter Sunday to come out of her sister’s home with their hands up. It was no evening of peace for the Deerfield Beach family, who’d just finished dinner with friends and family, and sent extra Easter dinner to a needy family connected with their church. Then, at 8:20 p.m., police got a call about a possible burglary next door. But a bad address caused police to go to the wrong home. Read More…
U.S. Banks Warn Obama on Soaring Debt
A group of the largest U.S. banks and fund managers stepped up the pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to reach a deal to increase the country’s debt limit, saying that even a short default could be devastating for the financial markets and economy. Read More…
Another Cop has Another Major Malfunction and Beats Woman at IHOP
An off-duty Atlanta police officer got into a scuffle with a woman and punched her in the face, and the early morning incident at an IHOP was captured on video, the Atlanta Police Department confirmed. According to several videos posted on YouTube.com, the officer, whose name was not known, shouted at a woman sitting in the corner of a booth near the door and then he lunged at her. A woman wearing a black dress appeared to be trying to separate the officer and her friend when the officer slapped her. The woman in the black dress hit him back, and he punched her in the face. A second officer came up just as the struggle began. He got involved when it became physical between the first cop and the woman in the black dress, apparently trying to separate them. The first officer pulled the woman in a black dress away from the table, threw her onto the floor and laid on top of her while trying to get handcuffs on one wrist. The second wrist was cuffed when she turned over on her stomach. Read More…
Microsoft Collects Locations of Windows Phone Users – Duh? Hello?
Like Apple and Google, Microsoft collects records of the physical locations of customers who use its mobile operating system. Windows Phone 7, supported by manufacturers including Dell, HTC, LG, Nokia, and Samsung, transmits to Microsoft a miniature data dump including a unique device ID, details about nearby Wi-Fi networks, and the phone’s GPS-derived exact latitude and longitude. Read More…
More Christians Made War Against by Muslims in Egypt
After the death of two Muslims on April 18 sectarian violence broke out in the southern Egyptian town of Abu Qurqas El Balad, in Minya Governorate, 260km south of Cairo. One Christian Copt was killed, an old woman was thrown out of her second floor balcony and ten Copts were hospitalized. Coptic homes, shops, businesses, fields and livestock were plundered and torched. Read More…
Miss America Sexually Molested by TSA
Ms. Castillo was subjected to the groping after she refused to enter a naked body scanner at the airport in Dallas, Texas. Castillo is currently a spokeswoman for Neutrogena and has appeared on a number of television shows, the ABC Family reality television series, America’s Prom Queen. Read More…
Soaring Food Prices a Threat Across Asia
Soaring global food prices threaten to push tens of millions of Asians into extreme poverty and cut the region’s economic growth this year, the Asian Development Bank warned in a report Tuesday. Read More…
One Eye on the Future: Iris Scanners ARE Coming Here
“The morning had been full of delays and missed trains, so when my cameraman Matthew and I got to the Harper Collins building at 53rd Street and Madison Avenue in New York City, we were panting a little. But our running had paid off: It was 12:55 p.m. and our appointment was at 1 p.m., so it looked like we were going to make it in time. Even so, we fidgeted while the guy at the security desk peered at our driver’s licenses, up at us, and back at our licenses. As we strolled through the security gates, Matthew laughed. “An eye scanner could have sped that up.” I smiled. We were here to visit the Hoyos Group, America’s top producers of iris scanning technology, the futuristic identification machines that grace sci-fi movies from The Minority Report to Monsters Versus Aliens. The company had recently joined forces with Stanley Security Solutions, the security arm of Stanley Black and Decker (SWK). As the second-biggest security company in the world, Stanley is in a position to put the scanners in thousands of venues, and it isn’t hard to imagine how quickly Hoyos’ machines could show up across the country. Matthew was right: The scanners had the power to not only speed up our security check-in, but could potentially revolutionize everything from credit card machines to subway cards.” Read More…
Facebook Facial Recognition Could get Creepy
In early April, Engadget posted a short article confirming a rumor that Facebook would be using facial recognition to suggest the names of friends who appeared in newly uploaded photos. As it stands, Facebook’s current feature uses facial recognition technology to pick out faces in your photos. Once you’ve uploaded your album, Facebook will take you to a new screen where you can enter the name of each person below their face. Sometimes (depending on your privacy settings and the clarity of the photo), Facebook will go a step further: If a face matches one you previously tagged in another album, Facebook may suggest that person’s name for you. Facebook quietly added the feature to the Privacy Settings, allowing users to disable the peppy-sounding ‘Suggest photos of me to friends’ option. Most Facebook users probably don’t know that the extra privacy setting is there. Read More…
North Korea Boat Retreats after Warning Shots Fired: South
A North Korean patrol boat briefly crossed a tense maritime border with rival South Korea late on Tuesday before retreating when the South’s navy fired warning shots, the military said on Wednesday. Read More…
China Seizes 26 Tonnes of Melamine-Tainted Milk Powder
Chinese police have seized more than 26 tonnes of milk powder tainted with melamine from a ice cream maker in a southwestern city, state media said, three years after milk tainted with the industrial chemical killed six and made thousands ill. China said in March at least 20 percent of domestic dairy companies would lose their operating licenses following inspections of fresh milk and infant formula producers. Read More…
Geography Lesson for Americans
According to a latest survey of USA Today, Americans are so bad in geography and world history. For example, 78% of the Yankees have placed Egypt, somewhere between China and North Korea. With March Madness, ie 345 college football games of basketball, the NBA playoff, hockey, curling world championship, football, darts world championship and the very latest trend of “cometartas” (championships between people obese with their hands tied behind are forced to eat as many pies as possible in less time), losing the types of events dirty goat lovers Africa are not that bad! So nothing, as a humanist I am, I would like to contribute my bit to promote education that mass Platonic nasty dirty, lovers of burgers and hotdogs, which is the American people. Read More…
Monsanto Will Soon be Allowed to Police Itself
Monsanto, enemy of organic farmers and anti-GMO advocates alike, will likely be allowed to conduct its own environmental studies as part of a two-year USDA experiment. But there is no good that can possibly come of an experiment where the company behind nearly every genetically modified crop in our daily diets is allowed to decide whether its products are causing any environmental harm. And Monsanto isn’t the only biotech company that will be permitted to police itself. Read More…
Teen Makes Digital Record of Arlington Graves
Ricky Gilleland, a tech-savvy 11th-grader, has created the only digitized record of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. His “project,” as he calls it, won’t fix Arlington’s considerable problems. A commission led by former Sens. Bob Dole and Max Cleland was formed to attempt that. Read More…
Egypt Gas Pipeline to Israel and Jordan Explodes
A pipeline carrying gas from Egypt to Israel and Jordan running through Egypt’s North Sinai has exploded after an attack by an armed gang. Read More…
Thai-Cambodian Border Clash Flares Again
The Cambodian government has confirmed that Thailand’s defence minister has pulled out of ceasefire talks that were scheduled to be held in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. The two countries have engaged in five straight days of fighting that have left at least 13 soldiers dead and around 50 wounded on both sides. Cambodia said shots were exchanged early Wednesday at two sites along the contested border. Read More…
Highschool Useful Idiots Riot at School Board Meeting to Keep Class that Teaches Mexican Hate of Whites
Rowdy students take over a big Tucson school board meeting in protest. It’s a pretty wild scene – and it’s all over a Mexican-American studies class, a class that teaches history from a Mexican-American perspective. Read More…
Armed Agents Invade Maxam Nutraceutics and Steal Natural Health Products in Shocking FDA Raid
Amidst all the destructive activities taking place in our world today that deserve attention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has decided instead to make it a personal mission to destroy the businesses and livelihoods of those trying to help people through natural medicine. Read More…
Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria to Create Joint Visa Zone
Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria are preparing to install a “Schengen-like” regime, under which visas issued for one of the countries will be valid for all. This information was broken Tuesday by Iranian vice-Minister of Tourism Shahbaz Yezdi, as quoted by Russian agency Regnum. According to the Iranian vice-minister, the initiative is based on an idea of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Read More…
Pre-Crime, Still: Police Crack Down on ‘Troublemakers’ as Royal Wedding Nears
Police warned protesters that “robust” action would be taken against anyone planning to disrupt the royal wedding, with more activists expected to be arrested ahead of Friday’s ceremony. In the past nine days police have arrested six people wanted in connection with violence during last month’s TUC march, amid fears that they might be planning similar protests along the wedding route. Read More…
Obama Authorizes $25 Million in Aid to Libyan Rebels
President Obama on Tuesday authorized $25 million in non-lethal assistance to the Libyan opposition – the first direct U.S. aid to the rebels after weeks of assessing their capabilities and intentions. Read More…
Americans Piss Away Sacred Birthright of Gun Ownership
Almost one-third of U.S. households report having any guns in the home – the lowest level ever since the survey began in the 1970s, a survey indicates. Key factors cited by the report contributing to gun ownership decline include: the aging of the current-gun owning population, a lack of interest in guns by youth, the end of military conscription, the decreasing popularity of hunting; land-use issues that limit hunting and shooting and the increase in single-parent homes headed by women. Read More…
3 Men Arrested for Reading Bible
A lawsuit has been filed in California to protect the rights of three men who were arrested after being accused of “impeding an open business” even though the “business” was the local department of motor vehicles, and it was closed. Read More…
“Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does. One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.” Read More…
The Militarization of the U.S.-Canada Border
With the release of a U.S. Congressional report that found only a small fraction of the border with Canada was being adequately monitored, there is now more focus being placed on the northern border. As a result of increased scrutiny, there are efforts to militarize and expand surveillance on the Canada-U.S. border. The new found attention is also attributed to a proposed trade and security perimeter agreement between the two countries which promotes a shared approach to border management. Read More…
Recently-released court documents prove that the consent form Maryanne signed agreeing to give her daughter the highly-dangerous anti-psychotic drug Risperdal was optional, and that she was always free to cease using them at any time. In other words, the raid conducted by state-sanctioned thugs on behalf of Child Protective Services (CPS) was nothing more than an illegal kidnapping by armed terrorists who violated Maryanne and her family’s legal, civil, and God-given rights. Read More…
France, Taiwan, U.K.: Speed Cameras Sprayed, Swiped
Not only are Americans fed up with the tyranical technocracy we currently live under in the 21st century, but so are the people from every nation around the world. Here are some new reports on fellow humans saying no to more gov’t and corporate spying. Read More…
Mich. Now Wants to See Barry’s Birth Certificate, Also
A state House lawmaker introduced legislation today that would require candidates for president to produce a certified copy of his or her birth certificate to be eligible to appear on the Michigan ballot. Read More…
Sioux Falls, SD Christian Woman Threatened; Home, Car Vandalized by Muslims
The woman and former Catholic nun questioned the need for four mosques in the small city of Sioux Falls plus invited the showing of Iranium to a city audience and then the intimidation began. Read More…
Lawsuit Against FDA a Success! Court Rules Censorship of Two Specific Health Claims Unconstitutional
A considerable legal victory has been achieved for the natural health community in defending freedom of health speech. A recent lawsuit filed by the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) and several other plaintiffs against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has successfully stopped the FDA from censoring the truth about the health benefits of both vitamin C and vitamin E. The case sets an important precedent for freedom of health speech as the court ruled that censorship of qualified health claims is unconstitutional. Read More…
Hundreds of Muslims Protest at State Capitol in TN
Hundreds of Muslims from across Tennessee gathered at the state Capitol on Tuesday morning to speak out against a plan they said targets their religion. Read More…
Where’s the ‘Recovery’? 106 San Jose Cops get Layoff Notices
After months of nervous anticipation, 106 San Jose police officers are getting notices this week that they may be laid off as the reality of the city’s dire financial picture cast a gloom over police headquarters and City Hall. An additional 20 more cops learned they may soon be demoted. And overall, the city could lose about 9 percent of its police force in what could be the first layoffs of officers in the city’s history. Read More…
Russia: New Ballistic Missile Test is a Success
The Russian military successfully test launched a Sineva ballistic missile from a submarine in the Arctic on April 26, the Interfax news agency quoted a Defense Ministry spokesman as saying. Read More…
Were Conquered Christians Really Liberated Muslims?
