The politics of greed is what keeps this world wrapped in corruption. If you want to stick around for a while longer, I suggest you educate yourself and try to do something constructive to help save what little good, honesty, and trust we have left.

A motto for us old vets: Take one with you!

Use your Go Back and Go Forward commands to get to where you were in a previous file.

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Highest Go To numbers are the latest Links of all coruption pages.


Go to 12585
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article3625.html
The Coming Collapse of International Credit Ratings Agencies - Moody's, Standard & Poor, and Fitch
Stock-Markets / Global Financial System
Feb 06, 2008 - 02:23 PM

By: Alex_Wallenwein


So you thought the Ambac/MBIA bond insurers crisis was bad?

You ain't seen nothin' yet
The problem, the challenge, the scandal, is not that the bond insurers are about to be downgraded. The real scandal lies in the fact that they haven't been downgraded a long time ago - and much deeper than from "AAA" to "AA". In fact, what needs to be downgraded are the major international credit ratings agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor, and Fitch.



Ironically, they are already in the process of downgrading themselves. Moody's, for example, recently issued a statement cautioning investors not to rely on its ratings so exclusively. Ha! That's like a corporate CFO saying investors shouldn't rely on the company's financial statements so much when making their decisions.

Why Downgrade the Ratings Agencies?
Why do they need to be downgraded? Because the top three or four ratings agencies are ridiculously behind the curve when it comes to letting investors know about problems with the entities whose credit standing and investment outlook they (pretend to) rate. The reason for that appears to be an unresolvable conflict of interest which emanates from how these agencies get paid. They get paid for their services by the companies (and governments) whose performance they rate.

Somewhere in the distant past, in the early 1970s, they were paid by the investors who needed to tap them for their information so investors could make educated judgments on investment risks. That is no longer so. Now, they serve two masters at the same time - but only one master really gets the benefit: the one who pays them.

Unfortunately, the ones left in the dust in this scenario are the world's institutional and professional investors, and they are largely the ones who most influence the prices of investment products.

What's the Big Deal?
The ratings agencies are the paper investing world's equivalent of an air traffic control system. Particularly institutional investors rely on them almost exclusively when deciding whose debt paper to buy and whose to ditch.

Picture yourself as the pilot of a big airliner. It is nighttime, it's foggy, and you need to land. The question is: are the runway and the landing approach clear? You communicate with the tower of the airport of your destination, and you hear: "Oh sure,go ahead" through your earphones, so you commence your landing approach.

What you don't realize, though, is that the way the air controllers get compensated has just been changed.

No longer do they get bonuses for sterling records of no accidents over a period of time. Now, they get paid extra if they can manage to land as many airliners as possible - simultaneously!

You can probably see where that might cause a little problem.

In other words, you can't rely on the air controllers' directives anymore - but you don't know that. So you crash-land your plane, only narrowly escaping an in-air collision with another plane, and then you start asking questions.

The world's institutional investors are as dependent on the accuracy of the agencies' ratings as airline pilots are on air traffic controllers, but just like in our analogy, the change in payment structure has compromised the interests of the recipient of the information.

One result of this conflict of interest is that, according to an interview with Sean Egan of Egan-Jones Ratings aired on CNBC Friday, February 1, 2008, the ratings agencies' bank and Wall Street investment house customers have actually exerted pressure on the agencies to issue ratings on CDOs - the very subprime mortgage-backed instruments that caused the current credit crunch!

As if that wasn't bad enough, the ratings agencies then reportedly began to demand that bond insurers develop "mutiple streams of income" in order to get their coveted "AAA" ratings - and that entailed insuring CDOs as well, which ultimately benefited their customers, the bankers, who wanted to push that toxic stuff into the markets.

Naturally, the agencies bowed to their masters requests, which in part caused them to sustain the very subprime-related losses they are now being downgraded for. Funny how that works, isn't it?

The Upshot
The upshot of all this is that the entire global professional investing world has traditionally heavily relied on these ratings outfits in making investment decisions. "AAA" ratings that used to be regarded as immovable, solid landmarks in the investment landscape now turn out to be nothing more than shape-shifting phantoms.

In fact Egan-Jones, which is a relatively new ratings agency that decided to follow the old model of getting investors to pay for their services, rates MBIA not "AA" (to where Moody's wants to downgrade it) but only a mere BB+, which is essentially junk status.

There is no telling how many other companies and bond-issuing governmental entities might be affected in a similar way. Quite tellingly, and in anticipation of potential future criticism, Moody's has recently warned that it may have to downgrade the United States of America's credit rating.

There are international efforts underway to "fix" the coming ratings disaster by making the companies adhere to "higher ethical standards. Yeah, right. That has always helped, hasn't it? Just think "Sarbanes-Oxley". The only thing that will fix the problem is to prohibit the ratings companies from accepting money from the institutions they rate. Period.

But, regardless of how, whether, and when the ratings companies themselves will get fixed, the neglect they have shown in the past has caused systemic problems. That malfeasance is opening up a veritable maelstrom, a black hole for international credit ratings. The collective reputation of these agencies has pumped up the value of many bank and government-issued debt instruments for the past three decades - and now that "value" is threatening to collapse.

The question now is: on how many - and on which ones - of these credit ratings did they goof up? Six years ago they failed to timely warn of Enron, Worldcom, and others. Now, it's Ambac and MBIA. Who's next?

The very fact that these agencies have been whitewashing their clients' credit ratings over the past several decades throws every single rating they have issued into doubt.
That means there are likely to be huge numbers of bone-deep ratings cuts coming down the pike - and nobody knows which ones, or how deep those cuts will be.



Go to 12584
http://www.switched.com/2008/02/07/mid-east-cable-cuts-now-affecting-85-million-are-terrorists-i/
Mid-East Cable Cuts Now Affecting 85-Million -- Are Terrorists Involved?
Posted Feb 7th 2008 10:12AM by Tim Stevens
Filed under: Computers

Over the past few weeks, numerous undersea data cables providing data access to large portions over the Middle East have been severed. Five separate cable cuts have been detected since January 23, a rash of incidents that some have blamed on wayward fishing trawlers, while others are suspecting terrorism. Regardless of the cause, the scope of the damage is just now becoming known, with 85-million users said to be currently unable to connect to the Internet.

