Bill Hicks - what an amazing soul.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Criminal Charges Are Prepared in BP Spill
U.S. pr
Prosecutors are focused on several Houston-based engineers and at least one of their supervisors at the British oil company, though the breadth of the investigation isn't known. The prosecutors assert the employees may have provided false information to regulators about the risks associated with the Gulf of Mexico well while its drilling was in progress, these people said.
Why We Must Stop SOPA
Right now, there are two pieces of legislation in Congress that would change the Internet forever if they are enacted. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) would give the federal government the ability to potentially shut down millions of websites. SOPA (the version being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives) is the more dangerous of the two. It would essentially be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Internet. It would give government officials unlimited power to very rapidly shut down any website that is found to "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. That language is very broad and very vague. Many fear that it will be used to shut down any websites that even inadvertently link to "infringing material". Can you imagine a world where there is no more Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? Sites like those would be forced to hire thousands of Internet censors to make sure that no "infringing material" is posted, and many prominent websites may simply decide that allowing users to post content is no longer profitable and is just not worth the hassle. Are you starting to get the picture? That is why we must stop SOPA. If SOPA is enacted, it could be the death of the free Internet.
Dow's Deadly Harvest: The Return of Agent Orange
Whether you are aware of it or not, your food, air and water are the battle ground upon which a titanic struggle between the multinational biotech corporations Monsanto and Dow AgroScience is now playing out. As a result, your health and environment (and that of all future generations) are at profound risk of irreparable harm.
Dow AgroSciences (a subsidiary of Dow Chemicals) recently announced their development of genetically-engineered corn, soybean, and cotton plants metabolically resistant to the herbicide 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), a major ingredient in Agent Orange. What this means for our future is that, if approved for use, vast regions of our country will soon be sprayed with a chemical that has been linked to over 400,000 birth defects in Vietnam.
How did we end up here?
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
"Reverse robocall" campaign lets citizens phone-blast SOPA supporters
A Web-based civic action site is providing a way for people irate about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) to voice their opinions in a very literal way. Reverse Robocall, a site set up by Shaun Dakin and Aaron Titus, allows users to record a message through the site and perform their own robocalls to politicians and lobbyists.
For a fee of $10, Reverse Robocall will let you record a message that will be delivered as a phone call to the offices of the co-sponsors of SOPA and each of the associations and lobbying groups that have backed the bill in Congress—88 in all. You can even customize the phone number that will appear in caller ID for the call in order to avoid being blocked by systems that reject calls without them. And, if you choose, you can let others listen into your message on the site and rate your effort.
Israelis march against ultra-Orthodox segregation campaign
Thousands of Israelis gathered Tuesday night to protest against ultra-Orthodox extremists whose campaign for gender segregation has erupted into verbal and physical abuse against women.
Police said about 3,000 people showed up in the town of Beit Shemesh, with "several hundred" police supervising. There were no clashes between participants and ultra-Orthodox residents who have recently been filmed spitting at a woman and verbally harassing an eight-year-old girl.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Sunshine helps prevent skin cancer while sunscreens promote it
(NaturalNews) There are three types of skin cancer - of which melanoma is the most dangerous and potentially lethal because it can metastasize into other body parts. The other two non-melanoma types, squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma, are treatable and not as threatening or able to metastasize as melanoma.
Most skin cancer cases are of the basal cell carcinoma type, which can destroy surrounding tissue and disfigure facial skin areas if unchecked. It is advisable to check with a dermatologist if you have any unusual new moles or sores that won't heal anywhere on your skin. Skin biopsies are easy to perform.
Mainstream medicine blames the sun for all three types, and recommends sun screen lotions to block sun exposure. But one should take their sloppy science of prevention with several grains of salt.
Just about any dermatologist still holds to the myth that you need to avoid direct sunlight or lather your body with sunscreen to avoid skin cancer. Recently, the opposite has been determined to be true in both cases.
World's Second And Third Largest Economies To Bypass Dollar, Engage In Direct Currency Trade
This is not a good sign for the USD. Currency wars.