Imagine if a top American historian appeared on the MSM insisting that the only reason Europeans conquered the Americas was to “defend” the Native Americans — who somehow had adopted Christianity centuries before Jesus was born — from being persecuted by heathen tribes. While that would create a maelstrom of outrage and derision in the West, in the Arab world — where some think bewitched animals work as infidel operatives — such absurdities regularly pass for “truth.” Consider the case of Fadel Soliman, a celebrated Sharia expert and Arab media darling. Director of the Bridges Foundation — which teaches Muslims “how to present Islam” to non-Muslims — Soliman also lectures at Western universities, churches, and governmental agencies, including the U.S. Dept. of Defense. His new Arabic book, Copts: Muslims Before Muhammad, which he has been promoting all over the media, including al-Jazeera, asserts that, at the time of the Muslim conquest of Egypt (c. 640), the vast majority of Egyptians were not, as history has long taught, Christians, but rather prototypical Muslims, or muwahidin, who were actually being oppressed by Christians: hence, the Muslim conquest of Egypt was really about “liberating” fellow Muslims. Read More…
TEPCO Releases Fukushima Nuclear Pictures
Here are new photos coming out of Japan from TEPCO Inc. detailing the further extent of the nuclear powerplant meltdown destruction caused by the March, 2011 earthquake. Read More…
States Face Growing Pension Gaps
States are short $1.26 trillion in paying for public employee pensions and other retirement benefits, a gap that grew 26 percent in one year and will take many more years to wipe out, according to a report released on Tuesday. Read More…
Further Air Strikes on Tripoli as Italy Warplanes Agree to Join Offensive
NATO has launched further attacks on Tripoli following the air strike on Colonel Gaddafi’s compound. Italy, which has been playing a limited role in Nato operations in Libya, has given the go ahead for its air force to bomb selected military targets in the former Italian colony. Read More…
Lt. Col. Lakin Free in Less than 3 Weeks
Friends of Lt. Col. Terry Lakin are hoping a few hundred people will show up to greet the jailed military doctor when he’s released from prison and returns to Baltimore, Md., on May 14. Dr. Terry Lakin, an Army doctor who refused to deploy again to Afghanistan when his chain of command refused to verify that Obama legitimately is president, has been serving a six-month term at Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas. Read More…
Greece Budget Deficit Worse than Forecast
Greece’s budget deficit in 2010 was 10.5% of gross domestic product, significantly larger than forecast. Lower-than-expected government revenue was the main culprit behind the higher deficit number. The Greek government was targeting a 2010 deficit of 9.4% of GDP. The missed target was “mainly the result of the deeper-than-anticipated recession of the Greek economy that affected tax revenue and social security contributions,” the Greek government said in a statement after the Eurostat announcement. More austerity coming – the beatings will continue until morale improves! Read More…
Amazon Margin Collapse: Revenue Beat, Earnings Miss Big, Cuts Forward Operating Income
A company with already razor thin margins comes out and while it beats revenues, reporting $9.86 billion in sales on expectations of $9.54 billion, it literally shits the bed on the bottom line, reporting $0.44 EPS on expectations of $0.61, proving that this mythical “margin collapse” thing is actually really real. And the icing on the cake: it provides an operating income guidance range for Q2 of $95 million to $245 million. Expectations? $369.5 million. Can you spell Timber? Market sure can. Read More…
Mexican Drug Cartels Place Roadside Bomb in Brownsville, Texas
Last Sunday night, authorities in Brownsville, Texas, discovered an explosive device on Highway 77, just minutes from the Mexican border. The Brownsville Bomb Squad was dispatched to neutralize the explosive device. Read More…
U.S. Sucked into Central Asia Strife?
When Kyrgyzstan President Roza Otunbayeva announced last month that the country would be building two ‘counter-terror training centres’ in the south of the country — one with U.S. help, and the other with Russian assistance — there were few details available. One thing that was clear, though, was that the delicate position that the country occupies, both geographically and geopolitically, has forced the United States into a careful balancing act between its two closest military allies in Central Asia – Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The purported need for such centres is the threat of Islamist terrorists entering the region from Afghanistan, via Tajikistan. But so far, there’s scant evidence that even Tajikistan — which borders Afghanistan — has seen such an influx, let alone Kyrgyzstan. Read More…
If you visit Kings Point, big brother will be watching. The affluent community is hoping to prevent crime by going high-tech – by setting up a sophisticated network to screen every vehicle that goes in or out of town. Read More…
Using Debit Cards to Phase Out Paper Checks for State Income Tax Refunds?
This one slipped by us: Earlier this week, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported that the state has embarked on a pilot program of using debit cards for state income tax refunds – with the aim of ultimately eliminating paper checks. Read More…
Farmers Protest Against Japanese Nuke Plant Owner
More than 200 farmers brought two cows to Tokyo where they shouted and punched the air Tuesday in a protest to demand compensation for products contaminated by radiation spewing from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant. The farmers from northeastern Japan wore green bandanas and held signs saying “Nuclear disaster is human disaster” and “Stop nuclear energy” outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant damaged in the March 11 tsunami. Radiation leaking from Fukushima Dai-ichi plant — about 140 miles (220 kilometers) north of Tokyo — has been found in milk, water and leafy vegetables such as spinach from around the plant. Read More…
Thailand, Cambodia Edge Toward War
Thailand and Cambodia continued to fortify their border positions on Tuesday after four days of fighting that has killed seven Cambodian soldiers and five Thai troops. Neither side appears prepared to back down in what Bangkok sees as Phnom Penh’s attempt to encroach on ancient Hindu temple ruins. The clashes come amid fears that Thailand’s military is preparing a putsch because the generals fear a possible return of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Read More…
Central Banks Pump 3 Trillion into World Economy
The world’s central banks have pumped 3 trillion into the global financial system since the crisis, the equivalent of 8pc of the world economy, according to new analysis by Fathom Consulting. Read More…
Local Man Says TSA Broke Promise
Tom Sawyer, experienced rough airport patdown: “I’m kind of ambivalent at the moment about TSA and moving forward. I don’t see the moving forward.” A local man says the TSA has broken a promise. Three months after an embarrassing airport patdown, a former DeWitt High School teacher says the TSA isn’t following through to make sure passengers with medical conditions are treated with respect. Tom Sawyer says TSA officials aren’t keeping up their end of the bargain. Read More…
Homeless Woman Arrested for Sending Son to School
A homeless woman in Connecticut has been arrested for one of the most unthinkable reasons imaginable — she sent her son to school. Tonya McDowell, 33, was arrested last week and charged with first-degree larceny for stealing $15,686 — the cost of the public school education for her 6-year-old son. Read More…
Turkey Warns Israel Against Repeating ‘Flotilla Mistake’
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned Israel against repeating “the same mistake” ahead of the Gaza-bound flotilla scheduled to set sail next month. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Davutoglu added that “It is Israel’s responsibility not to implement (a blockade) against Gaza. A fact-finding mission of the U.N. declared that this is illegal.” Read More…
Americans Depend More on Federal Aid than Ever
Total benefit payments are holding steady so far this year at a $2.3 trillion annual rate. A drop in unemployment benefits has been offset by rises in retirement and health care programs Read More…
SETI Halts Alien Search Due to Cutbacks
If alien civilizations have been trying to contact us for the last week and a half, their calls may have fallen on deaf ears. Budget cuts have forced the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute — a nonprofit research organization based in Mountain View, Calif. — to shut down one of its chief alien-hunting tools for a spell. Read More…
As newly elected Republican state legislatures aggressively push a slew of anti-union measures, the International Association of Fire Fighters is freezing its federal political spending and shifting all resources toward its beleaguered state and local colleagues. Read More…
Cleveland City Council Decides on Smoking, Trans Fat, Food Trucks
City council wants to make Cleveland a healthier place to live and work. Monday night, council approved legislation that will affect how you eat and breathe. Cleveland restaurants will now have to revise their recipes. By July of 2013, trans fats will be banned from prepared food in city restaurants. Read More…
France and Italy in Call to Close E.U. Borders as Illegal Alien Invasion Threatens Europe
France and Italy have thrown down the gauntlet over Europe’s system of passport-free travel, saying a crisis of immigration sparked by the Arab spring was calling into question the borderless regime enjoyed by more than 400 million people in 25 countries. Read More…
China to Put Space Station in Orbit
Authorities in charge of the manned space program unveiled plans on Monday to build a 60-ton space station, made up of three capsules, and develop a cargo spaceship to transport supplies. The China Manned Space Engineering Office said at a news conference that it also wants the public to get involved by suggesting names for the space station, due to completed around 2020. Read More…
Nature Knows that Paper Money is Worthless: Termites Eat $225,000 in Cash at Indian Bank
Staff at an Indian bank have been blamed for allowing termites to eat their way through banknotes worth millions of rupees. Staff at the bank, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, are reported to have been found guilty of “laxity”. The insects are believed to have chewed their way through notes worth some 10 million rupees ($225,000). A similar incident happened in 2008, when termites in Bihar state ate a trader’s savings stored in his bank. Read More…
Biggest U.S. Airlines Have Combined 1Q Loss Over $1B
With fresh red ink at Delta and U.S. Airways, the five biggest U.S. airlines showed a combined loss of more than $1 billion for the first quarter. Soaring jet fuel prices are the big culprit. The total loss was only about $100 million larger than a year ago, even though jet fuel spending jumped by 28 percent, nearly $1.9 billion. Airlines were able to narrow the difference in fuel spending with a 12 percent increase in revenue. They have raised fares seven times since the start of the year and would like to keep doing that to offset higher fuel costs. Read More…
Oklahoma Lawmakers Approve Life Sentence for Cooking Hashish
A bill that mandates a sentence of up to life in prison for converting marijuana or marijuana oil into hashish is heading to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin’s (R) desk after being passed by the state Legislature on Monday. House Bill 1798 makes the conviction of a first time offense of manufacturing hashish a felony with a prison mandatory minimum sentence of two years and a maximum sentence of life in prison. Read More…
Sony Admits Utter PSN Failure: Your Personal Data HAS Been Stolen
Sony has finally come clean about the “external intrusion” that has caused the company to take down the PlayStation Network service, and the news is almost as bad as it can possibly get. The hackers have all your personal information, although Sony is still unsure about whether your credit card data is safe. Everything else on file when it comes to your account is in the hands of the hackers. In other words, Sony’s security has failed in a spectacular fashion, and we’re just now finding out about it. In both practical and PR terms, this is a worst-case scenario. Read More…
Terrorism, Eh? Qaida Member Snitched for Canada
Closets full of clothes have been rent, and mouths full of teeth have been gnashed over U.S. intelligence’s seeming inability to sneak spies within al-Qaida. The Canadians and the British don’t have that problem, apparently. Read More…
