Preppers and Hybrid Flu

Excerpt:

Most of us who have taken 'prepping' seriously are asking questions that folks in government aren't yet responding to; namely if the Reuters story that this strain of the flu is a genetic mix is correct...how'd it get that way? More importantly, why is the mainstream media (MSM) insisting on calling it "swine" flu when it's either a hybrid flu OR a genetically modified flu? Calling it GM flu is the same number of characters...or does that reveal too much?

Moreover, given that it seems to be an engineered virus where is the federal response in terms of crack detectives who are working back to patient zero to ascertain how & where this was released? Is anyone besides me wondering about the timing of our president being in Mexico at time of the outbreak? Just one 'coincidence' after another in this sequence of events, and I don't like 'coincidences' when they start to pile up.

Read more @ Urban Survival

How Convenient!!! Flu could boost government intervention further

LONDON, April 27 (Reuters) - The spread of a possible flu pandemic could see an increase in already heightened levels of government intervention in economies and financial markets as a result of the global financial crisis. In the short term, it might serve to give governments an easy justification to impose protectionist measures that could further stifle slumping trade flows. Doctors and officials around the world are moving to contain the spread of a swine flu outbreak that has already killed more than 100 people in Mexico and spread to countries around the world, with markets already reacting nervously. "At the moment, markets are still making the assumption this will not be that serious," said Dresdner Kleinwort emerging foreign exchange strategist Jon Harrison. "But if it were to turn out much worse you would see a rise in government spending and government intervention. This sort of crisis would be too big for anything other than governments."

Read more @ Reuters

CDC Runs with scissors in 2004, stabs us in the eye in 2009

...in full just in case it goes down the memory hole....Ed.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/news/jan1404hybrids.html

CDC to mix avian, human flu viruses in pandemic study

Robert Roos News Editor

Jan 14, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – One of the worst fears of infectious disease experts is that the H5N1 avian influenza virus now circulating in parts of Asia will combine with a human-adapted flu virus to create a deadly new flu virus that could spread around the world.

That could happen, scientists predict, if someone who is already infected with an ordinary flu virus contracts the avian virus at the same time. The avian virus has already caused at least 48 confirmed human illness cases in Asia, of which 35 have been fatal. The virus has shown little ability to spread from person to person, but the fear is that a hybrid could combine the killing power of the avian virus with the transmissibility of human flu viruses.

Now, rather than waiting to see if nature spawns such a hybrid, US scientists are planning to try to breed one themselves—in the name of preparedness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon launch experiments designed to combine the H5N1 virus and human flu viruses and then see how the resulting hybrids affect animals. The goal is to assess the chances that such a "reassortant" virus will emerge and how dangerous it might be.

CDC officials confirmed the plans for the research as described recently in media reports, particularly in a Canadian Press (CP) story.

Two ways to make hybrids
The plans call for trying two methods to create hybrid viruses, CDC spokesman David Daigle told CIDRAP News via e-mail. One is to infect cells in a laboratory tissue culture with H5N1 and human flu viruses at the same time and then watch to see if they mix. For the human virus, investigators will use A (H3N2), the strain that has caused most human flu cases in recent years, according to the CP report.

The other method is reverse genetics—assembling a new virus with sets of genes from the H5N1 and H3N2 viruses. Reverse genetics has already been used to create H5N1 candidate vaccines in several laboratories, according to Daigle. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said recently it would soon launch a clinical trial of one of those vaccines.

Of the two methods, the co-infection approach was described as slower and more laborious, though closer to what happens in nature.

Any viable viruses that emerge from these processes will be seeded into animals that are considered good models for testing how flu viruses behave in humans, according to Daigle. The aim will be to observe whether the animals get sick and whether infected animals can infect others.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been "pleading" for laboratories to do this research, because it could provide some evidence to back up the agency's warnings about the risk of a flu pandemic, according to the CP report.

Klaus Stohr, head of the WHO's global influenza program, was quoted as saying that if none of the hybrids caused disease, the agency might be inclined to dial down its level of concern. But if the experiments produce highly transmissible and pathogenic viruses, the agency will be more worried, he said.

Safety precautions
Because of the obvious risks in creating viruses with the potential to spark a pandemic, the work will be done in a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory at the CDC in Atlanta, Daigle told CIDRAP News.

"We recognize that there is concern by some over this type of work. This concern may be heightened by reports of recent lab exposures in other lab facilities," he said. "But CDC has an incredible record in lab safety and is taking very strict precautions."

Daigle said the US Department of Agriculture requires that highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses be treated as "Select Agents" and that research on them must be done in BSL-3 labs with "enhancements." These include "special provisions to protect both laboratory workers and the environment."

BSL-3 is the second highest level of laboratory biosecurity. It is used for work with pathogens that may cause serious or potentially lethal disease if inhaled, such as tuberculosis or St. Louis encephalitis, according to the CDC.

CDC experiments with HPAI viruses have to pass reviews by the agency's Institutional Biosafety Committee and Animal Care and Use Committee, Daigle said. The facilities involved are inspected by the USDA and the CDC's Office of Safety and Health, and staff members who work with Select Agents require special clearance.

It's been done before
The upcoming experiments will not break entirely new ground for the CDC, the CP story revealed. The agency already has made hybrid viruses with H5N1 samples isolated from patients in Hong Kong in 1997, when the virus first caused human disease.

The results of that research have not yet been published, and the CDC has said little about them. In the CP report, Dr. Nancy Cox, head of the CDC's influenza branch, commented only, "Some gene combinations could be produced and others could not."

Daigle added little to that. He said, "The reassortment work with the 1997 isolate was intermittently interrupted with SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] and then the 2004 H5N1 outbreak. We are currently concentrating our efforts on understanding the pathogenicity of the 2004 strains (non-reassortants) in mammalian models."

He said the CDC hopes to prepare a report on that research "in the near future."

Israel updates biodefense program to counter terror threat

o_O - Ed.

Israel has updated its biological defense efforts to counter threats from terrorists and regional rivals such as Iran, the Jerusalem Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 7, 2008).

Responding last year to warnings about the danger posed by weaponized disease agents, the Israeli Defense Ministry launched a new biological defense research effort at the Ramle-based headquarters of its Home Front Command.

"Israel has the best solution to this threat in the world," Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli national security council, said yesterday. "I can say with certainty that Israel has prepared a series of steps designed to deal with biological warfare."

Read more @ NTI

List of Dead Scientists

http://www.stevequayle.com/dead_scientists/UpdatedDeadScientists.html

Related Articles:

http://www.stevequayle.com/dead.scientist.news.html#Anchor-49575

Send in the Clowns

On April 20, the day before sirens wailed and moaned in the Jewish state for a full two minutes commemorating the one event said to be the greatest manifestation of racism in mankind’s history–the Holocaust–the United Nations held a conference in Geneva Switzerland to discuss that same topic of racism and its role in real-life present day events.

Read more @ The Ugly Truth

Columbine: The Mark and Donna Taylor Tragedy

On the 10th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, we had the opportunity to interview Mark Taylor and his mother, Donna. What we learned is shocking. In the last two years, Marks mental capacity has been totally eroded as the result of medications he received at two forced hospitalizations in 2007.