The outages are primarily impacting people from Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and India, countries that rely on the undersea cables for their connectivity to the rest of the world. Repairs are ongoing right now, but it's unclear just how long they'll take or when the region will be back online. And, since the cause of the cuts is still unknown, there's no guarantee that once they're fixed, it won't just happen again.



Go to 12583
http://opensourceactivist.org/2008/02/06/bill-to-improve-health-care-in-mexico/
Bill to improve health care…in Mexico!
February 6th, 2008 · 8 Comments
The health care mess in the United States is a top concern of voters. Too many Americans find that, despite their best efforts, they are unable to provide quality health care for their families. Too many Americans live in fear that an illness might leave them destitute. Too many Americans spend years sacrificing to pay skyrocketing premiums only to discover that, when the need arises, their policies offer protections that are next to worthless.

Most of us agree that it’s simply not right that so many Americans, sincerely trying their best to provide for their families, are at the mercy of a phalanx of greedy insurance companies, medical malpractice lawyers, health care corporations, and other profiteers that have used decades of influence in Washington to institutionalize their chomp hold on the public jugular.

What would Americans think, then, of a member of Congress who introduced legislation, not to improve health care in the United States, but to improve health care in Mexico?

Insane? Drunk? Unworthy of public office?

What would Americans think, then, of a bill introduced in Congress that required federal agencies to come up with a plan, not to expand health coverage in the United States, but to expand health coverage in Mexico?

Impossible? Unthinkable? Wildly irresponsible?

What would Americans think, then, of the motives of a senator, who not only introduced a bill to improve Mexico’s health care system and extend coverage to a growing population of 120 million people, but gave health insurance companies the right to help devise the plan?

Blatantly corrupt? Grossly indifferent to the well-being of the American people? Downright treasonous?


Unbelievable as it may seem, the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 contained a provision giving insurance companies the right to help devise a plan for extending US health care to Mexico (Sec. 1004. BINATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE AND HEALTH INSURANCE).

Even more unbelievable, the senator who sponsored the bill is not on the verge of being thrown out of office for this odious piece of legislation. No, the senator who introduced the bill, Senator John McCain of Arizona, is on the verge of locking up the Republican nomination to be our next president.

Damn! How come you didn’t know that before you voted for John McCain on Tuesday, you ask?

You’ve been watching the all-day-every-day TV news coverage of the primaries.

You’ve been reading your local newspaper’s daily coverage of the races for the parties’ nominations.

You are an above-average-informed voter.

You know that

large majorities of young people and black people support Barack Obama,
a majority of white women over the age of 40 support Hillary Clinton,
a majority of Christian evangelicals support Mike Huckabee,
John McCain’s Republican supporters are moderates,
Barack Obama has doubled his support among southern white males since South Carolina,
Mitt Romney has financed much of his own campaign,
Iowa is lily-white,
Fox News cable television didn’t have enough room in its studio to include Republican candidate Ron Paul in a debate between the Republican candidates it televised,
Republicans hope Hillary wins,
McCain is the only Republican who can win in November, and everyone, even Democrats, respects his history as a POW,
Rudy Giuliani’s strategy to skip the first few primaries and focus on Florida was a bad one,
Oprah Winfrey supports Barack Obama, and not just because he’s African-American,
Arnold Schwarzenegger supports John McCain, but his wife supports Barack Obama,
Robert DeNiro supports Barack Obama because Obama makes him "believe,"
Ron Paul raised a record amount of money one day a couple of months ago,
large majorities of Latinos support Hillary Clinton,
Mitt Romney unhiply riffed on "Who Let the Dogs Out," and
the top vote-getting position for an American presidential candidate this year is to be for "change."
But you didn’t know that the only clear front-runner in the race to be our next president proposed, in the last session of congress, a bi-national health care system to be devised by insurance companies. To be devised by insurance companies, for crying out loud.

Eight years of George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and the Wall Street Journal’s “GOP stalwart,” Jack Abramoff, have left the Republican Party in such a tattered mess that its future is in doubt. But (and you’ll know this if you are a well-informed voter), anti-Bush Republicans are supporting…John McCain!

I don’t know. Maybe we’re too stupid to have a democracy.

Oh, and, by the way, all you Barack Obama supporters—before you start feeling all superior: while no one can deny how exceedingly important it is to elect a president who supports change—especially one that has the ability to make Robert DeNiro believe—there may be one characteristic Senator Obama possesses even more salient, if you can imagine, than the incidental fact of his father’s skin color: Barack Obama co-sponsored John McCain’s health care for Mexico legislation.



Go to 12582
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0826726720080208
Recession to be longer than usual: UMich
Fri Feb 8, 2008
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. economy has entered a recession that will be more painful and drawn out than the usual downturn, the director of the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey said on Friday.

Inflation pressures will linger despite the retrenchment in consumer spending, complicating the task of policy-makers, the University's Richard Curtin said in a report, citing data from industry group The Conference Board.

"This is no ordinary recession," he said. "The aftereffects will last much longer than the typical downturn."

He said the Conference Board's expectations index is a strong predictor of economic contractions, and that it is currently flashing red.

With Americans getting hit with everything from a housing downturn to excess borrowing, things will get worse before they get better.

"Consumers must take more drastic steps to stabilize their finances in the midst of high fuel and food prices, stagnant incomes, and record debt," Curtin said.

TWO AMERICAS

The new report adds that a rising wealth gap will, even more than usual, lead to disproportionate pain for middle- and lower-income Americans.

"Growing income inequality has insulated higher income groups to a greater extent than ever before," the report said.



Go to 12581
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/08/AR2008020801245.html?hpid=moreheadlines&hpid=topnews
Putin, in Speech, Accuses U.S. of Setting Off 'New Arms Race'

Putin, soon to leave office, offered a list of achievements. (Vladimir Rodionov - AP)
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, February 9, 2008; Page A09

MOSCOW, Feb. 8 -- President Vladimir Putin said Friday that "a new arms race has been unleashed in the world" as the United States moves forward with a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. Russia will field new weapons in response, he said, dismissing American assurances that the missile system is not directed against Russia as merely "diplomatic cover."

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"It's not our fault. We didn't start it . . . funneling multibillions of dollars into developing weapons systems," Putin declared in what may be his final major address before he leaves the Kremlin after presidential elections March 2 to become prime minister.