Here are some of the latest photos coming out of Syria as nation-wide protests consume the country. The Syrian government has been engaged in a war against the Syrian population inflicting mass casualties over the past few weeks. Read More…
Modern British Royalty: Eugenicists, Nazis and Neo-Feudalists
The upcoming royal Wedding of William Mountbatten-Windsor, heir in waiting to the British throne has the U.K. media in a frenzy of vomit inducing worship and stomach churning sycophantic fawning. Even the U.S. media is pouring over the royals to such an extent that commentators have pointed out that had the modern day corporate media covered the Revolutionary War, it would have firmly supported the British. Read More…
Dollar Tumbles to All Time Low vs. Swiss Franc
The euro struck a 16-month high against the dollar and the Swiss franc notched a record high versus the U.S. unit Tuesday amid heightened investor nerves over this week’s busy economic calendar. Read More…
Activists Prepare New 15-Boat Flotilla to Gaza
Pro-Palestinian activists say a planned convoy of aid ships to the Gaza Strip will be twice as big as a similar flotilla that was raided a year ago by Israeli forces, leaving nine people dead on a Turkish boat. Read More…
Revisited: SF Voters Asked to Ban Circumcision
A ban on circumcision could end up on San Francisco’s November ballot. A voter in the city says he will submit more than 12,000 valid signatures to the elections office today. That’s more than the 7,200 needed to get the measure on the ballot. The proposed new law would make it a misdemeanor to circumcise a person before they are 18-years-old. Read More…
Rise of Populist Parties Pushes Europe to the Right
The success of the True Finns in last week’s Finnish elections has shocked Brussels. They are just one of a number of right-wing populist parties currently flourishing in Europe. Their rise could threaten the euro bailout. Read More…
ICE Visa Program System Doesn’t Track Key Metrics, says GAO
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement system for tracking performance of a program to review visa applications fails to capture some key metrics, finds a Government Accountability Office report. The report, dated March 31 but released publically April 21, finds that an ICE system put into place in April 2010 doesn’t capture some performance measures of the agency’s Visa Security Program. Specifically, the system cannot record investigations opened or closed and the hours spent on them, training to consular and other officials, and assistance provided by Visa Security Program agents. Read More…
When Students Don’t Go to School, Parents Go to Jail
Barbara Gaskins says she took her 15-year-old son to his bus stop every morning at 7:30, well in time for his 9 a.m. homeroom bell at Patterson High School. She obtained as many medical excuses as the doctor would allow when her son suffered from a series of stomach viruses. And she has taught her children that they have to “get an education to get somewhere in life.” But Gaskins was recently jailed for 10 days — one of the dozen parents of Baltimore City students to receive a sentence this year — after failing to send her child to school 103 of 130 days. Read More…
White House Sponsored ‘Identity Ecosystem’
The Obama Administration on April 15th launched an initiative to create an ‘Identity Ecosystem’ to improve the privacy, security and convenience of sensitive online transactions. The vision is to create an ecosystem whereby individuals, businesses, and other organizations enjoy greater trust and security as they conduct sensitive transaction online. The ecosystem would enable consumers who want to participate to obtain a single ‘trusted credential’ from a public agency or private secure ID provider that can then be used to obtain access and conduct transactions with online businesses without having to give confidential personal information to each business as is the case right now. It is anticipated that the ‘trusted credential’ would reside as a secure application on your mobile device, as a smart card or on another device like a key fob. Many privacy advocates will be somewhat relieved to know that the system would allow you to remain anonymous like when surfing the web or in internet chat rooms, unless you choose to use the system to conduct secure online transactions as in online banking or e-commerce. The ‘Identity Ecosystem’ is needed to make online transactions convenient and secure, and thereby enable the online infrastructure to keep pace with and support the growth and innovation in online activities such as shopping, banking, social networking and accessing your employer’s intranet. Read More…
Wi-Fi Security Flaw for Smartphones Puts Your Credit Cards at Risk
Millions of smartphone users and BT customers who use Wi-Fi wireless internet “hotspot” connections in public are vulnerable to fraud and identity theft, a Guardian investigation has established. In tests conducted with volunteers — to avoid breaching telecommunications and computer misuse laws — security experts were able to gather usernames, passwords and messages from phones using Wi-Fi in public places. In the case of the best-selling Apple iPhone 4 and other smartphone handsets, the information could be harvested without the users’ knowledge and even when they were not actively surfing the web if the phone was turned on. Read More…
Hillsborough Deputies Once Again Prevent Reporters from Doing Their Job
Ryan French, the Tampa news videographer who had a run-in with Hillsborough County deputies last week, reports another incident where deputies did not respect the rights of journalists. Read More…
U.S. Weapons Makers on a Record-Setting Roll
Unrest in the Middle East, a major market for arms sales, has not stopped the United States from enjoying a banner year selling military hardware abroad. The Department of Defense is expecting 2011 arms exports to surpass $46 billion, which would make it the highest on record. Read More…
Rummy’s Latest Excuse for Iraq: Blame Turkey
In an interview with the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tries out a new excuse for his ill-conceived 2003 invasion of Iraq. In short, blame Turkey. Read More…
Atlanta Suburb to Add Surveillance Cameras
City officials say a system of cameras will soon record people who visit parts of Duluth, including the downtown area of the suburban Atlanta community. Elsewhere, Lilburn police in January announced plans to add 19 similar cameras along the city’s Greenway Trail to an existing 14 cameras near tennis courts, walking paths and playgrounds. Norcross also announced recently that it would install new cameras. Read More…
U.S. Evacuates Staff, E.U. ups Pressure on Syria
The United States has ordered embassy families and some staff out of Syria as it hardens its tone on Damascus’s crackdown on protests, though without calling for President Bashar al-Assad to step down. Italy, France and Britain have meanwhile called for an end to the “violent repression” against demonstrations, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy saying the situation was “unacceptable.” Read More…
Sikhs get Medievel in NY, War with Swords
A holy war erupted yesterday at a Sikh temple in Queens – where worshippers wielding swords and cricket bats interrupted a prayer session to attack their rivals in a vicious power struggle, police and witnesses said. Rival factions at the Baba Makhan Shah Lobana Sikh Center in South Richmond Hill have been bickering for months over control, authorities and members said. Read More…
Inmates Tell How Bin Laden Escaped Dragnet
Osama Bin Laden escaped U.S. and British special forces closing in on his refuge in December 2001 with the help of a minor local warlord who provided fighters to guide him to safety in the north-east of Afghanistan, a secret intelligence report compiled by officials at Guantanamo Bay says. Read More…
AWOL Soldier Killed in Shootout
Investigations by both the Salt Lake Police Department and the U.S. Army show it was clear that Army Spec. Brandon Barrett was headed to Utah. But the question of why he came to Salt Lake City with apparent intentions to shoot people still remains unanswered. A 200-page report from the U.S. Army detailing the case of Barrett — who was shot and killed during a confrontation with Salt Lake police on Aug. 27, 2010, near the Grand America Hotel while dressed in full military combat gear — was obtained by the Seattle Weekly. It was unclear if the report was different than a report issued by the Army in February. Read More…
Cable: Honduran Military Supplied Weaponry to Cartels
As Mexican cartels infiltrate Central America, corrupt elements within the region’s militaries from places like Honduras are providing them with an armory that is often far superior to the weapons used by local Mexican police. But the question remains: Just how many of the weapons used by Mexican cartels come from military stockpiles in Central America versus civilian gun stores in the United States? Read More…
Proponents of California’s same-sex marriage ban filed a motion Monday seeking to vacate the historic ruling that overturned Proposition 8 because the federal judge who wrote it is in a long-term relationship with another man. Lawyers for the ban’s backers said that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker should have removed himself from the case, or at least disclosed his relationship status, to avoid a real or perceived conflict of interest. Read More…
Commemoration of Revolution Turns into Protest Against IMF
The traditional celebration of the anniversary of the 1974 Carnation Revolution in the Portuguese capital turned into a massive protest against the extreme austerity measures imposed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a condition for the imminent financial bailout. Read More…
Americans Raiding Retirement Funds Early
Nearly one-fifth of full-time employed Americans have raided retirement accounts in the past year to cover emergencies, according to a national Bankrate survey. The survey suggests Americans increasingly feel their emergency preparedness is not what it should be. This month’s Financial Security Index plunged to 93.5 from 97 in March. Read More…
WikiLeaks: Leaked Files Accuse BBC of Being Part of a ‘Possible Propaganda Media Network’
The BBC is accused of being part of a “possible propaganda media network” for Al Qaeda, according to the leaked U.S. files on the Guantanamo detainees. The files, obtained by the WikiLeaks website and passed to The Daily Telegraph, disclose that a phone number of someone at the BBC was found in the phone books and phones of a number of extremists seized by U.S. forces. Read More…
Escalation: Seoul Sites Rockets Near N. Korea Border
South Korea has deployed rockets on two islands near its tense Yellow Sea border with North Korea to guard against possible attacks, reports said. Read More…
Forgotten: South Sudan Clashes Kill 165 in a Week
At least 165 people have been killed in the past week in fighting between south Sudan’s army and militia, the army said on Monday, part of a wave of violence in the territory ahead of its independence in July. Read More…
FBI Raids Apartment of Alleged King’s Speech Uploader
The FBI has raided the Los Angeles apartment of a Screen Actors Guild member the bureau believes was first to upload the Oscar-winning movie The King’s Speech as well as Black Swan, and other in-theater-only films to the Pirate Bay in January, according to interviews and sealed court records obtained by Wired.com – Read More…
Prez Makes a Fair Trial of Bradley Manning Impossible by Declaring Him Guilty
The credibility of the military justice system is being undermined by the prosecution of Bradley Manning. His abusive punishment without trial violates his due process rights; his harsh treatment in solitary confinement-torture conditions violates the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment; and now the commander-in-chief has announced his guilt before trial making a fair trial impossible. A Bradley Manning exception to the Bill of Rights is developing as the Obama administration seeks Manning’s punished no matter what constitutional protections they violate. Read More…
Revisited: State Department Wants Passport Applicants to Reveal Lifetime Employment History
The U.S. Department of State has proposed a new questionnaire that would make it almost impossible for some people to get a passport. The new document would require that certain applicants submit a list of every residence and every job they’ve ever had since birth. In February, the department published a request in the Federal Register allowing 60 days for comment before the new rules go into effect. Read More…
Is This an Appropriate Way to Honor a Veteran?