Read more watch video @ Dissecting the New Age

Surfing the Swine Flu Wave

There's too much information and not all of it is important. Here's my take on the angles worth keeping an eye on:

1. It's a Beta Test, Dry Run, Dress Rehearsal, etc.

Swine Flu Attack Likely a Beta Test
"Alternative" media and sychophant "truthers" run amok with swine flu propaganda

and the clincher

Napolitano says US should prepare for new flu outbreak soon even if this one FIZZLES OUT

Yeah. It's like getting a dud roman candle on the Fourth of July. WTF?

2. The Usual Suspects involved again

The Rumsfeld Connection: The Flu Torture
Al Gore and the Fancy Pants Investment Crowd making lotsa money
Baxter International wants to make Swine Flu vaccine

3. The Curious Timing

Swine Flu and the Economy: Disconnect or Tipping Point?
The "Sheer Coincidence" of a flu pandemic training exercise scheduled when a flu pandemic breaks out
Urban Survival/Time Monks weigh in

4. Various ways to die especially if you get too close

Top cancer scientist killed by chemicals
Do not take a Swine Flu vaccine
Original Swine Flu began at Fort Dix
Microbiology is a dangerous profession

IMF, White House in triangular settlement 'solution'

Read report at Global Analysis

The Hidden Tyranny

"We Jews continue to be amazed with the ease by which Christian Americans have fallen into our hands. While the naive Americans wait for Khrushchev to bury them, we have taught them to submit to our every demand." Asked how a nation could be captured without their knowing it, Mr. Rosenthal attributed this victory to absolute control of the media. He boasted of Jewish control of ALL NEWS. Any newspaper which refused to acquiesce to controlled news was brought to its knees by withdrawing advertising. Failing in this, the Jews stop the supply of news print and ink. "It's a very simple matter," he stated. Asked about men in high political office, Mr Rosenthal said that no one in the last three decades has achieved any political power without Jewish approval. "Americns have not had a presidential choice since 1932. Roosevelt was our man; every president since Roosevelt has been our man."In a discussion about George Wallace, Mr. Rosenthal smiled and suggested that we note where Wallace stands today.

Read more @ Goon Squad

Lieberman: Wishing for WW III?

WRITTEN BY BRENDA HEARD We have already become accustomed to the brazen statements of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. And it is certainly no surprise that Israel considers the US to be firmly in its political pocket. So it is but a mild irritation to read Haaretz reporting that Lieberman, confident that “the Obama administration will put forth new peace initiatives only if Israel wants it to,” has stated publicly “Believe me, America accepts all our decisions.” (Lieberman: U.S. to accept any Israeli policy decision).

Read more @ Palestine Think Tank

Israel planned to attack Iran on April 17: Debka

Israel had planned to attack and "destroy" the bulk of the Iranian Air Force fleet during a maneuver on April 17, Israel's Debkafile claims.

"Israel was planning to destroy all 140 fighter-bombers concentrated at the Mehr-Abad Air Force base for an air show over Tehran on Iran's Army Day the following day," read the Debka report.

The air maneuver was cancelled due to severe and harsh weather conditions.

Read more @ Press TV

But wait check this out:

Avigdor Lieberman: We won't attack Iran

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman at the weekend tried to calm international concerns by insisting that even if diplomatic efforts fail, Israel will not attack Iran's nuclear facilities. [No they were just gonna go all Pearl Harbor on Iran's air force, which is TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Gee do you think that would get us involved anyway? Yeah I think it would. Mm hmm.]

In an interview with an Austrian newspaper, Lieberman said that Israel alone cannot militarily resolve a problem that belongs to the entire world. He suggested that only a nation as powerful as the US can do so, and implicitly urged the Obama administration to get tougher with the Islamic Republic.

Read more @ The Truth Seeker

Concerns about chemtrails given fresh impetus

This Could Be It

Mexican Swine Flu Pandemic

Lord Stirling has it collected here, here and here.

On 23 rd April 2009 the world began to become aware of a very strange new version of swine flu H1N1 in Mexico with limited cases in Texas and California. By the morning of the 24th of April, we began to hear that there were hundreds of sick and 20 or so dead. By late in the day, we have learned that over 1,000 are now reported ill and over 60 are reported dead. There are solid reasons to suspect that this new Mexican Swine Flu is NOT a naturally occurring event but instead is an Advanced Biological Warfare recombination DNA genetically engineered virus.

Here is what we know of the virus so far. This virus has already gone international having crossed the border from Mexico to America. All schools in Mexico City have been canceled, millions of students told to stay home due to Mexican Swine Flu. Sick victims of this strange new virus are currently reported in California and Texas. Over 60 deaths reported in Mexico (could be substantially higher considering the state of Mexican health care and reporting).

Young healthy adults seem to be the most at risk. This is similar to the deadest killer flu in history, Spanish Flu in 1918. Most if not all nations with advanced biological warfare programs have been interested in recreating the Spanish Flu DNA sequence and several are reported to have done so.

The new Mexican Swine Flu has elements of DNA from the following: avian flu, human flu Type A, human flu Type B, Asian swine flu, and European swine flu. A strange combination never seen before and having less than 1/10% chance of being a natural event. Human and animal viruses from four or more continents suddenly recombine in a new flu during a non-flu season that spreads from human-to-human with a 10% fatality rating.

Over 1,000 reported infected in Mexico; true rate may be much higher. Mexico City seems to be the epicenter of the new virus. Mexico City has 20 million citizens, most terribly poor. Mexico City is notorious for its poor sanitation and public health. "Don't drink the water" has been the byword in Mexico City for decades. It is the perfect breading ground for an explosive growth of this new killer virus. Mexico City has closed all schools, public gatherings, public buildings. People are wearing medical masks on the streets. The government has announced a massive new emergency swine flu vaccination program that will be, at best, either totally non-effective or of very limited effect, and could be, at worst, a deadly option for patients. It is thought that the authorities are trying to contain public panic by announcing the vaccination program.

Both the World Health Organization and the US CDC (Center for Disease Control) have announced, today/24th April, that they are 'very concerned' about a global pandemic developing out of this new disease. Based on advanced biowargaming projections, it is already too late to stop the global spread of this new killer disease. Based on the three waves of Spanish Flu, the latter ones being more lethal, fatality rates may range from approximately 10% to 40% or so in later waves. More people could die in America, Mexico, Canada, Europe, and globally from Mexican Swine Flu than died in World War II.

This new flu is a lab created advanced biological warfare DNA genetically engineered virus that either: (1) Escaped accidentally from a lab; or (2) was deliberately released by a nation or non-state organization or a well-trained individual.

If there is a positive side to this coming global disaster, it may force governments to quickly come to grips with containing advanced biowar attacks. This is of considerable short term importance as Israel is apt to attack Iran by no later than mid-July 2009. The Iranians, having hired a large number of key ex-Soviet advanced biowar scientists 18 years ago and having spent billions on their asymmetrical MAD (mutually assured destruction) counter-force, are expected to respond to any significant attack on Iran with a biowar attack on Israel, North America, and Europe using in-place agents and dozens of genetically engineered viruses, many with very high projected kill rates.

This event is an advanced biological warfare event. It is far more important than 9/11 and, by itself, could bring deaths in such magnitudes as to exceed the number of deaths from all causes in the Second World War.