To all who still think that in the war of attrition between the USD and the EUR (because contrary to what some have "discovered" only recently, currency wars have been going on for a long, long time and will continue to do so, before morphing into trade and real wars), in which both currencies are doomed, and where the winner takes it all, if only for a few minutes, we bring to your attention the following most recent update out of the Pacific Rim (where incidentally the Shanghai Composite has resumed its relentless track lower with the obvious intention of closing 2011 at its 52 week low) in which we find i) that the dollar's hegemonic control over the world is ending, and ii) that the mercantilist relationship so long sustained between China and the US, may be shifting and reversing, and in its next metamorphosis will see Japan buying the bonds of... China (although probably not for long - see next post). As Bloomberg reports, "Japan and China will promote direct trading of yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for the exchange, to cut costs for companies, the Japanese government said. Japan will also apply to buy Chinese bonds next year, the Japanese government said in a statement after a meeting between Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing yesterday." And before someone blows it off as merely more foreign relations posturing, "“Given the huge size of the trade volume between the Asia’s two biggest economies, this agreement is much more significant than any other pacts China has signed with other nations,” said Ren Xianfang, a Beijing-based economist with IHS Global Insight Ltd." As for China's reverse mercantilist move, one which will stun anyone who believes that Yuan is still undervalued, "Finance Minister Jun Azumi said Dec. 20 buying of Chinese bonds would be beneficial for Japan because it would help reveal more information about financial markets in China, the world’s largest holder of foreign currency reserves." Speaking of, has Albert Edwards gloated yet that given enough time, he always ends up being proven right, in this case about the CNY's upcoming devaluation?
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Sniper Detectors Coming to America's Heartland
Gunshots ring out in the dead of night, and not a single person reports it. Yet police know exactly where the shots came from, even before they arrive on the scene.
It sounds like a scene from The Minority Report, but it's real. A new technology called ShotSpotter enables law enforcement officials to precisely and instantaneously locate shooters, and it has been quietly rolling out across America. From Long Island, N.Y., to San Francisco, Calif., more than 60 cities in the U.S. have been leveraging ShotSpotter to make their streets safer.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Massive 1,100+ year old Maya site discovered in Georgia's mountains
Archaeological zone 9UN367 at Track Rock Gap, near Georgia’s highest mountain, Brasstown Bald, is a half mile (800 m) square and rises 700 feet (213 m) in elevation up a steep mountainside. Visible are at least 154 stone masonry walls for agricultural terraces, plus evidence of a sophisticated irrigation system and ruins of several other stone structures. Much more may be hidden underground. It is possibly the site of the fabled city of Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto failed to find in 1540, and certainly one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent times.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
The New Euro Plan Is the End of Freedom and Sovereignty
This agreement which most European nations are buying into establishes a new unelected entity which in essence can determine the financial agenda of Europe, is unaccountable by law, is secretive by law, can never be removed, audited or tried in a court and yet can unilaterally change the very agreement from which it derives it's power (any time). A dictator's wet dream.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
These Are The 29 Massive Banks That Could Take Down The Global Economy
The G20 decided last month on a list of 29 banks that are systematically important and therefore too big to fail.
Yesterday eight of those banks were downgraded by Fitch.
Measures are already in place to make sure a failure by one of these banks doesn't destroy the global economy in the future. According to WSJ, they will have until the end of 2012 to make contingency plans for a collapse and shore up their capital reserves by 1-3.5%. By 2019, they'll have to maintain a ratio of tier 1 capital to liabilities 3.5% higher than that.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/29-systematically-important-banks-2011-12#bank-of-america-1#ixzz1gsui4mmV
Friday, December 16, 2011
Economist: True Fed Exposure $29 Trillion
The true total of Federal Reserve emergency lending to Wall Street is not $1.2 trillion, as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke contends, nor the $7.7 trillion figure reported by Bloomberg News, which Bernanke publicly contests.
The real number, argues economist L. Randall Wray, is a staggering $29 trillion.
Wray writes that Bernanke’s recent defense of the lower figure is “misleading” and that the chairman’s claim that Fed bailouts do not constitute a form of spending is plain wrong.