Oakwood has more (17,000) combat-related Confederate graves than any cemetery in the United States. But the current U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs administration doesn’t want to honor these veterans with any proper V.A. issued headstones. I think they’re playing politics. What an absolute disgrace. As Lee Hart of the SCV noted in a recent Richmond Times piece about the ongoing battle: “This is total, total discrimination,” said F. Lee Hart III of Suffolk, chairman of the SCV Oakwood Restoration Committee. “I don’t think they want to see an Arlington of Richmond, with all of the positive media and tourism that this cemetery will draw, this being the largest combat casualty Confederate cemetery.” Virginia Senator James Webb to the rescue. As the Richmond Times Dispatch piece notes, James Webb recently reminded the V.A. that “Confederate and Union soldiers have the same legal status.” Read More…
The U.S. Military Praises Iraqi Security Forces as They Crack Down on Press Freedom
The first months of this year have been grim for free speech in Iraq. As revolts swept across the Middle East and North Africa, they spread to Iraqi cities and towns, but took on a very different cast. In February, in places like Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul and Tikrit, protesters took to the streets, intent on reform — focused on ending corruption and the chronic shortages of food, water, electricity and jobs — but not toppling the government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki. The response by government security forces, who have arrested, beaten, and shot protesters, leaving hundreds dead or wounded, however, was similar to that of other autocratic rulers around the region. Read More…
The U.S. economy is dying and we are heading for the next Great Depression. The talking heads in the mainstream media love to spin the economic numbers around and around and they love to make it sound like the economy is improving, but the truth is that it doesn’t take a genius to see what is happening to the U.S. economic system. All over the nation many of our greatest cities are being slowly but surely transformed into post-apocalyptic wastelands. All over the mid-Atlantic, all along the Gulf coast, all throughout the “rust belt” and all over the entire state of California cities that once had incredibly vibrant economies are being turned into rotting, post-industrial hellholes. In many U.S. cities, the “real” rate of unemployment is over 30 percent. There are some communities that will start depressing you almost the moment that you drive into them. It is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of those communities. If you live in one of those American hellholes you know what I am talking about. Sadly, it is not just a few cities that are becoming hellholes. This is happening in the east, in the west, in the north and in the south. America is literally being transformed right in front of our eyes. Read More…
San Francisco Votes to Allow Small-Scale Commercial Farming in Residential Areas
The passage of an urban farming amendment in San Francisco has sparked a wave of joy among backyard farmers from across the Bay Area. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently voted to amend the city’s zoning code in such a way that now allows backyard growers to freely cultivate produce and sell it without having to purchase a conditional use permit (CUP), which can run upwards of $3,000. And the victory could also help spur many other urban areas to take the same route in allowing urban gardens on residential land. Read More…
‘Iran to Open Trade Center in Brazil’
Director of the association, Mirqasem Mo’meni, told Fars News Agency on Saturday that the center would further promote trade cooperation between the two countries. He added that considering the growing level of bilateral trade transactions, setting up the center would facilitate expanded trade between Iranian and Brazilian businessmen. Mo’meni also stated that the project to set up the trade center will begin in late July. Read More…
McShame/Hillary in ’09: Libya is “an Important Ally in the War on Terror”, Gaddafi is “a Peacemaker”
Senator John McCain, former candidate of the Republican right to the latest U.S. presidential elections, went on a mission in Benghazi, where he called for Washington to recognize the transitional national council as the legitimate government of Libya, helping it to overthrow Qadhafi. Short memory. Just twenty months ago, August 14, 2009, the same McCain met Muammar Qadhafi in Tripoli, praising him for “his role as peacemaker in Africa”. Read More…
Baby that Eugenics Pushing Canadian Gov’t Wanted to Murder Now at Home, Breathing on Own
Baby Joseph and his family arrived in Windsor, Ontario on a medical transport flight from St. Louis, Missouri this morning. He is now at the family home, according to Brother Paul O’Donnell. On behalf of Baby Joseph’s family, Brother O’Donnell told LifeSiteNews that that their son was weaned off ventilator support 12 days ago and has been successfully breathing on his own since then. Baby Joseph, who has been at the center of an international right-to-life debate over the past few months, has defied critics by responding so well to treatment. After the Ontario hospital treating Joseph’s progressive and terminal neurological disease threatened to remove his life support against his parents’ wishes earlier this year, pro-life groups rallied to Joseph’s cause. With the financial support and assistance of Father Frank Pavone and Priests for Life, Joseph was taken to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri where doctors performed the tracheotomy that Joseph’s parents had been requesting all along. Read More…
Could it Be? Texas to Create a Board of Integrative Medicine!
As biased as most of the medical community is against Integrative Medicine, which includes natural health approaches, it’s heartening indeed that Texas may recognize it and even set up a board that understand it! Read More…
Al-CIAida Assassin ‘Worked for MI6′
An al-Qaida operative accused of bombing two Christian churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan in 2002 was at the same time working for British intelligence, according to secret files on detainees who were shipped to the U.S. military’s Guantánamo Bay prison camp. Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili, an Algerian citizen described as a “facilitator, courier, kidnapper, and assassin for al-Qaida”, was detained in Pakistan in 2003 and later sent to Guantánamo Bay. But according to Hamlili’s Guantánamo “assessment” file, one of 759 individual dossiers obtained by the Guardian, U.S. interrogators were convinced that he was simultaneously acting as an informer for British and Canadian intelligence. After his capture in June 2003 Hamlili was transferred to Bagram detention centre, north of Kabul, where he underwent numerous “custodial interviews” with CIA personnel. They found him “to have withheld important information from the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service and British Secret Intelligence Service – and to be a threat to US and allied personnel in Afghanistan and Pakistan”. Read More…
Reminder: Today is the Day Another Patriot U.S. Vet is in Court Being Persecuted by the U.S. Gov’t
“As of April 20, 2011 My trial is set for 5 days away on Monday the 25th. It should be over by the 27th. My attorney has advised to get another continuance because of the evidence that the District Attorney has supressed for well over a year. I refuse, I want this hell over with now. The judge finally forced the DA to turn it over a little over a week ago. What we found was earth shattering for the prosocution and shows negligence on the part of the DA I’m not allowed to release the information yet because of the ramifications it could have to the case, but as soon as we use it, I’ll be back here posting what it is.” Read More…
Colo. Residents get Ready for the Coming Collapse of the Late Great U.S.A.
A Black Forest resident has erected a geodesic dome on her 5-acre spread to grow vegetables, keeps horses for emergency transportation, in case she can’t get gasoline for her car, and plans to acquire chickens and goats as food sources. A husband and wife who have a cabin on 100 acres of secluded land in Park County have weaned their property from the electric grid, acquired a three-year food supply and taken other measures to become self-sufficient. While there’s little threat of the earthquake and tsumani that rocked Japan last month in landlocked Colorado, other epic crises on the home front are possible: A flood or fire. A terrorist attack. A nuclear weapons launch. World War III. Or an apocalyptic-type scenario. An increasing number of people say they are getting ready. Read More…
Broken Clock Right Right for Once: Dean says Afghan War a Disaster, asks Prez to Leave and Leave Now
The former Democratic boss says the Afghanistan war is not winnable, the Kabul government is corrupt, and Karzai is almost as bad on women’s rights as the Taliban. Read More…
Big Bro Closes in for Smokes No Mo! FDA to Regulate e-Cigarettes
The Food and Drug Administration said Monday it plans to regulate smokeless electronic cigarettes as tobacco products and won’t try to regulate them under stricter rules for drug-delivery devices. Read More…
Yahoo signs on, a German enterprise plans a 10,000-user switch, and Microsoft reveals Windows’ slipping share. Not only are we slated to receive the game-changing and final version of Ubuntu 11.04, or “Natty Narwhal,” this week, but three additional coups for Linux have been revealed in the news just in the past week or so. Read More…
Court Asked to Balance Information Age Advances with Constitutional Protections
It’s a wide, wired world out there, more so every day, and the Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to let law enforcement take advantage of it to build cases against the bad guys. The administration wants the justices to overturn a decision last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that said police must get a warrant before launching a long-term surveillance of a suspect using a global positioning device attached to the man’s car. In overturning the conviction of a D.C. nightclub owner accused of being a prominent cocaine kingpin, Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said the appeals court decision was not faithful to a Supreme Court ruling that people have no expectation of privacy when traveling along public streets. Read More…
Social Security Administration Exposed Data Of 36,000 Over Three Years
The Social Security Administration has published the names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of more than 36,000 living people who mistakenly ended up in its Death Master File. According to a report issued by the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General, some 36,657 people were erroneously included in the SSA’s Death Master List, which collects names of recently deceased individuals and is sold to the public. The data was published between May 2007 and April 2010, according to the report. The SSA had already exposed an additional 26,930 individuals’ records between July 2006 and Jan. 2009. Read More…
Victory for the 2nd Amendment in WA
Pruning back the unruly thicket of state and federal firearms regulations is all about incremental progress. Baby steps, if you will. It’s not the bombshell that the Heller or McDonald decisions were, but another state has taken another small step in making its gun laws more rational. With little public fanfare, Gregoire has signed legislation scrapping The Evergreen State’s half-century ban on suppressors. Read More…
Brent Crude Rise Above $124 After Violence in Syria and Yemen
Brent crude futures rose above $124 a barrel on Monday after violence in Syria and Yemen escalated over the weekend, boosting fears that unrest may disrupt more oil supplies in the Middle East and North Africa. Read More…
OSU Tries to Expel PhD Candidate Children of Scientist that Questioned ‘Global Warming’
Confused visitors will be forgiven for thinking Oregon State University is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Congressman Pete DeFazio and the “progressive-socialist” wing of the Democratic Party. Or for likening what’s going on there to political retribution as practiced in Third World thugocracies. The idea that three outstanding students — PhD candidates at OSU — could face dismissal, and worse, shortly before receiving their degrees, is simply shocking. That this could be happening because their father had the temerity to challenge an entrenched 12-term Democratic congressman (and OSU earmark purveyor) could make people think the university is in Zimbabwe, not America. Read More…
Los Angeles City Council Could End Red Light Camera Program