Stirling

Readers: Please post this to as many sites as you can. Help get the word out ASAP.

Bird Terrorism on the Rise

Airplane 'bird strikes' have climbed dramatically, FAA records show

Wildlife strikes involve creatures -- including foxes and lizards -- hitting windshields, wings and stabilizers. New York's JFK airport tops the list. Carriers don't have to report strikes.

By Robert J. Lopez
9:06 PM PDT, April 24, 2009

Aircraft at Los Angeles International Airport struck birds or other animals in 940 instances from 1990 through 2008, according to data released Friday by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The strikes involved gulls, hawks, pigeons and other creatures hitting windshields, wings and stabilizer areas.

Read more @ LA Times

Swine Flu *Fears* at Private School in Queens

Wow that didn't take long to hopscotch the fear of this problem from Mexico to NYC. - Ed.


The New York City health department dispatched a team of investigators to a private school in Queens on Friday after dozens of students complained of symptoms that officials believed were consistent with a strain of swine flu that has swept Mexico City.

The agency said about 75 students at St. Francis Preparatory School had complained Thursday of nausea, fever, dizziness and aches and pains. Several of the students were said to have recently traveled to Mexico, where as many as 61 people have died and possibly hundreds more have been infected in an outbreak of swine flu in recent weeks.

To control the epidemic, Mexican officials have shut museums and closed schools in and around the capital.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that eight cases have been diagnosed in the United States, six in California and two in Texas.

In New York City, health officials said that doctors and investigators were sent to St. Francis Preparatory as a precautionary measure, and that tests were being conducted in an effort to rule out swine flu as the cause of the students’ symptoms.

“The health department will continue to work closely with students, parents and school officials to monitor the situation,” the agency said in a statement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/nyregion/25sick.html?hp

Biology is so interesting

Human Transmission of Swine H1N1 in Southern California
Recombinomics Commentary 04:10
April 22, 2009

"This virus is different, very different from that circulating in pigs. That was a red flag," Finelli told WebMD and several other news organizations. "The other red flag is both cases appeared almost simultaneously, 100 miles apart.

The above comments leave little doubt that the H1N1 swine flu is being efficiently transmitted human to human in southern California. The unique constellation of swine genes has not been reported previously and the two cases do not have swine contacts. Moreover, family members had symptoms before and after the confirmed cases, indicating the H1N1 spread efficiently within each family.

State investigators: Dead Wellington polo horses had hemorrhaging lungs

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

With the necropsies on the 21 horses that died in Wellington on Sunday nearly complete, the Florida Department of Agriculture confirmed today that the horses suffered from hemorrhaging of the lungs.

"The thing that is consistent with all the horses is hemorrhaging and pulmonary edema," said Mark Fagan, spokesman for the agricultural department. "That's consistent through all the necropsies so far, and we certainly expect that with the remaining few necropsies."

WHO Concerned at new Swine Flu in US

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) voiced concern on Friday at a confirmed outbreak of swine flu in the United States and what it called more than 800 human "influenza-like" cases in Mexico, including about 60 deaths.

The United Nations agency said it had activated its Strategic Health Operations Center (SHOC) -- its command and control center for acute public health events -- but could not say whether it was considering issuing a travel advisory.

ARMY: 3 Vials of virus samples missing from Maryland facility

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Missing vials of a potentially dangerous virus have prompted an Army investigation into the disappearance from a lab in Maryland. The Army's Criminal Investigation Command agents have been visiting Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, to investigate the disappearance of the vials. Christopher Grey, spokesman for the command, said this latest investigation has found "no evidence of criminal activity."


Cryptogon:

According to CBS News, the people investigating the deaths of the horses in Florida are focusing on the possibility that a tainted batch of a vitamin supplement called Biodyl might be to blame. All of the horses that died received the supplement. The five horses that didn’t receive the Biodyl are fine.

Ok. Maybe that’s it.

But…

Would you believe that Fort Detrick is missing three vials of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis? The U.S. Army has launched an investigation into the disappearance of the vials from the lab.

Biodyl is made by a company called Merial, which is a joint venture between Merck and Aventis. Merial produces pharmaceutical products and vaccines for livestock, pets and wildlife.

Are the two incidents related? I have absolutely no idea.

Drug Company Merck had HIT LIST for doctors who criticized them

The international drug company Merck had a hit list of doctors who had to be "neutralized" or discredited because they had criticized the painkiller Vioxx, a now-withdrawn drug that the pharmaceutical giant produced.

Staff at the company emailed each other about the list of doctors. The email, which came out during a class-action suit against the drug company, included the words "neutralize," "neutralized" or "discredit" alongside some of the doctors' names.

The company is alleged to have used intimidation tactics against researchers, including dropping hints that the company would stop funding their institutions, and possibly even interfering with academic appointments.

"We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live," a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court.

The Treasury's Moral Black Hole

In The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Martin Ritt's 1965 film adaptation of John Le Carre's 1963 cold war espionage novel, career British spy Alec Leamus (Richard Burton, in one of his finest roles) finally lets the blinkers fall from his eyes to see the true moral ambiguity of his lifelong profession. In response to his lover, who posits that spies should have a better sense of right and wrong, he describes his world, his profession and his colleagues, exactly as he now sees it.

"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?

Read more @ Asia Times

How the WSJ and NYT buried the Madoff story for 4 years

By EAMONN FINGLETON

An old maxim has it that newspaper editors separate the wheat from the chaff, then print the chaff. By this standard, the editors of the Wall Street Journal showed special deftness in their handling of the Madoff affair.

They used the occasion of whistleblower Harry Markopolos’ testimony in Washington in February to address seemingly every minuscule detail of the scam. They even published an irrelevant, if lovingly crafted, floor plan of the Madoff firm’s office in the Midtown Manhattan Lipstick building. Yet, in all their apparent desire to “flood the zone” (maybe they were angling for a Pulitzer!), one detail was missing. Not a word of explanation was offered about the curious role played by the Journal’s own Washington-based investi­gative reporter John R. Wilke.

Read more @ Counterpunch

Tel Aviv Jane steps in her own fewmets

Oh the delicious irony. I keep coming back to the Apocalypse factor and all of the revelations that continue to surface as per the dictionary meaning of Apocalypse;

apocalypse c.1384, "revelation, disclosure," from Church L. apocalypsis "revelation," from Gk. apokalyptein "uncover," from apo- "from" (see apo-) + kalyptein "to cover, conceal". Not a day goes by that something doesn’t crawl out from under the rocks, like those strange creatures you see appearing on the beach as the sun goes down in Venice, California.

Read more @ Smoking Mirrors

Harmanic Convergence by Justin Raimondo

Quite aside from the wonderful irony of Jane Harman’s transformation from prominent Democratic defender of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping into a civil libertarian par excellence – which has been definitively celebrated by Glenn Greenwald over at Salon – the story of how this leading "national security Democrat" sold out her nation’s security on behalf of a foreign power underscores the all-pervasive and corrupting influence of Israel’s lobby in the U.S. Harman was caught on tape with a "suspected Israeli agent," according to Congressional Quarterly, agreeing to intervene with the U.S. Justice Department and the White House to get the espionage charges against two AIPAC employees reduced. In return, the Israeli agent promised AIPAC would put pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get Harman appointed head of the House intelligence committee. This pressure included having Haim Saban – whose largesse underwrites the Saban Center at Brookings, as well as a number of Democratic Party organizations – threatening to cut off the funding unless Pelosi caved.