Read more on Newsmax.com: Economist: True Fed Exposure $29 Trillion Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!
US troops surround Syria on the eve of invasion?
A former official from within the ranks of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is reporting that US and NATO forces have landed outside of Syria and are training militants to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, formerly a translator with the FBI, wrote over the weekend that American soldiers are among the NATO troops that have mysteriously and suddenly landed on the Jordanian and Syrian border. According to her, several sources internationally have confirmed the news, although the US media has been instructed to temporarily censor itself from reporting the news.
CONFIRMED: The Trillion-Dollar Lawsuit That Could End Financial Tyranny
It could be the biggest, most explosive story in modern history. We are just starting to put the pieces together and understand what is going on in the occult financial geopolitical scene, and how a 117-nation alliance is working to free the Earth from financial tyranny.
A VERY MYSTERIOUS, VERY QUIET AND VERY LARGE-SCALE FINANCIAL SCANDAL
You are about to dive into a story that, for quite some time now, has been nothing but a great-sounding idea -- a wonderful "what if." Almost nothing of this story could be found in the mainstream media.
However, the bizarre origin of the story did briefly find its way into FOX's Glenn Beck show in 2009.
I highly recommend you watch this first, as it will draw you directly into the mystery -- which flickered for the briefest moment in mainstream media, only to disappear into shuddering silence:
Australian Banks Given One Week To Prepare For European "Meltdown"
Whereas previously we had heard extensive horror stories about banks being told to prepare for the end of the world in case the European summit (the latest and greatest one from last Friday which was supposed to find a cure for cancer among other things) failed, and even went so far as to read about preparations for trading in the drachma on a when issued basis, once the summit passed (and it was clear that media posturing would do nothing to fix what has already been a failure and it would be best to remove the threats of "reality" from the public's attention) all such "end of the world" speculation promptly disappeared - after all why remind people that things are now worse than ever. Until today. According to the Australian Finance Review (link - subscription required), banks down under "have been given 1 week by regulators to stress test how they would handle a spike in joblessness, plunge in home prices spurred by EU debt crisis." Aka a European "Meltdown." And since we don't have immediate access to the article, we leave it to Bloomberg First Word to describe for us what the article says:
Victoria’s Secret Revealed in Child Picking Burkina Faso Cotton
Clarisse Kambire’s nightmare rarely changes. It’s daytime. In a field of cotton plants that burst with purple and white flowers, a man in rags towers over her, a stick raised above his head. Then a voice booms, jerking Clarisse from her slumber and making her heart leap. “Get up!”
The man ordering her awake is the same one who haunts the 13-year-old girl’s sleep: Victorien Kamboule, the farmer she labors for in a West African cotton field. Before sunrise on a November morning she rises from the faded plastic mat that serves as her mattress, barely thicker than the cover of a glossy magazine, opens the metal door of her mud hut and sets her almond-shaped eyes on the first day of this season’s harvest. (Follow her journey in videos, photos and more here.)
Sunday, December 11, 2011
The Swiss Government Is Getting Ready For The Collapse Of The Euro
The Swiss government is preparing for a collapse of the euro, according to Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf.
She told parliament that a work group was studying the imposition of capital controls and negative interest rates to protect Switzerland from the capital flight that a euro collapse would engender (Handelsblatt).
A Union is Born: Latin America in Revolution
While much of the world is in crisis and protests are erupting throughout Europe and the United States, Latin American and Caribbean nations are building consensus, advancing social justice and increasing positive cooperation in the region. Social, political and economic transformations have been taking place through democratic processes in countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil throughout the past decade, leading to a massive reduction in poverty and income disparity in the region, and a substantial increase in social services, quality of life and direct participation in political process.
One of the major initiatives of progressive Latin American governments this century has been the creation of new regional organizations that promote integration, cooperation and solidarity amongst neighboring nations. Cuba and Venezuela began this process in 2004 with the founding of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), that now includes Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Dominica, St. Vincent’s and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda. ALBA was initially launched in response to the US government’s failed attempt to impose its Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) throughout the region. Today ALBA is a thriving multilateral organization with member nations that share similar political visions for their countries and for the region, and includes numerous cooperation agreements in economic, social and cultural areas. The fundamental basis of trade amongst ALBA nations is solidarity and mutual benefit. There is no competition, exploitation or attempt to dominate amongst ALBA states. ALBA even counts on its own currency, the SUCRE, which allows for trade between member nations without dependence on the US dollar.