American Traffic Solutions could be out of another major city, if the people of Los Angeles make their voices heard. One man whose voice is being heard and hitting the airwaves is Jay Beeber, of Safer Streets Los Angeles. He was interviewed on KABC this month and his sentiments about red light cameras sound very familiar. Jay advocates the true method of making intersections safer, which is longer yellow light times. Los Angeles has some of the highest fines for alleged violations, charging $470 for turning right on red, which is not illegal in that city. Despite that, the city is losing over 1 million dollars per year on the program, mostly due to unpaid tickets – big surprise. That fine amount is equal or higher than one week’s worth of pay for some workers in Los Angeles. The City Council has a chance on Tuesday April 26th to end the contract with ATS and get rid of the cameras. They may grant a temporary extentsion, but why prolong the pain? Read More…
Police Misconduct NewsFeed Weekend Recap
Here are the 17 reports of police misconduct tracked in our National Police Misconduct News Feed for this weekend, April 23-24, 2011. Read More…
USDA: Food Costs May Rise 4 Percent on Higher Meat Expenses
Surging pork and beef costs will keep pressure on U.S. food inflation, which the Department of Agriculture says will rise 3 percent to 4 percent this year, the most since 2008. While the overall estimate for food inflation was left unchanged in today’s report, the USDA said prices for meat, poultry and fish will jump 5 percent to 6 percent, led by beef, which may climb 8 percent, and pork, which could gain 7.5 percent. The beef estimate was increased by 2.5 percentage points from March and pork was raised 1 percentage point. Read More…
Turkish Gold Demand Still Strong
The demand for gold and silver remains high in Turkey in spite of the strong price rally in precious metals in the last few weeks, Istanbul Gold Exchange traders reported. The country’s jewellery industry has not noticed any significant demand reduction as a result of these rising prices. Many Turks regard gold jewellery as serving an investment as well as an ornamental purpose. Meanwhile further east, India’s All-India Gems and Jewellery Federation (GJF), one of the Indian jewellery industry’s most important organisations, will soon initiate a programme enabling the country’s jewellery retailers to sell and purchase gold coins at uniform prices – contrary to the price set by the nation’s banks. The gold coins on offer will be sold to customers nationwide at transparent and equal prices. Read More…
No to the “Deal”: Yemeni Forces Open Fire on Protesters in Deadly Crackdown
Yemeni forces shot at demonstrators Monday, killing at least 2, as thousands gathered in several cities across the country, rejecting a plan for a gradual transition of power and demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s immediate resignation. Read More…
Biometric Data Collection Receives Little Response Due to Poor Publicity
The biometric data collection which includes photographs, fingerprints and iris prints under the ongoing National Population Registration (NPR) as part of Census 2011 received a poor response from the people allegedly due to lack of proper awareness programmes and publicity on the part of the authority concerned. Read More…
Congress Investigating TSA Biometric System Failures
TSA officials did not show up to a U.S. congressional hearing for transportation worker credentialing. The hearing was looking into why it has taken the agency so long to get a viable biometric credentialing and security check procedure in place for airline flight crews, according to a Journal of Commerce article. Read More…
U.S. senators of both major political parties are urging greater support for Syria’s embattled opposition short of direct military intervention. After days of bloody attacks and raids by Syrian security forces on civilians, American legislators say the United States should provide greater backing for those opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. Read More…
New Law Requires Photo ID, Proof of Citizenship to Vote in Kansas
Voters in Kansas will need to show a photo ID the next time they go to the polls. In a signing ceremony last week, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill to protect the integrity of elections, he said: “We must be able to accurately and fairly discern the will of the people of Kansas.” Read More…
IMF Bombshell: Age of America Nears End
The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell, and nobody noticed. For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China. And it’s a lot closer than you may think. Read More…
Federal investigators in Detroit have taken the rare step of obtaining search warrants that give them access to Facebook accounts of suspected criminals. The warrants let investigators view photographs, email addresses, cell phone numbers, lists of friends who might double as partners in crime, and see GPS locations that could help disprove alibis. There have been a few dozen search warrants for Facebook accounts nationwide since May 2009, including three approved recently by a federal magistrate judge in Detroit, according to a Detroit News analysis of publicly available federal court records. The trend raises privacy and evidentiary concerns in a rapidly evolving digital age and illustrates the potential law-enforcement value of social media, experts said. Read More…
Starting at 10 o’clock Friday, two senior non-commissioned officers from Fort Benning will be on courtesy patrol. The soldiers will be wearing arm bands that read, “Courtesy Patrol.” Fort Benning Commanding General Robert Brown and Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson made the announcement earlier this week. They need to increase security in Uptown Columbus comes after two weekend incidents in early April. In the first incident, police say five soldiers beat another man. The beating was witnessed near First Ave. and 10th street – sending the victim — a former solider — to the hospital with head injuries. The other, a shooting that left four injured — one fatally — at Mario’s restaurant on Broadway. A man is charged in connection with the assault. Now, Columbus police will have the company of two uniformed Fort Benning soldiers on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Read More…
Illegal Aliens Riot, Attack Police, After Australia says No to “Asylum” Plea
Police investigating a riot at an Australian immigration detention center were on Friday questioning 22 people about the protests started by asylum seekers whose visa applications had been rejected. Read More…
Hawaii Senator Questions Barry Hussein Soetoro’s, aka – Obama’s True Birth Father
The lone Republican in the Hawaii State Senate told a radio interviewer today he believes “the real issue” stopping Barack Obama from releasing his long-form birth certificate is something the president has to hide, perhaps even the name of his actual birth father. Read More…
Teachers in England Jumping Ship
Stress is driving increasing numbers of teachers out of the profession, with some even considering suicide, a teaching union conference heard on Monday. Delegates at the National Union of Teachers conference in Harrogate heard there had been a “meteoric” rise in work-related stress due to demands to meet government targets. Read More…
China Prepares for Hi-Tech Modern Warfare
The Chinese army is developing officers of high caliber who will be capable of handling advanced weaponry and mastering warfare in the information age by 2020, Global Times cited a military blueprint as stating. The step is being undertaken as part of China’s measures to modernise its army to cope with the challenges of a new era, it added. Read More…
Investigation: Government Ordered Cellphone Companies to Spy on Users
The controversy generated as a result of computer researchers discovering a hidden file that allows Apple to track the location of iPhone and iPad users has been treated as a shocking revelation by the media, and yet since October 2001, the FCC has mandated that all wireless carriers track the location of their users down to within 50 feet. Read More…
SAS Commandos Can’t Fill the Ranks Because of Overstretched Military Pool
The SAS is facing a recruitment crisis because soldiers do not have time to train for demanding selection tests, the head of the infantry has warned. But Brig Dennis said high tempo and “unrelentingly demanding” Afghan operations were combining to “mitigate against special forces recruitment”. Read More…
Military Documents Detail Life At Guantanamo
Thousands of pages of previously secret military documents about detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison now put a name, a history and a face on hundreds of men in captivity there. The documents include details on 158 men on whom no information has ever been released. Read More…
Monsanto Wants to Start Testing GM Wheat
Biotechnology giant Monsanto has announced plans to start testing genetically modified (GM) wheat, in spite of prior failures to gain acceptance for the technology. GM food crops already on the market include corn, soy and sugar beets. Monsanto attempted to introduce GM wheat in the early part of the decade, but abandoned the effort in 2004 when international buyers threatened to boycott U.S. wheat, prompting U.S. wheat growers to reject the technology. Read More…
Nearly 500 Taliban Escape in Huge Afghan Jail Break
Almost 500 Taliban prisoners have escaped from Kandahar prison in southern Afghanistan through a tunnel hundreds of metres long, officials said Monday. The Taliban said it was behind the huge jail break and that all of those who escaped were members of the militant organisation. Read More…
Thousands of protesters have participated in rallies in cities across Morocco, demanding social and economic reforms. They called for an end to corruption, and want more jobs for the increasing number of university graduates who face joblessness. Read More…
Pakistanis Rally Against Drone Strikes, Block NATO Supply Route
The main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan was temporarily closed on Sunday after thousands of people blocked a key highway in Pakistan to protest against U.S. drone strikes, officials said. Read More…
California Voters want Public Employee Pensions Cut
California voters want government employees to give up some retirement benefits to help ease the state’s financial problems, favoring a cap on pensions and a later age for collecting them, according to a new poll. Voter support for rolling back benefits available to few outside the public sector comes as Gov. Jerry Brown and Republicans in the Legislature haggle over changes to the pension system as part of state budget negotiations. Such benefits have been a flashpoint of national debate this year, and the poll shows that Californians are among those who perceive public retirement plans to be too costly. Voters appear ready to embrace changes not just for future hires but also for current employees who have been promised the benefits under contract. Read More…
Iraqis Rally Against Extending U.S. Troops Presence
Thousands of Iraqis rallied in the northern city of Mosul Sunday in one of the biggest protests yet against any extension of the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Read More…
IDF Soldiers Refuse to Send Illegal Aliens Back to Egypt
Soldiers and officers in a reserve battalion that served on the Egyptian border in recent weeks have told their commanders they will not take part in “immediate return” – the sending back to Egypt of Africans sneaking into Israel. The brigade commander, meanwhile, has confirmed that the battalion will not carry out “immediate return.” Read More…
An increasingly disturbing factor in the vicious violence that is plaguing Mexico is the youthfulness of the individuals involved, whether as assassins or victims. There is no doubt that the great majority of the rank and file of Mexico’s organized crime groups are young men in their twenties and, increasingly, in their teens. Read More…
Guy Gets SWAT Team-ed for Not Securing His Wireless Connection
Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of “pedophile!” and “pornographer!” stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn’t need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents. That new wireless router. He’d gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought. Read More…
David Cameron Wants Muslim Imams in British Parliment
David Cameron is considering plans to create a “multi-faith” House of Lords where Muslim imams could sit alongside Anglican and Catholic bishops. The controversial suggestion is revealed in a paper drawn up by Tory officials which calls for a wide range of different churches to be represented once reforms to the Upper House are carried out. Read More…
Short Life Expectancy for BP Whistleblowers?