"Russia has and always will have a response to these new challenges," Putin declared. "Over the next few years, Russia will start production of new types of arms, with the same or even superior specifications compared to those available to other nations."

He said, however, that military spending should not come at the cost of the country's economic and social development.

Putin was addressing Russia's State Council, a gathering of ministers, regional governors and members of parliaments. Among those watching in the chandeliered St. George's Hall was Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's chosen successor, who is expected to coast to victory in next month's vote. His most vocal opponent, former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, has been barred from running.

Medvedev has struck a milder tone than his boss in recent speeches and has avoided rhetorical assaults on the West. He cut some anti-Western flourishes from a recent speech prepared by his staff, according to a report in Newsweek's Russian edition.

But Putin's swan song was in keeping with the president's increasingly harsh tone over the past couple of years as Russia and the West clashed over a host of issues, including the future status of Kosovo and Russia's democratic development.

Friday's uncompromising words sounded the now familiar theme that the West, resentful of Russia's resurgence under Putin's stewardship, is encircling the country by bringing neighbors into the NATO alliance and attempting to subvert it internally by funding opponents of the Kremlin. And although the West speaks of freedom and democracy, Putin said, its real agenda is to gain access to the natural resources that "God has graced us with."

"Thus, many conflicts, foreign policy actions and diplomatic protests reek of oil and gas," he said.

Among Russia's neighbors, Ukraine and Georgia are seeking membership in NATO. The three Baltic republics that were part of the Soviet Union are already in the alliance, as are many formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe.

"We drew down our bases in Cuba and in Vietnam. What did we get?" Putin said. "New American bases in Romania, Bulgaria. A new third missile defense region in Poland.

"We are categorically being told these actions aren't directed at Russia and therefore our concerns are completely unfounded," he continued. "That's not a constructive response."

Putin said that "irresponsible demagogy, attempts to split society and to use foreign assistance and interference in the course of political struggle in Russia are not only immoral, but also illegal."

The speech, which was punctuated by frequent applause, also enumerated what Putin saw as his achievements.

"We have returned to the world arena as a state which is taken account of and which can stand up for itself," he said.

Turning to the country's domestic development, he contrasted Russia's current stability and economic growth with what the Kremlin frequently describes as the chaos of the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin.

"We have managed to rid the country of the vicious practice of government decisions made under pressure from raw materials and financial monopolies, media moguls, foreign political circles and brazen populists that cynically ignored not only national interests but the basic needs of millions of people," Putin said. "First of all, we started restoring the constitutional order, reviving basic social guarantees to individuals and strengthening government institutions."

Putin noted proudly that Russia has joined "the ranks of the seven biggest economies in the world." But he said the country needs to diversify and no longer depend on sales of oil and other natural resources to fuel its growth.



Go to 12580
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/02/ron-paul-forces.html
Ron Paul forces Mitt Romney out of the GOP race
Clearly spooked by a few of Rep. Ron Paul's second-place finishes kind of close behind him, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Romney was so flustered in his dropout speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington Thursday, that he didn't even mention Ron Paul.

That's not unusual, actually. Hardly any other candidate and virtually no major media, especially CNN, has mentioned his name for the last year, so terrified are they of his stare and his libertarian-like views, including downsizing the federal government, bringing American troops home and abolishing the Federal Reserve.

Sometimes it seems almost like a media conspiracy to ignore the former ob-gyn. Except for not one....

but two Jay Leno appearances. They even give Paul less speaking time in the debates, if they don't ban him altogether.

Despite spending some $35 million of his own money and $55 million more that once belonged to other people, the 60-year-old Romney youngster was forced to give way to the 72-year-old, 10-term congressman from Texas, who has fired up thousands of dedicated and determined and very vocal and frustrated followers, young and old, across the country and permeating the Internet. He's even got one big-name donor, one big-name endorser and another perhaps maybe.

Ron Paul signs are still flapping in the prairie winds across Iowa, where Paul's caucus finish ahead of Rudy Giuliani launched the former New York mayor's eventual political decline. Then, in New Hampshire despite being barred from the nationally-televised Fox News debate, Paul beat former Sen. Fred Thompson, which began his inevitable political death spiral.

In the face of Paul's relentless campaigning here and there and his successful fundraising -- he raised nearly $20 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, more than any other Republican -- Romney, who only has an estimated $165 million of his personal fortune left, had no choice really but to quit.

Romney's exit follows the similar Paul-forced departures of other far more famous GOP candidates -- Giuliani, Thompson, Tommy Thompson, Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore. Jeb Bush didn't even consider trying.

That leaves only Pittsburgh-native Paul, somebody named John McCain and this Mike Huckabee fellow from Arkansas, who seems to have had considerable trouble keeping a job. He's been a radio talk host, a Baptist preacher, lieutenant governor and governor. And Huckabee's had trouble raising money. He got only $1 million in the third quarter compared to Paul's $5 million.

So Huckabee can't last much longer.

That will leave only McMaverick, a former Navy squadron commander and POW who endured nearly six years of solitary confinement in Vietnam and then, worse, 25 years of listening to congressional speeches. He didn't get around to mentioning Paul either in his speech Thursday, but he was probably afraid.

Paul's website reports he's raised another $5.3 million just since Jan.1, which is more than Hillary Clinton can loan herself in one week.

Paul has given the Democrats until early August to choose between Clinton and Barack Obama, who's so young he can't remember life without color TV.

According to an authoritative Ron Paul campaign news release, with all of his accumulated fifth, fourth, third and second places, Paul claims to have 42 delegates to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul come September.

That puts him only about 660 delegates behind McCain and barely 1,149 shy of the number necessary to seize the party nomination in the name of the Ron Paul Revolution.

And Texas doesn't vote until March 4!

-- Andrew Malcolm



Go to 12579
http://www.rense.com/general80/mcc.htm
McCain And Brain Dead
American Voters
By Frosty Wooldridge
2-8-8

How's immigration working out for you fellow Americans? Got a goober in your back pocket? Like what you see in Mexi-fornia? How about Mexi-zona? What can you say about Mexi-Texas? How about that 1965 Immigration Reform Act that added 100 million people in four decades? How about the next 100 million immigrants added by 2040?

Ya' just gotta' love the results don't ya'? What would Andy of Mayberry say?