Read more @ Antiwar.com

Clinton says Pakistan is abdicating to the Taliban

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan's government has abdicated to the Taliban in agreeing to impose Islamic law in the Swat valley and the country now poses a "mortal threat" to the world, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.

Surging violence across Pakistan and the spread of Taliban influence through its northwest are reviving concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed country, an important U.S. ally vital to efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.

Read more @ Reuters

Russian Analysis: Iran, Israel ready to go to war

MOSCOW. (Pyotr Goncharov, for RIA Novosti) - On April 18, the London Times reported that "the Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government."

Several days later, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being the "most cruel and racist regime," sparking a scandal at a UN racism conference in Geneva.

At the same time, Israeli websites reported that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu had met with the Israeli Defense Minister, the Chief of the General Staff and other defense leaders three times during the past week. He was reportedly informed about preparations for an assault at Iran's military facilities and was "pleasantly surprised" at how far these preparations had advanced.

Read more @ RIA Novosti

More than $200M pledged to beat Somali pirates

(CNN) -- Countries have pledged $213 million at an international conference to boost security in Somalia and halt the country's growing piracy problem.

"We have a unique opportunity to support leaders who have shown a commitment to building peace and rebuilding the Somali state," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "By opening the space for security, we open the door to a better life for Somalia's people."

Read more @ CNN

Sibel Edmonds interviewed by Electric Politics

Sibel gave a 75-min interview to Electric Politics on April 10. You can listen to it here. Mizgin has an overview of the interview here. A partial transcript follows:

Heroin, money-laundering and terrorism
Sibel Edmonds: First of all, it has been documented in the past several decades, the importance of narcotics in the Turkish economy, but also the role of Turkish MIT - that is Turkish Intelligence - and the military having an active role. But you're also looking at the increased role of certain Central Asian countries and the Caucuses, and if you look at some of these regimes, these are the regimes that we have been supporting. Their economies also have become dependent on narcotics, because they have become a major transit - and in some places, for certain countries such as Azerbaijan, they have become major production centers.

Read more @ Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

Over. The. Top. Get your pallet of tissues.

DEBKAfile - Obama's charm offensive for radical rulers abandons Israel to Iranian threat

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

The new US president's dramatic global policy steps have easily dwarfed the knotty Israeli-Palestinian peace issue handed down from one US president to the next over decades. Barack Obama's outstretched hand to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Iran's best friend in the Americas, on April 17, at the summit of American leaders in Port of Prince, made the talk surrounding Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell's mission to Jerusalem and Ramallah this week sound eerily like voices from the past.

After talking to Mitchell, Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak tried the usual bromides: They protested that Jerusalem's ties with Washington and Jerusalem were as strong as ever and they would work together toward an agreed solution for the Palestinian problem.

But those words were lost in the black Iranian cloud hanging over the relations.

Barack Obama has set his sights and heart on friendship with the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran and their radical allies. The name and policies of the occupant of the prime minister's office in Jerusalem do not matter - any more than Tehran's determination to complete its nuclear weapons program in defiance of the world, or even its first A-bomb test in a year or two, for which intelligence sources report Tehran is already getting set.

Obama's Washington believes America can live with a nuclear-armed Iran – a decision probably taken first under the Bush presidency. But Israel cannot, and may have no option but to part ways with the Obama administration on this point. As a nuclear power, Iran will be able to bend Jerusalem to the will of its enemies, make it unconditionally give Syria the Golan plus extra pieces of territory, tamely accept a Hamas-dominated Palestinian West Bank louring over its heartland and let the Lebanese Hizballah terrorize Galilee in the north at will. All three would make hay under Iran's nuclear shield, while Tehran lords it over the region in the role of regional power conferred by Obama's grace and favor.

In no time, Israel would be stripped of most of its defenses.

Israel is not the only nervous country in the region. But Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is the only Middle East leader brave enough to stick his neck out, albeit with Saudi backing, and stand up to the Iranian peril, direct and through Hizballah.

He has also outspokenly criticized Washington's courtship of the revolutionary Islamic republic.

Cairo's Al Ahram Saturday, April 18, accused Iran, Syria, Qatar, Hizballah, Hamas, al Jazeera TV of a conspiracy to overthrow Egyptian government.

But the US president is not daunted by the radicalism or enmity of his new friends or the loss of old ones. At the Summit of All Americas, Obama greeted Hugo Chavez 24 hours after the Venezuelan ruler said: "The United States Empire is on its way down and will be finished in the near future, inshallah!"

Using the Muslim blessing to underline the wish for America's downfall was no bar to the smile and handshake; neither was Venezuela's recent severance of its ties with Israel for no provocation or its willingness to host a delegation of Hizballah (internationally branded a terrorist organization) in Caracas.

What is relevant to Obama is Hugo Chavez's role as co-architect of the joint Russian-Iranian campaign to displace American influence in the southern hemisphere. The US president has opted for winning America's enemies over with smiles and embraces rather than punishing them like George W. Bush.

Obama continues to woo Bashar Assad apace despite his blunt refusal to loosen his strategic ties with Tehran or stop supporting the Lebanese Shiite group [with arms] because Hizballah is dedicated to fighting Israel, - as he is quoted as saying in the pro-Hizballah Lebanese publication al Akhbar on April 17.

For the first time in years, the administration this week sent a high-ranking delegation to Syria's independence day celebrations at Washington's Mandarin Oriental Hotel, headed by Jeffrey Feltman, former ambassador and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs.

The thaw in relations has gone so far that some Washington wags are calling Assad's capital "Syria on the Potomac."

The American storm besetting the Middle East leaves Israel's most vital interests way behind. The condition Netanyahu put before Mitchell for progress in peacemaking - that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state, which was instantly rejected by Palestinian Authority leaders – aroused scant attention in Washington or anywhere else.

As Netanyahu will find when he meets Obama in Washington early next month, Israel is no longer a prime factor in US global policy, because America has fundamentally reshuffled its Middle East allegiances and alliances. Even Tzipi Livni at the helm in Jerusalem would not divert Obama from his détente with Ahmadinejad, Assad and Chavez.

To gain points with his new friends, Obama's White House is not above nudging Israel to please them. This week, his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told Jewish leaders whom he met in Washington that if Israel wants America's help for thwarting Iran's nuclear program, it must first start evacuating West Bank settlements.

This was of course cynical claptrap.

Even if every single settlement were to be removed and Israel lined up with Obama's quest for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, the US president would not drop Tehran or help Israel strike Iran's nuclear facilities. He has already ceded Tehran's uranium enrichment program (and therefore its drive for nuclear arms), and would forcefully oppose any Israeli military action. US defense secretary Robert Gates indicated as much this week when he went to almost absurd lengths to play down the Iranian nuclear threat and Israel's ability to handle it.

So what options are left to Israel at this juncture?

1. To bow under the Obama tempest until it blows over in keeping with the old proverb which says that trees bowing in the wind remain standing. This would entail going along with US acceptance of Iran as a nuclear power. The question is will Israel's trees still be standing when the storm has passed and, if so, in what strategic environment?