The investigation, if it can properly be so called, of the unsolved murder of the former high ranking Pentagon official and presidential advisor John P. Wheeler III, who was also an expert on chemical and biological weapons, may be taking a turn in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Wheeler, 67, a West Point grad, was beaten and thrown into a garbage dumpster. His body was discovered in a Wilmington, Del. landfill last New Year’s weekend. Both police detectives and news commentators described it as “an apparent hit,” but little else was ever learned, and no suspects have surfaced. There was great speculation by many at the time that Wheeler had begun to blow the whistle on the mysterious bird and fish deaths in Arkansas and Texas, and was about to expose the facts tying this to the chemtrails seen in our skies over the past decade. Now the speculation may be reverting to British Petroleum and the gulf spill because a number of other BP whistle blowing scientists, before and since the Wheeler murder, have also died mysteriously, been jailed on questionable charges or disappeared without a trace. Read More…
U.S. Officials Geoffrey O’Brien and Put Pressure on Britain Over Iranian Banks
Abstract: Under Secretary Reuben Jeffery, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Patrick O’Brien met with the regulators of the banking systems of Great Britain on May 15 to discuss tougher inspections and reactions against the Iranian banks operating in London. O’Brien and Acting Secretary Patrissiya McNerney discussed the efforts of Britain and the United States on the distribution of funding and efforts on Iran with the Ministry of Finance on May 16 in the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Commonwealth Affairs O’Brien noted the positive effect of a coordinated international pressure, but urged the representatives of U.K. take a leading position to serve as an example for other governments contemplating the transition to action. Read More…
New Concerns Over Swine Flu Jab after Children Given It ‘Hit by Sudden Sleep Syndrome’
A swine flu vaccine which has been given to thousands of children in Britain may cause the sleep disorder narcolepsy. Symptoms include excessive daytime sleepiness and nodding off suddenly without warning. All packets of the vaccine Pandemrix will have to carry a warning about the risk following a ruling by the E.U. regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Read More…
Recent Graduates Not Only Move Back Home, But Stay There
Ashley Moore never planned on moving back in with her parents. Nearly a year after graduating from college, Moore, 22, also never expected to still be waking up in her old twin bed every morning. “It”s been difficult because not only was I on my own, I was really far away,” explains Moore, a St. Louis, Mo., native who graduated from Pace University in New York City. At one point, she spent an entire year away. “What I miss most is my freedom and having my own space.” We spoke yesterday via Skype. You can see Moore describe what it’s been like to move back home: Like many 20-somethings, Moore is experiencing what it’s like to not only move back home, but stay there. Despite a recent report released by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which predicts that 2011 graduates may enter into an improved job market, many remain skeptical. Read More…
NATO Ups the War Game, Wants to Target Gaddafi, Inches World Further Towards Total Conflict
The calls came as Col Gaddafi was reported to have strengthened his grip on power by repatriating billions of dollars in overseas assets that should have been frozen by U.N. sanctions. On Sunday, there was growing pressure on Coalition forces to directly target Col Gaddafi with military strikes. Read More…
Revisited: Apple: We ‘Must Have’ Comprehensive User Location Data on You
Security researchers unveiled this week that Apple’s iPhone was actively logging the whereabouts of users, storing location data into an easily assessable file on the device. But it’s not just iPhones that are keeping track of their users. Apple’s iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, and iPad models are also keeping track of consumers whereabouts. Mac computers running Snow Leopard and even Windows computers running Safari 5 are being watched. Read More…
Brits Flee London as Royal Wedding Imperial Machine Clamps Down on City
While much of Britain grinds to a halt for the royal wedding next week, Susie Cleary will be camping with friends in the wilds of rural Wales, in blissful oblivion. She is one of millions of Britons who are planning to go on holiday when their compatriots celebrate the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton in Westminster Abbey on April 29. Some, like her, just want to avoid the whole thing after months of manic media coverage of the preparations for wedding of the son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana. Read More…
China Proposes to Cut Two Thirds of Its $3 Trillion in USD Holdings
All those who were hoping global stock markets would surge tomorrow based on a ridiculous rumor that China would revalue the CNY by 10% will have to wait. Instead, China has decided to serve the world another surprise. Read More…
Thousands Protest Nuclear Plants at Tokyo Rally
About 4,500 people have rallied in Tokyo to call for the suspension of nuclear power plants. The demonstrators gathered at Shiba Koen in central Tokyo and adopted a resolution calling for all nuclear plants in the country to be suspended and a nuclear-free society realized. The citizens’ group that organized the demonstration says only about 100 people took part last year, but about 4,500 joined this year’s protest, the largest in the event’s history. Read More…
Lobbyists who Cleared ‘Climategate’ Academics Funded by Taxpayers and the BBC
A shadowy lobby group which pushes the case that global warming is a real threat is being funded by the taxpayer and assisted by the BBC. Read More…
Muslim Cop in West Bank Kills Israeli MK’s Nephew, Others Hurt
Just hours after the lethal shooting at Joseph’s Tomb Sunday, the funeral procession of Ben-Yosef Livnat who was killed by Palestinian police fire, was underway. The procession began at Livnat’s parent’s home in the settlement of Elon Moreh before continuing on to Jerusalem where Livnat will be buried at the Mount Olives Cemetery. Read More…
Every Pet in U.K. to get Microchip Implant
Every new pet dog will be microchipped under sweeping Government regulations to combat dangerous animals. Each puppy born and dog sold will have an electronic chip implanted under the skin. Details will then be placed on a national database accessible by police and the RSPCA. Read More…
Chinais about to overtake the United States as the world’s biggest economy, creating profound changes in the balance of global power. In forecasts inserted quietly on its website in recent days, the International Monetary Fund has projected that, by 2016, China will overtake the U.S. in real economic output – the first time in the modern era that any country has done so. Read More…
Home Builders Still See No Sign of a Recovery
Builders and analysts say a long-term shift in behavior seems to be under way. Instead of wanting the biggest and the newest, even if it requires a long commute, buyers now demand something smaller, cheaper and, thanks to $4-a-gallon gas, as close to their jobs as possible. That often means buying a home out of foreclosure from a bank. Four out of 10 sales of existing homes are foreclosures or otherwise distressed properties. Builders… cannot compete despite chopping prices. Read More…
Two-Faced Arab League Losing Ground
As the Cairo-based Arab League continues to back western military intervention in support of the popular rebellion in Libya, the League’s failure to back similar uprisings in other Arab countries — most notably Bahrain — has led to charges of double standards. Read More…
Will Governments Confiscate Gold?
As concerns mount that there is another financial crisis in the offing and the gold price rises, American investors worry increasingly about whether the U.S. government will confiscate their gold. The precedent was set by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who in 1933 forced all of America’s gold owners to sell their bullion to the Federal government at the official price. However, the situation today is very different from that of 78 years ago. At that time, gold was the primary currency, the dollar being tied to it at $20.67 per ounce. But today, the Fed and European central banks strongly deny that gold has any monetary role at all, and argue instead that it’s just a hangover from the past: “that barbarous relic” as Keynes called it. Its confiscation would be an embarrassing admission that gold, after all, is money. Read More…
Muslims Wounded 7 in Easter Bombing Outside Baghdad Church
At least seven people were injured when a bomb outside the entrance of a Baghdad church exploded on Easter Sunday, an Iraqi police official said. Read More…
Thai-Cambodia Border Fighting Moves into Third Day
Border clashes between Thai and Cambodian troops resumed Sunday, after two days of fighting killed 10 soldiers, injured three dozen and forced thousands of civilians to evacuate their villages on both sides. Read More…
37 Arrested at Hancock Air Base Near Syracuse Protesting Use of Drones
Dozens of war protesters were arrested Friday afternoon outside the main entrance of the New York Air National Guard’s base at Hancock Field. The arrests followed a rally outside the air base where more than 150 people had gathered to protest the MQ-9 Reaper drones, and U.S. military involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Read More…
Google Fined $5m Over Linux Patent Row
A judgement by a Texas jury against Google could have major implications for the search giant and the open source world said experts. The internet titan was found guilty of infringing a patent related to the Linux kernel and fined $5m. The software is used by Google for its server platforms and could also extend to its Android mobile platform. The kernel is at the core of the open-source operating system meaning this verdict could be far-reaching. Read More…
All Food May be Labelled as Containing GM
A proposal to require food labelling of even tiny quantities of genetically-modified (GM) ingredients would result in all foods being labelled as possibly containing GM material, an industry body says. Matthew Cossey, chief executive of the pro-GM plant science organisation CropLife, said companies would do that to limit liability for possibly breaching labelling laws. He said testing was sufficiently advanced to show up even tiny quantities of GM material in food. Read More…
Cloud Technology Under Scrutiny After Service Disruptions
Service interruptions in Amazon’s clouded cover computing web services upon Thursday as good as Sony’s PlayStation Network upon Friday lifted questions about a guarantee of clouded cover services only a week after a theme grabbed outrageous amounts of courtesy during a National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show. The incident brings in to subject a capability of a clouded cover operate patron such as Reddit to means surplus services as backup for times when a clouded cover fails. Read More…
Imagine that a storm blows across your garden and that now, genetically manipulated seeds are in your crops. A multi-national corporation pay you a visit, demand that you surrender your crops – and then sue you for $200, 000 for the illegal use of patented, GM seeds. In this definitive David and Goliath battle, one farmer stands up against a massive multinational, and their right to claim ownership to a living organism. Read More…
Beijing Detains Illegal Church Members on Easter
Chinese police detained at least 30 Christians belonging to an unregistered Beijing church as the congregation gathered Sunday for an Easter service, a church member said. Police stopped the worshippers from the unregistered Shouwang church as they gathered near a public plaza in the city’s university district, then bused them to a local police station. The Associated Press saw about a dozen people taken away but a church member said at least 30 were detained. Read More…
Old Card Shuffled Again – New Irish Terror Groups are Threat to U.K., Warn Police
Dissident republicans have developed the capability to mount an attack on the British mainland, according to the latest security assessment. Senior counter-terrorism sources confirmed the threat from dissidents attacking the mainland “now goes beyond an aspiration” and that they now possess the means to mount an attack across the Irish Sea. Amid rising tension in the province and fears of an “Easter offensive” by dissident groups, police in Northern Ireland also warned that anti-ceasefire republicans were plotting to kill more police officers. Read More…
China Warns Britain Over Libya Advisers
China has warned Britain over plans to send military officers to advise Libyan rebels struggling against the forces of Muammar Gaddafi, saying that Beijing opposes any steps that go beyond the mandate of a United Nations resolution. Read More…
Michigan Court of Appeals Rules MERS has No Authority to Foreclose
The Michigan Court of Appeals handed down a ruling yesterday essentially saying MERS has no authority to foreclose in the state of Michigan The court combined two cases, Residential Funding Co, LLC, f/k/a Residential Funding Corporation v. Gerald Saurman and Bank of New York Trust Company v. Corey Messner. The court overruled both a district court ruling and circuit court ruling which found in favor of the plaintiffs in both cases. Read More…
140,000 Foreigners to Flood Germany Each Year
Berlin In May, citizens of eight Eastern European countries as well, of course take a job in Germany as French or Spanish. These are Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. Previously, they needed a work permit from the Federal Employment Agency (BA) to pursue a job in Germany. By 1 January 2014 will remove legal restrictions for Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the E.U. in 2007. Read More…
Taiwan to Boost Forces in Disputed Spratly Islands
Taiwan says it is to improve the defence capability of more than 100 coastguard troops stationed in a disputed area of the South China Sea. Some or all of the Spratly Islands and their surrounding waters are claimed by Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. Read More…
Unions Pulling Money from Banks Backing Florida Chamber
Unions representing Central Florida teachers, firefighters, police and other government workers are pulling an estimated $10 million from five banks affiliated with the Florida Chamber of Commerce, blaming them for an attack on public employees. The unions are also asking their members — an estimated 20,000 people — to withdrawal their personal money from Bank of America, PNC Bank, Regions Bank, SunTrust and Wachovia. And labor leaders across the state could follow in the coming weeks, union officials say. Read More…
Dissident Warns of ‘Silent Cyber War’: Activist says Canadians are Within China’s Reach