Report: US drones helping local police agencies
Predator drones are being used in domestic law enforcement cases, raising concerns that the aircraft are being deployed beyond the missions that Congress originally authorized them for, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
The Times said a North Dakota county sheriff asked federal authorities to employ a drone for surveillance in a standoff with three men on a large farm on June 23, resulting in the first known arrests of U.S. citizens involving the spy planes in domestic cases.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Czech Republic Decriminalizes Peyote, Magic Mushroom Growing
Under changes in Czech drug policy approved Wednesday by the Cabinet, growers of psychedelic cacti and fungi will no longer face criminal punishment. The hallucinogenic plants will be removed from the government’s drug “black list,” meaning that cultivation of more than “small” amounts will no longer be a crime.
Peyote and magic mushrooms were originally included on the list when the Czech’s reformed their drug laws in 2009, making the Czech Republic one of the most liberal in Europe on drug policy. But amateur cactus growers who said they had no intention of consuming their plants complained that the drug reforms effectively criminalized them for pursuing their hobbies.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Study Proves Fluoride Brain Damage
A study conducted by scientists in India demonstrates that consumption of sodium fluoride results in brain and neurological damage. It was published by K. Pratap Reddy of the University College of Sciences at Osmania University in Hyderabad, India, on January 10, 2011.
The study was performed on rats for a period of 60 days. Fluoride resulted in neurodegenerative changes and morphological alterations were observed in the neocortex, hippocampus and cerebellum areas of the brain and also the spinal cord and sciatic nerve.
In 1995, Dr. Phyllis Mullenix and her colleagues found that fluoride studies in rats “can be indicative of a potential for motor dysfunction, IQ deficits and/or learning disabilities in humans.”
“High levels of fluoride in drinking water (1-12ppm) affect central nervous system directly without first causing the physical deformities of skeletal fluorosis.” Reddy writes in the Journal of Medical and Allied Sciences. Damage to the hippocampus often results in hyperactivity and cognitive deficits.
Numerous studies conducted in China, India, Iran, and Mexico have determined that fluoride exposure is associated with IQ deficits in children.
The correlation between fluoride exposure and diminished IQ was underscored earlier this year after the results of a study in China were published. “A recent Chinese study concluded that low dose sodium fluoride in drinking water diminishes IQ, especially among children. This is the twenty-fourth such international study with the same conclusion. Sodium fluoride has also been linked to reduced fertility and lower sperm counts,” Paul Fassa wrote for Natural News in April.
In addition to the Chinese study, and 23 other IQ studies, there have been over 100 animal studies linking fluoride to brain damage, according to the Fluoride Action Network. The Indian study is the most recent.
The Chinese study “should be the study that finally ends water fluoridation. Millions of American children are being exposed unnecessarily to this neurotoxin on a daily basis. Who in their right minds would risk lowering their child’s intelligence in order to reduce a small amount of tooth decay, for which the evidence is very weak,” explains Tara Blank, Ph.D., the Science and Health Officer for the Fluoride Action Network.
The Indian study is available as a PDF here. It is an invaluable asset for activists attempting to get rid of the deadly neurotoxin sodium fluoride from our drinking water and food products.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Copenhagen Votes To Legalize Marijuana
Marijuana could soon be legalized in Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark, after the city council voted overwhelmingly for a plan to sell cannabis through state-run shops and cafes.
The scheme, if approved by the Danish Parliament at the beginning of 2012, could make the city the first in Europe to fully legalize, rather than just tolerate, marijuana consumption, reports Richard Orange at The Telegraph.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Federal appeals court reinstates corporate ownership over human genes
Reversing a previous decision by a US District Court that declared gene patenting to be invalid, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) recently ruled in opposition, declaring that certain gene variants are supposedly unnatural and can thus be legally patented by biotechnology companies.