"Hey, Andy," Goober said, while twirling his hat.

"Ya' Goob," Andy Taylor muttered.

"What do you git when you has over 100 anglers down on the lake for the Fishin' Derby that can only handle 20 fishermen Andy?" Goober said.

"Jist a bit over-crowded," Andy said, scowling. "Reckon only a few will catch a fish and have a harder time fightin' all the others bumping into them."

"Don't make no sense does it?" Goober said.

"No sense atall," Andy said.

Senator John McCain shot to the top for the Republicans on Super Tuesday. What could possibly be running through the minds of voters who voted for him?

McCain along with Teddy Kennedy signed the amnesty package for 4.3 million illegal aliens in 1986. They promised to secure the borders 22 years ago. Today, in the last 22 years, they watched 20 million more illegals breach our borders. In June of last year, both senators voted to double legal immigration. Both voted for another amnesty. Both voted for the Dream Act. Both worked to dissolve America's borders into the North American Union. Both men voted to get 4,000 of our kids killed in Iraq-and more to die.

Both men show their ages at 72 and 75 to be out of touch, running out of life and both remaining out of reach with reality.

Yet, Arizona republicans in droves voted to thrust a broken down old war horse into the presidency! With his open borders record and complete chaos in Arizona, why in the name of common sense, would Arizona voters vote for McCain? He failed them, he failed our Constitution and he failed in leadership.

This election will prove the most devastating in our nation's history if pro-open borders candidates Hillary and/or Obama reach the White House or an old man named John McCain takes the presidency. It's astounding to me that an old man won't or can't let go the reigns of power. I remember Reagan fell asleep in cabinet meetings. He proved a figure-head only in his last four years. With McCain or Hillary/Obama, either way, Americans from every walk of life face a mind-boggling immigration human armada out of the third world that will deluge our ability to sustain this civilization.

My friend George Sura in Fort Collins said it best, "Immigration is the most formidable weapon of mass destruction threatening America today. Ironically, invaders have put our country at risk without firing a shot. The White House, the heavies in Congress and the smaller fish in state legislatures do not seem to have the collective intellectual depth or common sense to see what is upon us and how rampant immigration will degrade the lives and opportunities of our progeny. Every day brings America closer to irreversible chaos. Behind this issue are blind forces to reckon with. No politician, political party, corporation, religious fervor, investment, pop morality or individual aspiration should come before country. Ever! The brokers who recklessly advocate or condone pervasive, unending and limitless immigration are steersman with Titanic-like wheelhouse credentials. They should be kicked out of the wheelhouse of this nation."

I'm beside myself fellow Americans. Are we that dumb? Are we that duped by the media to vote McCain into the presidency? Aren't his past actions enough information to vote for anyone else but McCain?

Do we realize that McCain/Hillary/Obama maintain the same agenda: dissolve America's borders, dismantle our sovereignty, flood this country with immigrants, and ultimately, thrust us into a North American Union?!

Do we realize that McCain hasn't done anything noteworthy or visionary in 25 years in the Senate? He watched us fall, in fact, voted us into financial purgatory. He voted for insourcing, outsourcing and offshoring to take 3.1 million manufacturing jobs out of the USA. He said and did nothing as he watched his state of Arizona suffer 500,000 illegal aliens. He watched 20 million illegals breach our borders without a word of protest. He voted for and will continue our war in Iraq. He did nothing to work toward energy conservation in 25 years.

John McCain proves to be a spectator on the national stage. How do we think that would change if he reached the White House? It wouldn't.

If Republicans choose John McCain to represent them on November 4th, it shows they choose old, out of touch, the past, inactivity and lethargy over vitality, exuberance, liveliness and creative process. The results of that kind of leader will prove a continuation of path paved by George W. Bush.

It will show that voters remain myopic, inflexible, constricted, short term thinkers and inexorably brain dead.

"Makes no sense atall Goober," Andy said.

Take action: www.thesocialcontract.com ; www.numbersusa.com ; www.fairus.org ; www.firecoalition.com ; www.alipac.us ; www.capsweb.org ; www.vdare.com ; www.immigrationcounters.com ; www.proenglish.org ; www.patriotunion.org ; www.SafeAmericaAct.com; www.cairco.org ; www.politicaltruthandfact.com ; www.patriotunion.org ; WWW.immigrationshumancost.org ; www.limitstogrowth.org ; www.balance.org



Go to 12578
http://www.rense.com/general67/dwde.htm
Overthrow Of The
American Republic - Part 78
Bush Orders US Troops
From Germany To Romania
By Sherman H. Skolnick
8-11-5

The occupant and resident of the White House, George W. Bush, has ordered the bulk of the U.S. Troops in Germany, to be quietly sent over the next 18 months to Romania. Why and How?

Some background.

In World War 2, the German forces were hoping to conquer Cairo and go East from that, to take over the oil fields of Iran, to support the Nazi war machine. The first Shah of Iran, Peacock Throne Pahlavi (1925), Persian dictator, pro-Hitler, would have made a useful German ally. It was not to be despite the efforts of "The Desert Fox", General Rommel, much later assassinated by the Gestapo in an aborted effort by Rommel and others to assassinate Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Nazi government, to spare the German common people further bloodshed because they followed and believed a madman and a demagogue.

As an alternative, Germany was using the Ploesti oil fields of Romania. U.S. bombers, in a far from successful raid, targeted Ploesti. Many U.S. airmen died in the tragic effort.

Thr post-war dictators of Romania, in a violent coup, were supposedly overthrown and replaced by the dictators' surrogates, the current pliable group.

In the post-war period, too many Americans, and others, came to believe that Romania's oilfields were depleted. Knowledgeable sources, however, contend that Romania has sufficient oil reserves currently for another ten years. Moreover, large deposits of natural gas have been discovered offshore of Romania, in the Black Sea.

Also, too many Americans, and others, have forgotten that Germany, now consolidated as one nation, East and West, is still a foreign-military-occupied country. More than sixty years after the Second War, large numbers of U.S. armed forces are stationed and garrisoned in Germany.