Are the Chinese spying on Ottawa resident Maggie Wenzhuo Hou? Hou, a 41-year-old Chinese dissident who has lived in Ottawa since June 2009, is convinced that agents of the government of China are monitoring and blocking her e-mail and telephone communications. While she can’t prove her allegations, she can offer up a long list of circumstantial evidence to support her claims. Based on her dissident status and documented attacks by China-based hackers, security experts say hers is a credible story. Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, says Chinese monitoring of human rights activists in this country is a “well-known and notorious pattern.” Hou is a “high-profile, outspoken human rights activist who has some real credibility because she’s freshly out of China, has first-hand experience with human rights violations and is quite well connected to a number of known human rights activists still inside China,” Neve says. Read More…
Two elderly Tibetans have died in the aftermath of beatings by Chinese police as they, along with several other senior citizens, tried to stop Chinese police from taking around 300 monks to an undisclosed location Thursday, a Tibetan source told phayul. The two have been identified as 60 year old Dhonkho of Thawa Ghongma township and 65 year old Sherkyi of the Rako Tsang house Chashang township. Read More…
NATO Strikes Near Gaddafi Compound, Russia Protests Advisers
As the NATO-led coalition continued to expand its war against Colonel Gaddafi’s military in Libya, bombing targets close to Gaddafi’s compound, Russia has become more vocal in its opposition to the West’s mission creep. The NATO-led coalition conducted air strikes at Libyan positions considered very close to Colonel Gaddafi’s compound, Voice of America reported on Saturday. The close proximity of the bombing raid seemed to underscore the meandering of NATO’s military mission in Libya from one of enforcing and policing a no-fly zone for humanitarian concerns to one of supporting the rebellion in Libya’s civil war. Read More…
Las Vegas Police Beat Unarmed Man for Video Taping
When Mitchell Crooks checked out of the county jail last month and checked into a Las Vegas hospital, the 36-year-old videographer knew he had a fight on his hands. His face was bloodied and bruised. His $3,500 camera had been impounded by police, and he faced criminal charges for battery on a police officer. Read More…
Wash. Considers Annual Flat Fee for Electric Cars
Drivers of electric cars may have left the gas pump behind, but there’s one expense they may not be able to shake: paying to maintain the roads. After years of urging residents to buy fuel-efficient cars and giving them tax breaks to do it, Washington state lawmakers are considering a measure to charge them a $100 annual fee – what would be the nation’s first electric car fee. State lawmakers grappling with a $5 billion deficit are facing declining gas tax revenue, which means less money to maintain or improve roads. “Electric vehicles put just as much wear and tear on our roads as gas vehicles,” said Democratic state Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, the bill’s lead sponsor. “This simply ensures that they contribute their fair share to the upkeep of our roads.” Other states are trying to find solutions to the same problem, as cars become more fuel-efficient and, now, don’t use any gas at all. In Oregon, lawmakers are considering a bill to charge drivers of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles based on the number of miles they drive. In Mississippi, lawmakers briefly considered a similar plan. In Texas, significant opposition scuttled an electric vehicle fee. Read More…
U.S. Interest in Unique Identification Project
The U.S. State Department showed immense interest in the Unique Identification (UID) project being implemented by the Government of India and wanted to know details including “the name, model, and version of the biometric collection devices used for the ID.” The office of the Secretary of State, on December 17, 2009, sent a cable under the name of Hillary Clinton asking the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi to find out the motivation behind the project and to collect as much information on it as possible. The Government of India constituted the UID Authority of India (UIDAI) in January 2009 to provide all residents of India with a unique identification number and create a database containing biometric details, photographs and other information. A Cabinet Committee on UIDAI was formed on October 22, 2009. Read More…
Syrian Gov’t gets Medieval on Protestors – Where’s NATO’s ‘No-Fly-Zone’?
At least nine people have been killed as Syrian security forces opened fire at funeral processions Saturday. Thousands were in attendance at the funeral processions. Seventy-six protesters were killed Friday in a bloodbath from the security forces. Two Syrian lawmakers have resigned over the bloodshed in their country. Nasser Hariri and Khalil Rifai, are from the southern region of Daraa. Their resignation caused Hariri to state; “If I cannot protect the chests of my people from these treacherous strikes, then there is no meaning for me to stay in the People’s Assembly. I declare my resignation.” Read More…
Judge Cancels Hearing on Twitter Users’ Challenge to Feds’ WikiLeaks Investigation in Va.
A court hearing challenging the government’s tactics in a criminal investigation of the WikiLeaks website has been canceled. Three Twitter users are challenging the government’s attempts to obtain some of their account information as part of a wider probe into WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. A federal magistrate in Alexandria has already ruled in favor of the government, and prosecutors say the Twitter users’ appeal is delaying their investigation. Read More…
Forgotten: Two American Soldiers Dead in Iraq
The American soldiers have dies in an operation in southern Iraq, despite the United States claim that it is not involved in combat operations in the country anymore. Read More…
For those of you who are contemplating leaving the city and moving to a small country town, there are quite a few differences that you and your lifestyle should take into account if your new life is to be a happy one. For those of you who decide to take The Big Step, there are a few things that you may need to be aware of that probably didn’t apply to life in the city. Read More…
Yemen’s embattled president agreed Saturday to a proposal by Gulf Arab mediators to step down within 30 days and hand power to his deputy in exchange for immunity from prosecution, a major about-face for the autocratic leader who has ruled for 32 years. Read More…
Home Prices Slid 5.7 Percent in February from Year Earlier as Foreclosures Sap Value
U.S. home prices fell 5.7 percent in February from a year earlier as distressed properties weighed down values, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Home values are dropping as foreclosures undermine real estate prices. The share of homes sold in March that were distressed properties, meaning foreclosures or short sales, rose to 40 percent from 39 percent in February. Read More…
Snitch: Philadelphia Unveils Fraud Reporting App
Philadelphia City Controller Alan Butkovitz launched the city’s first fraud reporting app on Tuesday, April 19. Called Philly WatchDog, the app allows citizens to document activities on their iPhone or iPad that they believe are wasteful or abusive of taxpayer dollars and send them directly to the city. Read More…
Deadly Flying Robot Raid Sparks Pakistan Protest
Protesters angry over a U.S. drone attack that left at least 25 people dead in Pakistan’s tribal region of North Waziristan have begun a two-day sit-in near the city of Peshawar. According to the Pakistani media, the border region has been targeted by at least 20 U.S. drone attacks this year. And since August 2008, there have been over 250 drone attacks that have reportedly killed more than 1,500 people in north and south Waziristan. Read More…
Homosexuals Protest Royal Family in Mass Rally at Buckingham Palace
Gay rights campaigners are to hold a rally outside Buckingham Palace on Monday to call for the right to marry. The midday event, organised by Peter Tatchell, will see activists attempt to deliver a wedding card to Kate Middleton and Prince William to ask them to support marriage equality. Read More…
TSA Pervert Charged with Child Porn
A passenger screener at Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show. Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform. Homeland Security agents arrested the TSA officer March 24, and he is being held without bail. Read More…
DHS Can’t Account for 10 Libyan Men It Caught and Released Inside U.S.
Even as President Barack Obama continued the U.S. military intervention in Libya’s civil war — with armed Predator drones beginning patrols over that North African country on Thursday — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the division of the Department of Homeland Security responsible for enforcing immigration laws, could not account for 10 Libyan men it had caught and released inside the United States since July 2009. Read More…
Nazi Lover Schwarzenegger: Make Me President of European Union
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the washed up B-actor who served a disastrous stint as California’s governor, is now gunning for the presidency of the European Union. The role of unelected unifier fits Schwarzenegger’s aspirations perfectly. His high profile includes an admiration for one of the 20th century’s most brutal dictators, Adolph Hitler. Read More…
Cops Murder Man with a Stun Gun
A man causing a disturbance outside a movie theater near Universal Studios died Friday after being handcuffed and shocked with a Taser stun gun, Orlando police said. Two off-duty officers who were working security in the area tried to deal with a man who was acting “irrational,” early Friday morning, said Sgt. Barb Jones, an Orlando police spokeswoman. The suspect — identified as Adam Spencer Johnson, 33, of Winter Haven, Florida — began to “violently” resist after one of the officers tried to detain him, Jones said. An officer shocked the man with a Taser stun gun, then he was handcuffed, police said. While on the ground, Johnson became unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at a hospital. Read More…
Thai, Cambodia Armies Engage Once More on Boarder, Dozens Hurt, Killed
Thai and Cambodian troops clashed Saturday in the second day of fighting near a disputed temple on their common border in a conflict that has already claimed at least seven dead and 19 injured. Read More…
Japanese Troops ‘Could Train Alongside Australians’
Gillard is in Japan for meetings with counterpart Naoto Kan and told the Weekend Australian newspaper she was open to the idea of Japan’s soldiers gaining direct experience from their more combat-ready Australian peers. While Japan’s post-war military is restricted to self-defence and peacekeeping operations, Tokyo is reportedly keen to draw on the combat experience Australians have gained in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. Read More…
Japan Seeks Stronger Military Ties with S. Korea, U.S. in Face of Chinese War Machine
Japan’s defence minister said his country needs stronger military ties with the U.S. and South Korea to balance China’s growing might, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. Read More…
Iraq PM Pledges Not to Ask for U.S. Troop Extension
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has pledged that Baghdad would not ask US troops to stay in the country beyond a year-end pullout, his office said on Saturday. Maliki said that the decision had been taken despite Iraq’s desire for stronger military ties with Washington, and alluded to political difficulties he would have in getting approval for any extended American presence. Read More…
Los Zetas Outmaneuver Mexican Military; Burn Border Town to the Ground
Yesterday, the criminal organization known as Los Zetas, managed to outmaneuver the Mexican military and penetrated Gulf Drug Cartel territory. In what appeared to be a carefully planned operation, Los Zetas lured the military outside the border town of Miguel Aleman, Mexico to fight them in rural areas and back roads While the military was pre-occupied trying to catch the criminals outside the border town, several Zeta convoys moved in from the west. Read More…
Freedom of Information Act Reveals Files Suggesting FDR’s Role in Pearl Harbor
September 11th is hardly the first “day of infamy” to undergo public scrutiny and accusations of government conspiracy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt coined the phrase on December 7th after the Japanese “surprise” attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The attack, according to author and WWII Navy veteran, Robert B. Stinnett, however, had been no surprise at all for Roosevelt. It was only at the author’s insistent calls on the Freedom of Information Act that the U.S. Navy at last released formerly hidden evidence that led Stinnett to conclude: FDR knew and had the power to avert disaster on December 7th. Read More…
Orlando Gas Station Charges $5.69 a Gallon
Gas prices are on the rise nationwide, but one filling station in Florida has earned the dubious distinction of having the highest prices in the country. Suncoast Energys, located near the Orlando International Airport, was charging $5.69 a gallon for regular gasoline on Friday. Read More…
Weaponizing GPS Tracking Devices
Those low-cost embedded tracking devices in your smartphone or those personal GPS devices that track the whereabouts of your children, car, pet, or shipment can easily be intercepted by hackers, who can then pinpoint their whereabouts, impersonate them, and spoof their physical location, a researcher has discovered. Read More…
Cop on Force for 6 Years is Illegal Alien
An Anchorage police officer who took on a false identity that masked his Mexican citizenship has been arrested and charged with passport fraud, federal officials said today. At a news conference Friday, U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler said that patrolman Rafael Espinoza, on the Anchorage police force for about six years, was really Rafael Mora-Lopez, a Mexican national working in the United States illegally. Read More…
Half of U.S. Households are Just Hanging On
The days an average American could expect to work, save and leave his kids a bit of wealth have gone into history; middle class Americans have little to pass on but their debts. Neither will the American Dream return for their children nor for their grandchildren. America has voted F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom for itself and that’s a one-way road. Read More…
1k Cops Could be Disciplined for Accessing Arrest Report
Disciplinary action may be taken against as many as 1,000 Chicago police officers. An internal police memo says those officers violated procedure by accessing the arrest report on two other officers who are under investigation in a possible sex assault. Read More…
Illegal Aliens Spreading Measles in New Outbreak Around Europe
The disease has become so widespread in Europe in recent years that travelers have occasionally exported the disease to the U.S. and Africa. Around Europe, Spain reported more than 600 cases in Andalusia in two outbreaks since October in Sevilla and Granada. Macedonia reported 400 cases this year with the capital, Skopje, most affected. WHO said outbreaks and rising case numbers also were reported in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia and Switzerland. Read More….