2. To follow the example set by Likud's first prime minister Menahem Begin in 1981. He stood up to Ronald Reagan's fierce objections and sent the Israeli Air force to smash the Iraqi nuclear reactor before it was operational. Saddam Hussein never rebuilt the facility. By following in Begin's footsteps before it is too late, Netanyahu would change the rules of the game regionally and globally.

(The London Times reported from Jerusalem Saturday that the Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government. Two civil defense drills have been scheduled to prepare the population for missiles that could fall on any part of the country without warning.)

3. Israel could go for a more modest target, one of Iran's faithful surrogates – Syria or Hizballah – to warn Washington that a larger operation is in store for their boss. If the Gaza offensive against Hamas last January was meant to send this message, it failed. Hamas is still the dominant Palestinian power and Barack Obama was not swayed from forging ahead with his policies of rapprochement with Iran and other radical world leaders.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1387

Process Philosophy: Immorality and Imbecility in the Torture Memo Mess

by Chris Floyd

Let's do something we rarely do around these parts. Let's do a "process story," looking at an issue from the standpoint of how it plays out in the political game. As a rule, we prefer to focus much less on political kibitzing in the imperial courts, and more on the actual products of imperial policy: i.e., corpses, chaos and corruption. But just for a moment, let's "processize" Barack Obama's bold, progressive, morality-restoring decision not to prosecute anyone at all for the filthy, KGB-derived torture system installed by the very highest officials of the Bush Administration, even as he releases memos showing clearly that practices which are high crimes under U.S. law were explicitly authorized by the White House.

(And make no mistake; Obama has not only decided to let the actual, ground-level waterboarders, wall-slammers and child torturers get off scot-free; he is also going to let the gilded creators and framers of the system live on untroubled in peace, prosperity and privilege. Obama's chief gatekeeper and hatchet man, Rahm Emanuel, made this clear over the weekend, telling Beltway waterboy George Stephanopoulos: "But those who devised the [torture] policies – [Obama] believes that they were — should not be prosecuted either.")

Leaving aside the moral perversion of this action, consider what a boneheaded move it is politically. By releasing the memos, Obama has guaranteed the enmity of many powerful factions in the security organs -- the secretive, lawless, military-covert complex that holds such vast and deadly sway over imperial affairs. Yet by promising not to prosecute any of them for their glaring misdeeds, he has merely angered and embarrassed them to no good purpose. He has allowed them to roam free around the political landscape, denouncing and deriding him at every turn in the corporate media that is only too happy to treat torturers and mass-murdering war criminals as respectable, "serious" figures in affairs of state.

Read more @ Empire Burlesque

Another banker suicided

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac was found dead at his home Wednesday morning in an apparent suicide.

David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer at the government-controlled mortgage company, was found dead at his home in Fairfax County, Va.

Read more @ Market Watch

Lieberman: US to accept any Israeli policy decision

Oh by the way, from the AP: Russia moves troops closer to Georgia capital


The Obama Administration will put forth new peace initiatives only if Israel wants it to, said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in his first comprehensive interview on foreign policy since taking office.

"Believe me, America accepts all our decisions," Lieberman told the Russian daily Moskovskiy Komosolets.

Lieberman granted his first major interview to Alexander Rosensaft, the Israel correspondent of one of the oldest Russian dailies, not to an Israeli newspaper. The role of Israel is to "bring the U.S. and Russia closer," he declared.

Read more @ Haaretz

The Torture Memos, Obama, and the Banality of Evil

Even as President Obama acted in the name of transparency and accountabilty in releasing the Bush administration's OLC's torture memos, he made assurances that the CIA agents who used the "enhanced interrogation techniques" meticulously detailed within would not be subject to criminal prosecution. Glenn Greenwald at Salon, Jeremy Scahill on his blog, David Bromwich at Huffington Post and Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic all have good takes on why Obama's decision is wrong. I concur. However politically expedient, Obama's nearly carte blanche absolution of torture was morally wrong, and his justification of it, from a professor of constitutional law, is intellectually dishonest.

Read more @ SOTT

Senate proposal could put heavy restrictions on internet freedoms

Love the spinning from Fox News. The need is "obvious." What are you, a fucking idiot to not see that? Amerika hater. - Ed.

The days of an open, largely unregulated Internet may soon come to an end.

A bill making its way through Congress proposes to give the U.S. government authority over all networks considered part of the nation's critical infrastructure. Under the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009, the president would have the authority to shut down Internet traffic to protect national security.

The government also would have access to digital data from a vast array of industries including banking, telecommunications and energy. A second bill, meanwhile, would create a national cybersecurity adviser -- commonly referred to as the cybersecurity czar -- within the White House to coordinate strategy with a wide range of federal agencies involved.

The need for greater cybersecurity is obvious:

Read more @ Pimpin Turtle

South American leaders decree new currency

The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA for its Spanish acronym, was created five years ago between Cuba and Venezuela as an option to the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas. Since its founding, three more nations have joined, and ALBA has implemented numerous social programs and cooperation agreements, including the recently-founded ALBA bank. On Thursday, in advance of the Summit of the Americas, Latin America’s most progressive governments met in Venezuela at the seventh ALBA summit. There, they prepared their positions for the Trinidad summit, and signed the decree for a new South American currency. Mike Fox has more from Cumaná, Venezuela.

Source: Free Speech Radio News

Chemical maker destroyed evidence of W VA blast

I know. Almost as shocking as Jane Harman committing treason. - Ed.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Bayer CropScience LP (506285.BY) removed and destroyed evidence relating to a chemical explosion at the company's West Virginia plant last year in an orchestrated campaign to keep crucial details of the blast secret, according to a congressional investigation.

Read more @ WSJ

Death for Nabucco?

The USA seems to be losing power.

The Nabucco gas pipeline, shown in red, is intended to run through Turkey and onwards to Austria.

The USA wants Nabucco to avoid Russian territory.

Read more @ aangirfan

Some dare call it conspiracy! Are you among them?

by Zahir Ebrahim, Project Humanbeingsfirst

In law, agreement of two or more persons to commit a criminal or otherwise unlawful act. At common law, the crime of conspiracy was committed with the making of the agreement, but present-day statutes require an overt step by a conspirator to further the conspiracy. Other controversial aspects of conspiracy laws include the modification of the rules of evidence and the potential for a dragnet. A statement of a conspirator in furtherance of the conspiracy is admissible against all conspirators, even if the statement includes damaging references to another conspirator, and often even if it violates the rules against hearsay evidence. The conspiracy can be proved by circumstantial evidence. Any conspirator is guilty of any substantive crime committed by any other conspirator in furtherance of the enterprise. It is a federal crime to conspire to commit any activity prohibited by federal statute, whether or not Congress imposed criminal sanctions on the activity itself. - Columbia Encyclopedia

Read more @ Project Humanbeingsfirst

Hundreds of millions of pounds of pharmaceuticals LEGALLY released into waterways that provide drinking water

U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Read more @ Cryptogon

Is WW3 the reason for chemtrails

Back In 1970, former National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in Between Two Ages, that:

'By the year 2018, technology will make available to the leaders of the major nations, a variety of techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised. One nation may attack a competitor covertly by bacteriological means, thoroughly weakening the population (though with a minimum of fatalities) before taking over with its own armed forces. Alternatively, techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm..."