Commander-in-Chief Bush has arbitrarily and unfairly imposed on the occupied German government that Germany supposedly "agree" and "co-operate" to the removal of upwards of seventy five thousand U.S. troops over the next 18 to be sent to Romania. As an alternative to the failed U.S. invasion of oil-rich Iraq, done without a U.S. Constitution-mandated Declaration of War by Congress, Bush seeks to control the oil and natural gas riches of Romania. And Bush schemes to have a dagger against Russian power in the Mid-East, Central Asia, and nearby lands.

A well-kept secret is that Bush ordered to be built in Romania the largest U.S. military base outside the U.S. mainland.

So far, Moscow boss V. Putin has appeared to be tolerant and patient as the U.S. surrounds Russia, on all sides, with U.S. war bases. The Russian people are not enemies of the American people and vice versa as well. Like in the U.S. there is. however, an element in the Russian military that is blood-thirsty. They strongly insist that Putin safeguard "Mother Russia" and reverse, with war if needed, the U.S. military base encirclement of Russia.

While this is happening, the new royal dictator of Saudi Arabia appears not to trust large portions of Saudi investments in the U.S. As a start, Saudi has ordered the withdrawal of over 350 Billion dollars of their funds sent to the U.S. just in the past 18 months. Some assert that the Bush administration, to assure continuing oil from Saudi, by the U.S. military dividing up Saudi, with the U.S. military occupying with an iron fist the Eastern portion from which the oil comes.

By setting up the huge U.S. Military base in Romania, Bush intends to make use of the oil and natural gas from Romania at the same time being in a position to deter, or threaten, Putin if Russia interferes with Bush's mad plan to either bomb and/or invade Iran, adjacent to Russia and a Russian client State.

On the other hand, Putin reminds Bush that Russia, through one pipeline, supplies most of the natural gas energy to Central and Western Europe. If Europe goes along with Bush's secret Romania insanity, many parts of Europe will freeze in the winter.

All this is occurring against a backdrop of efforts by a group of U.S. Admirals and Generals, called in miliary jargon flag officers, to invoke provisions of the Uniform Military Code, authorizing them to arrest their Commander-in-Chief Bush for treason, committed against the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights and the American common people.

If Bush has them arrested for mutiny, and if they are not assassinated, they intend to prove at Courts Martial, that Bush is a fictitious President; that he caused by bribery a Five-Judge majority of the U.S. Supreme Court to corruptly and arbitrarily install Bush as the occupant and resident of the Oval Office in 2000 and a further fake presidency by massive election computer fraud in 2004; that George W. Bush as supervised by Daddy Bush, with the full assistance and treachery of their joint mistress Condoleeza Rice, had full prior knowledge of 9-11 and caused the murder of three thousand fellow Americans; that George W. Bush started an unconstitutional war by fraud and deceit amounting to treason, invading Iraq; that George W, Bush caused the death and serious wounding in mind and body of many thousands of American men and women sent to Iraq as an invading force, serving no legitimate American purpose other than aiding and abetting the conspiratorial Oil Cartel including Richard Cheney and the Bush Crime Family.

That flag officers, to support their position, have undisputed documentary proof ot the crimes of George W. Bush and Daddy Bush.

Actually, President John F. Kennedy was publicly executed in an open car in Dallas, by the Anglo-American Aristocracy, constituting a coup. That every President after JFK covered up this overthrow of the Presidency.

So that those brave and patriotic flag officers in the process now of arresting treasonous Bush, are, for the good of fellow Americans, conducting a counter-coup.

To try to stop this counter-coup, Bush has ordered one of the flag officers, a General, to be arrested. The unfortunate reality now becoming evident to those knowing about this, is that the friction between the North and the South, continues from the end of the War Between The States in 1865 to now.

Some Northern flag officers vow to make the counter-coup successful. On the other hand, Southern flag officers have taken up arms against the Northern flag officers. There has been unreported bloodshed among the highest level of the U.S. Military,



Go to 12577
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=128
HOW THE JEWS ARE DESTROYING AMERICA
Excerpted & Adapted From Patrick Grimm’s
“How The Jewish Supremacists Wrecked America” Here

Real Jew News Is Published By Brother Nathanael Kapner - Copyright © 2008
This Article May Be Reproduced Only With Link To Real Jew News or Zionist Watch

1. The Jews have emasculated our nation by destroying our pride in America’s Christian history. Without a commonly held memory a nation ceases to exist as a cohesive unit.

2. The Jews have labeled America’s Christian Founding Fathers as “racists” and “white slavers” while at the same time suppressing the fact that Jews financed and participated in the Black slave trade.

3. The Jews have promoted multiculturalism, celebrating every culture–no matter how backward and barbaric–except for Western white European culture. As Jewish feminist Susan Sontag, (originally named Susan Rosenblatt), stated: “The white race is the cancer of humanity.” But Susan Rosenblatt Sontag’s own cancerous contagion is her lesbian perversity with photographer Annie Leibovitz and Nicole Stéphane Rothschild, the banking heiress turned movie actress.

4. The Jews have driven our Christian heritage from the public square through the efforts of the Jewish Lobby Groups, the ADL and the ACLU. American children will grow up in a society wiped clean of any vestiges of the Bible, Christ or the Cross. However, the Menorah is still allowed in public displays and in the White House for Hannukah celebrations.

5. The Jews have torn our borders open, permitting, indeed cheering, the Third World immigrants who will soon replace the white Christian American majority. The Jacob Javitzes and the Lautenbergs have designed legislation that will genocide us. They have done all this while simultaneously supporting Israel’s “Jews-only” immigration policy.

6. The Jews have pushed, created and profited from pornography and perverse entertainment. The “chosen people” make up 90% of all American pornographers. The Hollywood they run has mainstreamed wife-swapping, common law marriages, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, transvestitism, pedophilia, drug and alcohol abuse and self-indulgence. Bestiality will be next on the list for these society-corrupting Jews.

7. The Jews have brought homosexuality out of the closet and into our faces through numerous “rights” legislations. Sodomy is shown in their Jewish controlled media and movies as normal, healthy, enjoyable and something to celebrate openly in as brazen a fashion as possible. Six year old children in our Public Schools are shown videos promoting anal sex between males. The Jews have founded, funded and fronted every homosexual advocacy group in America.