Fear and Loathing in the House of Saud
Early last week, U.S. President Barack Obama sent a letter to Saudi King Abdullah, delivered in person in Riyadh by U.S. National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon. This happened less than a week after Pentagon head Robert Gates spent a full 90 minutes face to face with the king. These two moves represented the final seal of approval of a deal struck between Washington and Riyadh even before the voting of U.N. Security Council resolution 1973 (see Exposed: the Saudi-U.S. Libya deal, Apr 1, Asia Times Online). Essentially, the Obama administration will not say a word about how the House of Saud conducts its ruthless repression of pro-democracy protests in Bahrain and across the Persian Gulf. No “humanitarian” operations. No R2P (“responsibility to protect”). No no-fly or no-drive zones. Progressives of the world take note: the U.S.-Saudi counter-revolution against the Great 2011 Arab Revolt is now official. Read More…
France Threatens to ‘Suspend’ Schengen Treaty Due to Illegal Alien Dumping from Italy
Italy has given up to 26,000 illegal migrants six-month residence permits, allowing them to travel freely in the border-free Schengen zone, which covers all E.U. countries except Britain and Ireland. The decision to issue travel documents to the Tunisians and other Arab migrants has triggered a French warning over the 1995 treaty. Under the Schengen agreement, citizens in 25 E.U. nations are allowed to travel across borders without having their passports checked. Both Britain and Ireland chose not to join. Germany has also threatened to reinstate border checks “against the interests” of the E.U.’s free movement zone in the row with Italy over the residency permits. Read More…
At least 1,000 protesters have taken to the streets in Oman’s southern port city of Salalah in one of the biggest pro-reform demonstrations since scattered unrest began in the Gulf Arab sultanate two months ago. Read More…
Armenians Protest Barry Hussein Soetoro, aka “Obama”
On April 21, more than 1500 Armenians of Los Angeles held a protest action urging Obama to respect his promise. The protest took place in front of Sony cinema hall where a fundraising for Obama’s reelection campaign was being launched with the participation of the U.S. President Barak Obama. The Armenian protesters voiced their disappointment in connection with the fact that Obama has disrespected his electoral pledge to recognize the Armenian genocide. Read More…
Most Asian Stocks Decline, Led by China
Most stocks fell in Asia as Chinese shares slipped on speculation the country’s central bank may let the yuan strengthen to cool inflation. China’s currency touched a 17-year high against the dollar, gold climbed to a record and shares in Russia rose. Read More…
Unemployment Climbs Faster and Faster Worldwide – Young Adults Float with No Work
The number of unemployed people in Iceland increased by around 200 in the first three months of the year compared to the first quarter of 2010. Unemployment is a more serious problem among the young, with 15.9 percent of 16-24 year-olds on the job market unemployed. Read More…
All Seeing Eye: E.U. Commission Defends Telecoms Surveillance Law
A controversial E.U. data retention law is ‘necessary’ and will not be scrapped, despite data privacy issues and constitutional court rebuttals in several member states, which now face multi-million-euro fines for not having implemented the legislation, the commissioner responsible said Monday (18 April). Read More…
Belgium Goes a Year Without Government
It has been a year today since Yves Leterme, Belgium’s caretaker prime minister abandoned his attempt to form a government but the country does not appear any closer to end its crisis. Read More…
A Guide to Looting When the Shit Hits the Fan (and Your Counter-Strategies)
Law and order will be the first casualty when the shit hits the fan. Recent historical examples the world over, including New Orleans, Haiti, and Chile show that without policing, looting will become an immediate danger. The following Guide to Looting When the SHTF by Thomas Northrop of No Bullshit Survival shows that survival and preparedness planning does not include just storing food, supplies, guns, and medicine, or creating tactical defense plans for your home and property. Read More…
TSA VIPR Squads Roam Florida Train Stations
Squads of TSA agents conducted random searches and patrols at a train station in West Palm Beach, Florida yesterday in yet another example of the expansion of TSA Tyranny beyond the nation’s airports. Read More…
North Korea’s military on Friday stepped up threats against the launching of leaflets from South Korea that criticise its regime, vowing to open fire at any place at any time. Campaigners said the latest threat showed the effectiveness of the leaflet campaign, which would continue. “We will continue to launch anti-North Korea leaflets without publicising it too much,” said Lee Min-Bok, who launched 300,000 of the flyers earlier Friday. The North also complained about cross-border machine gun fire from the South on April 15, describing it as an “unpardonable military provocation”. The South’s defence ministry confirmed its troops fired three rounds, but said soldiers had immediately notified the North through a loudhailer that the shooting was accidental. Read More…
Radioactive Iodine in Phoenix Arizona Milk 1600% Above EPA Drinking Water Limits
Japan nuclear radiation in Phoenix Arizona milk samples show radioactive Iodine contamination levels up to 1600% above EPA drinking water limits. To make matters worse those contamination levels of radiation do not even include Caesium or other radioactive isotopes which were not even reported in the Arizona tests. Read More…
Three New Studies Reveal Children are Dumbed Down by Pesticide Exposure in Womb
Does it ever seem like the population is being “dumbed down”? Maybe that is literally happening – even before birth. And at least one of the culprits appears to be organophosphate pesticides that are widely used on food crops throughout the U.S. – Read More…
Amerikan NKVD Strikes Again: NYPD Cuffs 7-Year-Old Special-Ed Student for Easter Egg Tantrum
A 7-year-old Special-ed student is at the center of a controversy after cops arrested him in class for throwing an Easter egg tantrum and jumping on a table, his mom said. The child, Joseph Anderson, became upset after he was decorating an egg at Public School 153 in Maspeth. When his mom Jessica Anderson was informed of the tantrum, she told school officials she would pick him up. Instead, the school called the police and he was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center in metal cuffs. Read More…
Billions of Dollars Sneaks Out the Door through U.N. Committees
There’s billions of dollars of money sneaking out the door of Western Nations and being used to feed the monster bureaucracy, the UNFCCC and it’s cohort. In The Carbon Tax that Ate Australia Tony Cox and David Stockwell point out the Australian contributions fly so under the radar (despite being millions of dollars) that even the Australian government seems to have forgotten they agreed to pay them. Read More…
Reminder: Harry Reid and Dems Stump with Chicoms, Violation of Logan Act, No One Pays Attention
Details are slowly trickling out about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s secret, week-long trip to China with nine other senators. The lawmakers have given out minimal information about their itinerary because of supposed “security concerns.” Read More…
Gold Hits Record High, Americans Sell Their Treasures as Economy Dies
Across the United States, people are heading to pawn shops and jewelry stores with gold necklaces their ex-boyfriends gave them, gold coins that they inherited from their grandfathers, and in at least one case, “10 half pairs of earrings and a bracelet they got in the ’80s and monstrous hoops.” Also: “gold teeth — yes, teeth” and “ancient computers that were once soldered with gold.” “The middle class is growing very rapidly,” said Sam Dolabany, owner of Dolabany Jewelers in Westwood, Mass. Unfortunately for people who live in the United States, he was talking about the middle class in India and China, where the demand for gold, high to begin with, is getting higher. Read More…
Eject! Eject! Lockheed Martin F-35 Operating Costs May Reach $1 Trillion
It may cost as much as $1 trillion to operate the military’s fleet of Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 aircraft for several decades, according to a preliminary Pentagon estimate sent to Congress. Read More…
U.S. Dollar Frail, Tokyo Stocks Slip, Gold Shines
The dollar hovered around three-year lows on Friday and looked set to come under further pressure next week, while a stronger yen weighed on Tokyo stocks in holiday-thinned Good Friday trade. Read More…
U.K. Riot Cops Hurt in Petrol Bomb Raid as Protestors Defend Themselves
Eight police officers have been injured in Bristol when a riot broke out after police raided a house where petrol bombs were being made and stored. 160 officers wearing full riot gear stormed the property in the Stokes Croft area of the city. Read More…
Man gets Life in Prison for $10 Crack
A 28-year-old Cherokee County man who sold $10 worth of crack to an undercover informant has been sentenced to life in prison without parole under the state’s repeat offender law. Read More…
Syria Unrest: ‘Bloodiest Day’ as Troops Fire on Rallies
Protesters in Syria have reported 60 people killed by security forces – the highest daily death toll in five weeks of unrest against President Assad. Read More…
Toyota U.K. Factories Cut Working Hours in Japan’s Quake Aftermath
Workers at Toyota’s U.K. factories face more short-time working in coming months after the world’s biggest carmaker warned that production may not return to normal until the end of the year. Read More…
U.S. Organic Food Industry Set for Stupendous Growth
The ongoing analysis found that the fruits and vegetables segment has been the most dominant among the organic food segments in the United States. In 2009, the segment accounted for 38% of the total organic food market and sustained its top position. The economic progress is improvising the jobs market and ultimately increasing income levels. Additionally, promotional campaigns of major industry players and the government awareness programs are expected to strengthen organic fruits and vegetables sales in the country. Read More…
Reminder: Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto to Protect Against Contamination
A coalition of organic farming interests have sued Monsanto in what they say is a preventive measure to stop the corporation from unfairly litigating them over the spread of patented seeds. Read More…
Bilderberg Insider: Kissinger Pushing for U.S. Ground Invasion of Libya
Despite the fact that the United States is embroiled in three major conflicts and can barely service its own gigantic debt, with Standard and Poor this week indicating the U.S. will soon lose its triple-A credit rating, top globalist and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently told fellow elitists at three different globalist confabs that the U.S. needs to launch a ground invasion of Libya and keep the war running for at least another year. Read More…