Read more @ BariumBlues

The rise of the Fourth Reich and the Weapons of War

All I ask is that you ask, “Is it true?” Do not concern yourself with whether you want to hear it or whether it fits your belief system. Do not concern yourself with the spin cycle or whether you achieve orgasm by sitting on the washer. These may be personally important but they are not relevant or important to what is being said here. There will be no belief system, no washing machines or Stress Management Release taking place here today. Today we are going to make some statements and provide certain evidence and you are going to ask yourself, “Is it true?”

Read more @ Smoking Mirrors

Harman: Poster Child for Corruption

In a stunning development, powerful Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman has been busted via wiretap for promising the AIPAC lobbying group that she would get a couple of spies off the hook.

As Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein, Glenn Greenwald, Raw Story and others point out, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales blackmailed Harman into support warrantless spying on Americans by threatening to prosecute her for her little AIPAC episode if she didn't play ball.

Read more @ George Washington's Blog

Jane Harman promising to intervene for AIPAC

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

Read more @ CQ Politics

Big bank profits are bogus. Massive public deception.

A big bank CEO on a mission to deceive the public doesn’t have to tell outright lies. He can con people just as easily by using “perfectly legal” tricks, shams, and accounting ruses.

First, I’ll give you the big-picture facts. Then, I’ll show you how big U.S. banks are painting lipstick on some of the fattest pigs ever raised.

Read more @ Money and Markets

Israel wants Americans to think that Iran is a danger to the US as well as Israel

by Malkah Fleisher

(IsraelNN.com) Just two days after US President Barack Hussein Obama shared a controversial and landmark handshake with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has released a study analyzing the flowering alliance between the increasingly anti-Western Latin America and the virulently anti-Israel Iran.

The study was conducted at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), a non-governmental organization dedicated to Israeli intelligence and terrorism issues.

Read more @ Dictatorship Watch

What would be the timetable for Israel strike on Iran?

The timing of Saturday's Times of London article, which claimed that the Israel Defense Forces is training for an attack on Iran on very short notice, is certainly no coincidence. Israel is trying to make clear that even though the United States plans to begin a diplomatic dialogue with Iran, it holds a realistic military option against Tehran's nuclear program. Without a deal that assuages Israel's concerns, there may be no other choice but to attack.

Read more @ The Truth Seeker

Russia deploys the Black Sea Fleet

Russia has sent an official notification to NATO’s general secretary, Hoop Scheffer, proposing that "all upcoming military exercises planned in Georgia should be postponed or canceled.”

On any other day of the year, I would read news article discussing a disagreement between NATO and Russia regarding Black Sea naval activity and dismiss it, but this isn't an average day. Earlier this week, as per the agreement between Russia and the Ukraine, Russian officials notified the Ukraine that 22 of its Black Sea Fleet vessels will leave Sevastopol for military maneuvers. Those ships were expected to depart earlier this week, but it was noteworthy when all of the amphibious ships deployed first rather than all of the ships at once.

Read more @ Information Dissemination

Possibly they made some mistakes

President Obama traveled to the headquarters of the CIA yesterday to vow continued support for the agency despite weeks of revelations about the physical abuse and mental manipulation of terrorist suspects in its secret prisons.

Read more @ Washington Post

Mercury and Flouride: The dumbing down of the population

Into the Valley of Debt

by James

I would like to tie together three subjects that are in the forefront at the moment with three separate essays and argue how they are parts of a whole. Three areas of capitalism are involved; the banking/investment/insurance or financial industry; the oil and resources industry; and the armaments and military services industry. These industries are, of course, controlled by the same group of people and so are readily co-ordinated and this should not surprise us. Indeed, we should expect it. The three subjects or issues breathlessly and inaccurately reported to us are the financial meltdown/bailout fiasco, the moves for a One World Currency and the ever building number and intensity of wars in the the Middle East and Central Asia for the control of oil. The “whole” I speak of is the domination or rulership of the whole world or more succinctly, One World Government.

This first part concerns the financial industry and the derivatives meltdown and the attendant bailout scandal. This essay is in large part a rewrite of part of James Lieber's excellent article, “What Cooked The World's Economy”. I have attempted to expand on some of his points with some logical deductions and also some opinions together with a few added bits of information from the public domain.
All quotes in this essay come from the above article and the first quote will start at the “bottom line”-

“The bottom line in this scandal is that fantastically wealthy entities positioned themselves to make unfathomable fortunes by betting that average Americans - Joe Six-Packs and hockey moms - would fail.“
Bearing this in mind will help makes sense of what I write below, I hope!
So after that introduction, let us deconstruct the scam.

Read more @ Winter Patriot

Vatican in new rift with Jews on racism conference

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict's decision to send a Vatican delegation to a United Nations conference on racism has opened a new rift in relations with Jewish groups, who fear it will be used as a platform to attack Israel.

"By participating, the Vatican has given its endorsement to what is being prepared there (against Israel)," Rome's chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, told the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

Read more @ Reuters

Adding insult to injury - Power Jewish groups demand case against accused spies be dropped

It has been a common mantra now–not for years, but rather decades–”Israel does not spy on the United States” and God help anyone who says different.

With the same kind of drama as Khrushchev’s infamous shoe-beating shtick at the United Nations half a century ago, the aforementioned vaudeville number began immediately after that “nice Jewish boy” Jonathon Pollard (working as an analyst for US Naval Intelligence) was caught pilfering and then selling to America’s “bestest buddy” in the whole world–Israel–close to 1 million pages of material with the highest classification that exists in the US intelligence community. Shortly after the theft of these secrets (an act making the Rosenbergs’ treason appear like mere petty thievery of two small-time Gypsy pick-pockets by comparison) the Jewish state then did what any “bestest buddy” would do to a friend who has supplied her with billions of dollars yearly and stood as the only barrier between her and a sea of oppressed, grieving Arabs who (for justifiable reasons) would love to see her wiped off the map–she sold them, to the Soviet Union of all places, America’s “worstest enemy“ in the whole wide world.

Read more @ The Ugly Truth

Who murdered our beloved president, JFK?

"The sons of bitches lie to me constantly about their nuclear capability."
JFK to his advisor, Charles Bartlett, speaking on Israel's quest for the "bomb."

"Israel need not apologize for the assassination or destruction of those who seek to destroy it.
Washington Jewish Week, October 9, 1997

Read more @ Goon Squad

My truth

"I entirely predicted this, although I must admit I don't think I ever stated as such. But the fact that I know within my heart that I was right about this, as about so much else, confirms for me that I really do have a handle on these scum. I know what they will do next. I know who they will target. I know who is working for truth and decency, and who isn't. I know the good guys from the bad guys."

When re-reading this earlier paragraph of mine, I winced slightly. I sound ridiculously arrogant and dogmatic, and I considered removing this paragraph or toning it down unless it should present me as somehow dishonest, or simply writing this blog for self ego flagellation purposes.

But on careful reflection, I decided to leave it in. I still think it doesn't read very well, but I'm not sure I have a better way to put it. The simple fact is that, for whatever reason, be it that I spend many hours pursuing this subject, or because I have spent my entire life pondering issues that were once irrelevant to most people and of no wider interest, but are now crucial to us all, I am somehow plugged in to what is transpiring in the world, and have been for many years.