8. The Jews have brainwashed American children in other areas besides sexual depravity. With their control of the Public Educational System and Collegiate level academia, they have filled the minds of the young with Marxism, Deconstructionism, relativism, anti-White hatred, and lies about “diversity” and non-judgmentalism. These sundry “isms” are the pernicious lies that have jettisoned the positive “isms” that once bloomed in our society: absolutism, patriotism, altruism, individualism, nationalism, etc.

9. The Jews have subverted our government. With Zionist control of the media, both print and television, the two major political parties have been steered away from the interests of the European-American majority, rendering us incapable of self-preservation. The war in Iraq, the 9/11 attacks and a possible clash with Iran in the near future, are all results of the Zionist subjugation of the most powerful nation on earth, and the prioritizing of Israel’s concerns over those of the United States.

10. The Jews have brought radical feminism to American women and girls. Thanks to the steady diet of anti-male, anti-marriage and anti-family books, lectures and college courses from the likes of the Gloria Steinems, the Betty Friedans, and the Susan Sontags, many women now see the prospect of marriage and child-rearing as an impediment to their liberation.

11. The Jews have made abortion into a sacrament. Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) is run from top to bottom by Jews. Unregulated abortion on demand is touted in the Jewish controlled Media as a positive social good for the United States. With a large percentage of abortion doctors being Jewish, the Jews have definitely made a killing out of killing.

12. The Jews have sold us the packaged lies of egalitarianism. All are equal in intelligence, morality, accomplishments — except of course, for one group. The Jewish “race” as their own leaders refer to their people, is covertly declared as being uniquely moral and wise. The Jews truly believe they have a God-given right to rule over us. To criticize their pernicious power is the most egregious societal taboo resulting in being blackballed as being, “Anti-Semitic!”


EVERYTHING ON THIS LIST can be easily verified. Jews, mostly Zionists, have spearheaded every movement that now threatens our destruction. Jews have extended their tentacles into all facets of our country squeezing every vestige of wholesome life out of America.

Along with Jewish expansionism comes the debauching of all peoples, all heritages, and all traditions, except for their Judaism and Hanukah Menorahs now erected during our Christmas on the White House Lawn. But no Nativity Scenes will the Jews allow! They are hypocrites! The Jews cry out “separation of church & state” don’t they? Except when it comes to their wretched Anti Christ menorahs!

What can we do to stop the Jews? Will we fear and quake before the buzzword of “anti-Semite” or will we stand and battle for the survival of Christian civilization? It’s up to all of us to wage war against the Jews, especially we Christians, for America will either be a Christian America or a Jewish America. There is no in between!



Go to 12576
http://www.madcowprod.com/02072008.html
February 7, 2008
by Daniel Hopsicker

Four more American-registered drug planes have been seized from the 50-plane fleet of drug running aircraft amassed by Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Figures of interest in the transactions, the MadCowMorningNews has learned, include financial backers of two of this year's Republican candidates for President, as well as, unsurprisingly, an aviation company in St. Petersburg, FL. which can justifiably be called "one of the usual suspects."

Coincidentally or not, the American owners of the four planes (like the two busted earlier) were largely people and companies with 'special relationships' with U.S. political movers and shakers, including the CIA and the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.

Yet, despite this inconvenient fact, the FBI persists in referring to the aircraft's American owners as "legitimate aircraft brokers" and "unwitting sellers"


"This is Your GOP. This is your GOP... on drugs."
The Republican connection begins with the statement in court filings that the money to purchase the planes was laundered through a bank which is almost invariably described as “fast-growing” in admiring business news articles.

The drug money was wired, usually from Mexico, to an account at Commerce Bank in Miami, whose Chairman, Dennis Nixon, is the South Texas Co-chair of John McCain’s campaign.

Nixon was also a Bush Pioneer and Ranger in George W. Bush’s two Presidential campaigns, raising $300,000 in one night for Bush’s re-election bid in Texas border town Laredo.

High-profile Texas businessman Dennis Nixon's bank is even— in one of the sales—involved on both ends. Money was wired from Mexico, first to an account at Commerce Bank in Miami, then on to International Bank of Commerce (IBC) in Oklahoma to complete the sale.

Dennis Nixon's International Bancshares of San Antonio owns both banks.


"Abuse of power comes as no surprise."
The second transaction with apparent Republican 'ramifications" involves a Grumman Albatross (N7027Z) seaplane apparently sold to the Sinaloa Cartel.

N7274Z, reported El Nuevo Herald, had been "purchased, with several twists between August to September 2006, from the HSBC bank in Mexico by Jorge Barraza, a resident of Tamil Nadu, Jorge Medina and Daniel Medina on behalf of Insured Aircraft Title Service in Oklahoma."

El Nuevo Herald identifies the plane with the “N” number N7027Z as a Beech King Air. However, the grand jury indictment identifies the plane only by its N number, N7027Z.

A check of FAA records revealed that that “N” number was assigned to a Grumman Albatross seaplane. An FAA spokesman told us, when we inquired, that that N number has been used exclusively by the Grumman Albatross for the past 15 years.

Moreover a reliable source in Fort Lauderdale stated to us recently that seaplanes have recently become all the rage in drug trafficking circles.


A seaplane would seem an excellent idea
The seaplane, or "warbird," as aircraft broker sites call planes decommissioned from the military, was owned by Jay Koven, whose construction company built Rudy Giuliani’s Emergency Command Center in Building 7 of the World Trade Center.

The decision to locate New York City's Command Center high above the one site in NYC which had already been attacked by foreign terrorists was controversial... even before it had to be abandoned on September 11.

According to “The Real Rudy,” a Giuliani expose in American Prospect magazine in September 2006, Koven and his partner gave $4,000 to Giuliani at a party given in 1998 at the behest of WTC lessor Larry Silverstein, at the Fifth Avenue home of his public relations guru.

Silverstein had signed the lease for the command center just two weeks earlier, not nearly enough time to avoid charges of a quid pro quo. And sure enough...

"Attendance was obligatory," recalled Jay Koven’s partner in Ambassador Construction. “The invitation meant we were expected to give a contribution.”


Queasy Rider

Concluded the magazine, “The timing couldn't have been queasier.”

We were somewhat surprised when Koven returned a phone call made to his home in Larchmont.

"The plane was not seized," he told us. "I still own the airplane. I can't really tell you anything, and I'm not at liberty to say more about what little I do know. But I can tell you... I'm just a normal guy with an airplane I'm trying to sell."