Myriad Genetics & Laboratories, a molecular diagnostics company out of Salt Lake City, Ut., had filed patents for BRCA1 and BRCA2, two genes allegedly linked to predicting breast cancer risk. Because the company had supposedly omitted certain so-called noncoding "junk" regions from the genes, Myriad alleged that these genes were their own intellectual property.
Genetically Modified Chocolate to Consume 70% of Global Cocoa Supply
New initiatives seek to genetically modify 70% of the global cocoa supply, highlighting the necessity for consumers to select only high-quality organic chocolate products in order to avoid this threat.
Using genetically modified cocoa tree hybrids, scientists are already spreading the news about their new ‘tastier’ modified chocolate.
The campaign to use genetically modified cocoa tree hybrids is a product of a collaboration involving the USDA, Mars chocolate manufacturer, and even IBM.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs
It is frightening how much of this is being implemented away from the public eye. If people do not act soon, our children will not be able to eat anything except for what corporations will allow them (which is just enough to stay healthy enough to serve the system).
The Codex Alimentarius is a threat to the freedom of people to choose natural healing and alternative medicine and nutrition. Ratified by the World Health Organization, and going into Law in the United States in 2009, the threat to health freedom has never been greater. This is the first part of a series of talks by Dr. Rima Laibow MD, available on DVD from the Natural Solutions Foundation, an non-profit organization dedicated to educating people about how to stop Codex Alimentarius from taking away our right to freely choose nutritional health.
New food bill in New Zealand takes away human right to grow food
Even in faraway New Zealand you can't escape anymore, they are are coming for our freedom.
(InvestmentWatch) I was shocked to learn from a friend on the weekend that a new Food Bill is being brought in here in New Zealand. The new bill will make it a privilege and not a right to grow food.
I find two aspects of this bill alarming. The first is the scope and impact the new bill has, and secondly that it has all happened so quietly. There has been VERY little media coverage, on a bill which promises to jeopardise the future food security of the country.
I read that the bill is being brought in because of the WTO, which of course has the US FDA behind it, and of course that is influenced by big business (Monsanto and other players). It looks like this NZ food bill will pave the way to reduce the plant diversity and small owner operations in New Zealand, for example by way of controlling the legality of seed saving and trading/barter/giving away; all will be potentially illegal. The best website to read about the problems with the new bill is http://nzfoodsecurity.org (I have no connection with this website)
Here are some snippets:
- It turns a human right (to grow food and share it) into a government-authorised privilege that can be summarily revoked.
- It makes it illegal to distribute “food” without authorisation, and it defines “food” in such a way that it includes nutrients, seeds, natural medicines, essential minerals and drinks (including water).
- By controlling seeds, the bill takes the power to grow food away from the public and puts it in the hands of seed companies. That power may be abused.
- Growing food for distribution must be authorised, even for “cottage industries”, and such authorisation can be denied.
- Under the Food Bill, Police acting as Food Safety Officers can raid premises without a warrant, using all equipment they deem necessary – including guns (Clause 265 – 1).
- Members of the private sector can also be Food Safety Officers, as at Clause 243. So Monsanto employees can raid premises – including marae – backed up by armed police.
- The Bill gives Food Safety Officers immunity from criminal and civil prosecution.
- The Government has created this bill to keep in line with its World Trade Organisation obligations under an international scheme called Codex Alimentarius (“Food Book”). So it has to pass this bill in one form or another.
- The bill would undermine the efforts of many people to become more self-sufficient within their local communities.
- Seed banks and seed-sharing networks could be shut down if they could not obtain authorisation. Loss of seed variety would make it more difficult to grow one’s own food.
- Home-grown food and some or all seed could not be bartered on a scale or frequency necessary to feed people in communities where commercially available food has become unaffordable or unavailable (for example due to economic collapse).
- Restrictions on the trade of food and seed would quickly lead to the permanent loss of heirloom strains, as well as a general lowering of plant diversity in agriculture.
- Organic producers of heirloom foods could lose market share to big-money agribusiness outfits, leading to an increase in the consumption of nutrient-poor and GE foods.
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