Read more @ suraci

The Truth About Chemtrails

The spraying of powdered materials throughout the skies of the world is happening on a daily basis everywhere. This has been going on with increasing frequency since the so-called “Election” of the bush crime family to leadership positions in America. Hardly a day goes by now where jets do not lay down chemical trails in grids and canopys. This is support for technology being used against the population of the world. Its main goal is control of food and water through weather modification, but the vast vast expense of this program, as well as the classified technology of corporations such as Time Domain Corporation, suggest even greater goals are being obtained in conjunction with the attempt to lock down food and water. Monsanto Corporation is also deeply involved in this illegal take-over, and many others. Electro-sensitivity of the soil itself will only allow gm crops to crow eventually. Get it? I knew you would.

Read more @ Luxefaire.com

Raytheon will run Narus Insight on government networks

This is mainly a thought criminal detection system for people who work for the government. Yes, it also does traffic management, but Narus has the biggest stick in the playground when it comes to surveillance. Their Semantic Traffic Analysis technology is a purpose built hardware and software package designed for real time operations on the largest and fastest networks in existence.

Read more @ Cryptogon

Tomlinson officer questioned on suspicion of manslaughter

The police officer suspended following the death of Ian Tomlinson during G20 protests has been questioned on suspicion of manslaughter, after a second postmortem showed that the newspaper vendor did not die of a heart attack.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said: "Following the initial results of the second postmortem, a Metropolitan police officer has been interviewed under caution for the offence of manslaughter as part of an ongoing inquiry into the death of Ian Tomlinson."

Read more @ Guardian

A taste of AFRICOM

In 2006 "the CIA propagated that Al-Qaeda had made its base in Somalia where three senior leaders were residing. CIA then encouraged Ethiopia to invade Somalia in support of weak TFG forces (Transitional Federal Government) against UIC fighters (Union of Islamic Courts) and promised to provide intelligence and air cover. Ethiopian troops backed by USA invaded Somalia on 28 December 2006. The UIC was quickly defeated in a sweeping offensive and the six-month peace period was shattered. It was believed that the UIC leadership fled into Kenya or to Yemen and the hard-line fighters cached their arms and melded back into their clans leaving the mostly untrained, new recruits to face the Ethiopian troops. Soon after the UIC rout, two US air strikes targeted alleged Al-Qaeda bases in southern Somalia on 13 January 2007 but only innocent civilians got killed."

Read more @ Uruknet

'A ton more people were wiretapped than we've been led to believe' FBI Whistleblower Thomas Tamm

This week the New York Times revealed that the National Security Agency has continued spying on Americans well into the Obama era, with government officials listening in on phone conversations and monitoring e-mails on a massive scale.

Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau -- who broke the story of the Bush administration's domestic spying program in December 2004 -- reported that "in recent months," the NSA has engaged in an "overcollection" of domestic communication, far exceeding the already broad legal limits Congress established when it passed legislation to legalize the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program and granting immunity for the telecoms that enabled it.

Read more @ Alternet

John McCain's Agent Orange Issue

During an April 6th speech to students of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam in the capitol city of Hanoi, Senator John McCain acknowledged:

"US wartime use of the defoliant Agent Orange in Vietnam remains an issue between the two countries."

This astoundingly casual statement should arouse curiosity: What are the current facts on the ground that would cause wartime aerial spraying of Agent Orange, which ended 38 years ago, to remain an "issue"? And why didn't Senator McCain pledge to use his power as a United States senator to help resolve this issue in some reasonably equitable manner?

Read more @ Geronimo Manifesto

The truth about the Somali Pirates

by Dan Eden for viewzone

How do I tell you about this?

Most of you have already heard about the Somali pirates. Just recently they captured an American cargo ship and held the captain hostage. They have done this to many other vessels from a variety of different countries. In fact, the American captain was lucky -- he escaped, with the help of some sharp-shooter Navy Seals -- but hundreds of international sailors and crew are still being held by Somali pirates who seek millions of dollars for their safe return, and the safe return of their ships.

Read more @ viewzone

US aircraft and elite Navy SEALS defeat three Somalis in a lifeboat

The mounting hue and cry in the US press over the menace to civilization posed by Somali "pirates" is yet another Big Lie, to justify the latest chapter in America's imperial quest for African oil and other resources. US missiles and drones in the air, and perhaps US boots on the ground are all but inevitable, ordered to kill near-defenseless African civilians, by America's First Black President.

Read more @ Black Agenda Report

Navies to guard undersea cables from Somali pirates

HAHA. Maybe they can fit an aircraft carrier down the manholes around the Bay Area to protect that fiber.

Via: Reuters:

Foreign navies have agreed to protect a vessel installing an undersea high-speed Internet cable from pirates off the coast of Somalia, a Kenyan minister said on Thursday.

Read more @ Cryptogon

Sociopathic Through Lines

I’d like to look at the continuum from imprisoned failed sociopaths to SAPs (socially adept sociopaths). Basically they are all adherents of the credo, ‘you call it cheating, I call it winning.’ The failed sociopaths have problems with the cheating part (i.e., getting caught), the SAPs can be phenomenal at it.

...

The continuum is really a scale of talent at being hypocritical. The advanced SAPs are simply magnificent hypocrites – able to bide their time, be patient, realistically assess their position in the food chain (the concept of the food chain is central to sociopathy), restrain their arrogance, desire for dominance and rudeness and wait for opportunities without consequence for indulging their sociopathic wants, etc. Hypocrisy is simply their main lifetool, as swimming is the main lifetool for a fish.

Read more @ The Path Whisperer

Nicolas Sarkozy, important psychopath, insults other important psychopaths

Nicolas Sarkozy has never been one to endear himself to his fellow heads of state. He has irritated with his boastfulness, exhausted with his hyperactivity and offended with his tendency to launch televised policy decimations and send text messages during meetings.

But, impressive though his track record is, he may now have outdone even himself. In the space of just one lunchtime, the French president has managed to belittle Barack Obama, patronise Angela Merkel and insult José Luis Zapatero by questioning his intellectual firepower.

Read more @ Guardian

Read more about the Zionist psychopath Sarkozy at American Goy

Why a 50% drop in housing is not the bottom

The psychology behind the idea that a 50% reduction in bubble-era housing prices constitutes a "bargain" is flawed for a number of reasons.

I recently saw a few minutes of a Nightly Business Report program on PBS in which a Florida broker was observing that homes which once commanded $350,000 at the bubble top were selling briskly now at $169,000 to investors from every part of the globe.

In other words: "These homes are half off! They're screaming bargains! They can't get any cheaper than this!"

The psychology behind this euphoria is accessible to us all. It's easy to forget where housing prices were before the bubble and focus instead on how much they've dropped from the bubble peak. The same is true in any bubble, be it collectables, real estate, stocks, or tulip bulbs.

Read more @ Of Two Minds

Chop Shop economics and stealth Zionism

Causing $64 trillion of liquidity to vanish from the world financial system and then manipulating the US government to reward the perpetrators with bailout money requires the presence of the “right people” in government, academia, and finance industries.

In The Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein argues that Milton Friedman or Chicago School influenced policy makers routinely used catastrophes to facilitate rewriting of national economic rules to benefit a select subset of the world’s hyperwealthy.