He gave the phone number for an aircraft broker who's currently advertising the Albatross for sale, and the broker confirmed that the plane has not been seized, and is for sale.

There are many who feel, and Mr. Koven may be one, and with some justification, that we are adrift on a vast sea, in a tiny boat, in a world we never made.

But what of the owner's of the other planes on the list?


"Round up the usual suspects... again."

At least one company involved in the sale of the four seized American planes can by now be justifiably called one of the “usual suspects.”

Amazingly, SkyWay Aircraft is once again among the drug running airplane’s sellers.

Skyway Aircraft, located at the small Alfred Whitted Municipal Airport in downtown St. Petersburg, is not to be confused with the notorious and now-defunct other SkyWay Aircraft, which owned the DC9 whose bust with 5.5 tons of cocaine aboard kicked off the scandal.

SkyWay’s owner, Larry W. Peters, has vociferously denied any involvement between his company and the other Skyway, Brent and Glen Kovar’s, which was located 15 minutes away at St-Pete Clearwater Int’l.

And no wonder. The Kovar’s SkyWay increasingly looks like nothing more than an elaborate front for drug smuggling.

But being (undeservingly?) tarred with the same name, if not the same brush, may not be Peter’s biggest problem.

His SkyWay sold a Cessna Conquest II (N5113S), suspected of being used to fly drugs from South America to Africa, according to a report in the Tampa Tribune, making this the third plane “sold” by Larry Peters' hapless SkyWay Aircraft to “buyers” later determined to be drug traffickers.

No three strikes law, apparently, applies.


Bible Institute: Good book provides good 'cover'
The very first plane seized was an older Beech King Air (N1100M) exported to Venezuela on October 23, 2006. The plane was supposedly owned by a company in Doral, located northwest of Miami, close to Miami International Airport, called Plans and Parts Enterprises LLC, but the State of Florida’s Division of Corporations has no company doing business in the state listed by that name.

Another of the three Beech King Airs (N50AJ), may have been flown by controversial Moody Bible Institute’s Summer Institute of Linguistics, widely accused in the Latin American press of being funded by American intelligence, and suspected of involvement in the 2003 CIA-backed coup in Haiti.

The plane also made numerous flights to Albert Whitted (KSPG) Airport, the small St. Petersburg airport where SkyWay Aircraft is located.

It is apparently owned by Communications International Inc, a telecom company in Vero Beach, FL. But as recently as 2004 it may have been flown in South America by the Moody Bible Institute. It is pictured on the website of Robert Peterson, one of Moody’s pilots, but it is unclear whether he was flying it for Moody.


Nasty Venezuelans keep pulling Uncle Sam's chain.

News of four new planes seized—three Beech King Air twin-engine turbojets and a Grumman Albatross seaplane decommissioned by the U.S. military—was first revealed in a story last Friday in Spanish-language El Nuevo Herald.

Under a headline loosely translated as “US dismantles flotilla of drug trafficking planes,” the paper unearthed documents filed in Federal Court in Miami last October revealing new details of what apparently is an ongoing U.S. multi-agency operation to dismantle the huge fleet of American-registered aircraft amassed by the Sinaloa Cartel during the past several years.

The main actor, at least in the court filings and criminal complaint, appears to be Venezuelan businessman Pedro Jose Benavides Natera, who ran a system used to purchase American planes for use by Mexican drug cartels which the FBI characterizes as "a complex international money laundering scheme."

The 51-year old Benavides, who goes on trial in Miami next month, is charged with laundering drug profits to buy U.S. aircraft to smuggle cocaine, using accounts at Commerce Bank in Miami to acquire aircraft for the drug trafficking organization (DOT.)

Mexican newspapers reported over the weekend that Judicial Police in Mexico City may have become aware of the scheme as early as 1998, when they arrested “Cambio de Change Puebla” owner Pedro Alatorre after one of the "customers" at his money exchange overnight went from financial transactions totaling $100,000 per month to over $800,000 per week.

Alatorre, who began rubbing elbows with Mexico City’s elite as a tennis pro at a racquet club there, spent five months in jail at the time before being released.


Maybe its the red beret. Raspberry might be better.

The ringleader of the operation was... you guessed it. A Venezuelan...

Drug kingpin Carlos Ayala Lara, according to the FBI, was responsible for funneling money from drug traffickers in Venezuela installed to indicted Sinaloa cartel money man Pedro Alatorre Damy’s chain of money exchanges at major airports in Mexico, Cambio de Change de Puebla.

Reported El Nuevo Herald, “The traffickers are operating in Venezuela and Mexico. Several planes have already been confiscated, others are under observation, and there have been numerous arrests of suspects in Mexico and the United States.”

In the court documents, FBI agent Michael Hoenigman cites “a confederation of individuals" whose job was to scout out U.S. aircraft desired by Venezuela-based drug traffickers, and then buy them for use in ferrying cocaine shipments around the globe.

The operation—or at least the publicity surrounding it—seems aimed directly at Venezuela. Authorities from both the United States and Colombia allege Venezuela has become a sanctuary for Colombian drug traffickers, which Venezuela denies.


Its a war on some drugs. Not theirs.
But evidence in the case of one of the two planes already caught, the Gulfstream business jet which went down in Mexico in September carrying four tons of cocaine, indicated that the plane never touched down in Venezuela.

Instead, it took off from the Medellin International Airport in Rio Negro, Colombia, currently the strong-hold of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

The four seized planes join two CIA-and Dept. of Homeland Security-linked planes already linked to the Sinaloa drug fleet. A DC-9 (N900SA) registered to former SkyWay partner Frederic Geffon’s Royal Sons Inc from St. Petersburg FL was busted in Mexico carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine, and a Gulfstream II business jet (N987SA) crash-landed carrying 4 tons in September in the Yucatan after failing to land at airports in Cancun and Merida.

Finally, another bank cited in the court filings for moving Sinaloa cartel drug money is HBSC Bank in Mexico City. Curiously, this is also the bank used by Chinese drug trafficker Zhenli Ye Gon, whose Mexico City home was discovered to be stuffed with over $200 million in cash.

Ye Gon claimed he was merely “holding” the money, which literally filled his home in Mexico City, for Mexican politicians, who threatened him with death if he demurred. What U.S. and Mexican officials are hoping to avoid is the question...