President Obama, whose economic background is all Chicago School, brought the Friedmanites including National Economic Council Director Larry Summers back into government.

Read more @ Khaleej Times Online

Jim Cramer destroyed CNBC's viewers' wealth in just 4 days

CNBC’s Jim Cramer has positioned himself as yet another champion of the people against the evil government. A couple of days ago, the method-actor/ CNBC host of “Mad Money” stirred up a hullabaloo when he pretended to be angry and attacked the Obama government’s economic program as “the greatest wealth destruction I’ve seen by a president.”

Right. Let’s leave aside for a moment the fact that Cramer is a giant welfare queen whose salary is subsidized by the $139 billion taxpayer dollars to his parent company, General Electric. For now, let’s just try and answer this simple question: ”Who destroys your wealth more: Obama or Jim Cramer?”

Read more @ The Exiled

A 'copper standard' for the world's currency system?

China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons.

Nobu Su, head of Taiwan's TMT group, which ships commodities to China, said Beijing is trying to extricate itself from dollar dependency as fast as it can.

Read more @ Telegraph.co.uk

The Hegelian Dialectic in Action

Problem: Somali pirates

Reaction: Shippers face higher insurance as pirates run amok. This is a COSTLY PROBLEM, that is your take-away. Very, very costly. "Something Must Be Done"

Shipping companies already smarting from the global downturn are forced to pony up extra cash for steeper premiums to cover multimillion-dollar ransoms or take the long way around the African continent in the hope of dodging hijackers.

"The pirates were the only people who had a good year in 2008," said Crispian Cuss, a security consultant with the Dubai-based Olive Group. [I beg to differ!!!!]

The Gulf of Aden, which connects the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, is one of the busiest and most dangerous waterways in the world.

As pirates become more aggressive, the cost of insuring ships climbs.

Some companies are spending more time training their crews, others are avoiding the area altogether - taking long trips around Africa's southern tip that can potentially add millions to the cost of each journey.

Read more @ The Jamaica Gleaner

Solution: ROBUST ACTION could curtail piracy, expert says

(CNN) -- Both the United States and France pulled off-high profile rescues in the waters off the Horn of Africa in the past week, killing a total of five pirates to free hostages who had been holed up for days.

While those operations gained international attention, there have been dozens of attacks so far this year. Experts say it will take an international effort to combat the rising number of attacks.

"In our view, what France and the U.S. has done is exactly the right thing for a flag state to do, and if all flag states were to take that kind of robust action against the pirates we would not have the problems of Somali piracy to the extent that we have today," said Capt. Pottengal Mukundan, director of the piracy reporting center at the International Maritime Bureau.

Read more @ CNN

I parsed it yesterday here.

Now peek behind the curtain:

CIA Mercs disguised as Somali pirates attack another US ship, Liberty

That headline might be a work of fiction, but most likely it's the truth. This latest Pentagon "false-flag" will give that war mongering outfit the excuse it's been looking for to fight another war for Israel against another of Israel's "existential" enemies, Somalia.

Notice the name of the ship attacked? The LIBERTY Sun?
Yes, those dastardly pirates are attacking liberty and by gawd, us red-blooded Americans should be rallying around the flag of US Imperialism and get behind this latest war in what's known as the ISRAELI Front.

This bogus incident will also let OBOMBA show the world he's packing a huge pair by letting him engage in a time honored tradition of new American presidents; blowing to hell some 3rd world hovels.

Don't be surprised if some Special Forces in Somalia find some incriminating documents that show the Somali pirates were getting money, intelligence and weapons from Iran.

Just like they just happened to "find" a Bin Laden confession video in Afghanistan.

Lucky for the crew, NO ONE was injured and the ship "sustained" unspecified damage.

Read more @ Goon Squad

Will Israel attack Iran?

By Roane Carey

13 April, 2009
TomDispatch.com

JERUSALEM -- Israel has been steadily ratcheting up pressure on the United States concerning the grave threat allegedly posed by Iran, which seems poised to master the nuclear fuel cycle, and thus the capacity to produce nuclear weapons. The new Israeli prime minister, Likud Party hawk Benjamin Netanyahu, has warned President Barack Obama that if Washington does not quickly find a way to shut down Iran's nuclear program, Israel will.

Some analysts argue that this is manufactured hysteria, not so much a reflection of genuine Israeli fears as a purposeful diversion from other looming difficulties. The Netanyahu government is filled with hardliners adamantly opposed to withdrawal from, or even a temporary freeze on, settlements in the occupied territories, not to mention to any acceptance of Palestinian statehood. On his first day as foreign minister, extremist demagogue Avigdor Lieberman, with characteristic bluster, announced that Israel was no longer bound by the 2007 Annapolis agreements brokered by Washington, which called for accelerated negotiations toward a two-state settlement.

Read more @ CounterCurrents.org

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "We are neither obstinate nor gullible."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke with Spiegel about what he expects from US President Barack Obama, why America's new Afghanistan strategy is wrong and why Iran should have a spot on the UN Security Council.

Spiegel: Mr. President, so far you have traveled to the United States four times to attend the General Assembly of the United Nations. What is your impression of America and the Americans?

Ahmadinejad: In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, I am pleased to be able to welcome you to Tehran once again, after our extensive conversation almost three years ago. Now on the USA: Of course, one cannot get to know a country like the United States in short visits, but my speech and the discussions at Columbia University were very special to me. I am quite aware that a distinction must be drawn between the American government and the American people. We do not hold Americans accountable for the faulty decisions of the Bush administration. They want to live in peace, like we all do.

Read more @ SOTT

Conflicting reports on sale of S-300 to Iran

There are no obstacles to the delivery of Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Tehran, Iran's deputy foreign minister said on Wednesday.

"There are no problems with this [S-300] contract," Mehdi Safari said at the end of his visit to Moscow.

He offered no specifics about the contract's implementation, but dismissed concerns voiced by a number of countries over possible S-300 deliveries to Iran.

"After all, these are purely defensive weapons, and any country has the right to buy them. I believe this could only worry those states that have plans to attack others," he said.

Read more @ The Truth Seeker

Israel will not cooperate with UN Gaza inquiry

JERUSALEM, April 15 (Reuters) - Israel does not plan to cooperate with a U.N. agency's investigation into alleged war crimes by Israeli troops and Hamas militants during fighting in Gaza, an Israeli government official said on Wednesday.

[snip]

The Israeli government official said a letter was sent to Goldstone, a South African judge, through the Israeli embassy in Geneva informing him and the council that Israel believed it was "impossible to cooperate with the committee" in its inquiry.

Read more @ Reuters

Foreclosed owners should squat in their own homes

If you’re poor and the bank is coming for your home, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur has a plan for you. Just squat, she says.

Yes, this Ohio Democrat is actually encouraging her financially distressed constituents whose homes have been foreclosed upon to simply stay put.

Read more @ San Francisco BayView

Banker dies "jumping" off parking garage roof

TAMPA — One of the leading figures of the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s jumped to his death from a parking garage at Tampa International Airport last week.

Michael Wise, 64, leaped from the ninth floor of the garage in the early afternoon of April 8. The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the death an apparent suicide. It's unclear why Wise jumped.

Wise came to St. Petersburg earlier this decade to get a fresh start in the mortgage business.

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