Who can say 'no' to a deal like that?



Go to 12575
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=6529
Few Corporations Control Global Farming
02-07-2008
Guardian

A couple of years ago I visited a small cooperative in the south of Brazil which was rearing chickens for Sadia, Brazil's largest poultry producer. Pointing to the tens of thousands of chicks crowded together in a battery, one of the co-op members, Oney Zamarchi, said they reared the chickens just as the company decreed, even poking the chicks day and night to keep them awake and eating all the time. When the chickens reached 45 days old, they were big enough to be slaughtered - some were so fat they couldn't stand - and were sent to the slaughterhouse. A colleague visiting a poultry farm in Thailand a few months later described an identical process. But how could this synonymous operation be happening in different parts of the world?

The answer lies in the fact that a handful of poultry breeders now control the chicken industry. They have been instrumental in the creation of a few types of chicken that have the characteristics that global supermarkets require: they grow quickly and have a lot of tender white meat. The breeders supply tens of thousands of poultry companies throughout the world with the genetic material, the DNA, of the animals. One German company, Erich Wesjohann Grupp, supplies the genetic stock for an estimated 68% of all the world's white-egg layer hens, and a Dutch company (Hendrix Genetics) provides a similar proportion of the stock for brown-egg layer hens. Poultry companies then furnish this material to "multipliers", who produce tens of thousands of chicks. It is these chicks that go to the farmers to be fattened.

This technological revolution in poultry farming has occurred at a time of other far-reaching changes. New intensive methods of agriculture have made it possible for farmers to produce massive soya and maize harvests. This, in turn, has allowed the production of millions of tonnes of concentrated chicken feed, which is needed to rear poultry in confined spaces. Meanwhile, market reforms, backed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have ruined hundreds of thousands of smallholders in the developing world, forcing peasant farmers - such as Zamarchi - to sacrifice their independence and sign contracts with the poultry companies.

Taken together, these changes have meant that the poultry companies can provide supermarkets throughout the world with huge quantities of cheap chicken. And lower prices and intensive advertising campaigns mean people are eating far more of it.

Developing countries have become the leading worldwide suppliers of this cheap chicken because land and labour cost less. Brazil is the world's leading exporter - the industry, which is still growing, already employs some 4 million people. As the agricultural frontier marches north into the Amazon basin, the poultry industry - with its feed production plants, hatcheries, slaughterhouses and processing plants - is following in its wake. It is possible that some of the chickens consumed in the UK have been reared on land that just a generation ago was tropical forest.

These changes are not only confined to the poultry industry, however. Cattle and pig rearing are also experiencing rapid change - although on a smaller scale. A rapid process of concentration has occurred, with the breeders becoming integrated with the meat processors, creating agro-industial giants. Today, just as a handful of companies supply the genetic material for poultry, increasingly other big groups control the material for pigs, cattle and fish.

Gene technology

Agro-giants have realised that the same principles of gene technology can be applied across a broad spectrum of farming, both livestock and arable. It makes sense, they say, for a single vast group to operate in all sectors. So a new form of horizontal concentration is under way. After a series of takeovers, a new gene giant, headed by the UK's Genus plc, has brought together the largest breeding companies in the cattle, pig and aquaculture sectors.

Monsanto, the US company that dominates the genetic modification of seeds, has moved into swine genetics. Within a few years, a tiny group of huge companies will almost certainly control the genetics of all commercial farming, from Argentina's soya plantations to Thailand's poultry farms and Canada's wheat prairies. With the support of a rigid system of patenting, these gene giants will be the new lords of global farming.

Other more significant processes are gaining momentum. The agro-giants that have emerged are confident that, despite current consumer resistance, gene technology will dominate global livestock farming in the near future. A transgenic salmon that takes half the normal time to grow will probably be launched on the US market next year. Avigenics, a US pharmaceutical company, has been producing genetically engineered chickens for more than four years, though none has yet been marketed. And we will soon be eating meat from cloned animals, since the EU has announced that no special approval procedures are necessary.

Does this matter to us, the consumers? Yes, because some of the consequences are serious and unplanned. Local animal breeds throughout the world, which are of no interest to the big companies, are becoming extinct, to the tune of one breed a month. Many of these animals are resistant to disease and able to survive on little food and water, characteristics that will be needed as the world moves into an era of unprecedented climatic change.

Disease

Genetic breeds are less hardy and the genetic uniformity of industrial livestock creates the perfect breeding ground for the evolution of highly pathogenic strains of disease. Outbreaks of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome in pigs is already occurring, for example, as well as avian flu. The official response to these outbreaks is almost always to ban freerange livestock, with the argument that tighter biosafety measures are required. So, the big companies, which created the conditions for disease in the first place, end up profiting from it, because competitors are forced out of business.

What is particularly scary is the likelihood that one of these diseases will mutate into a deadly human disease. The authorities should be insisting on wholesale changes in the way that industrial farming is organised but, instead, they are taking measures that deepen the structural problems.

Sue Branford helped edit a study of livestock farming published in the January edition of Seedling, a magazine produced by Grain.



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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=512573&in_page_id=1770
Teenagers offered implants to stop pregnancy for years
By DANIEL MARTIN - More by this author »

Last updated at 22:30pm on 6th February 2008

Comments (12)

Teenage girls will be steered towards long-term contraceptives in the battle to reduce the number of underage pregnancies.

Many fail to take the traditional Pill regularly and cannot use condoms properly, ministers say.

These methods are having little impact on the teenage pregnancy rate, which remains the highest in Western Europe.

Scroll down for more...


The alternatives - such as contraceptive jabs and implants, and intrauterine coils - do not need to be topped up every day and last between three months and five years.

Ministers say the policy, backed with a £26.8million cash injection to the Health Service, could lead to a dramatic fall in the estimated 400,000 unwanted pregnancies each year.

But family rights campaigners warned that the move would encourage promiscuity and could fuel the rise in sexually-transmitted infections such as chlamydia.

Others expressed fears about side effects associated with the long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs).

The plan was unveiled yesterday by public health minister Dawn Primarolo at the launch of a new charity, the Association for Young People's Health.

She said: "There is increasing evidence of the key role contraception plays in preventing teenage pregnancy. We need to use this evidence and improve access to the full range of methods of contraception."

Although Britain's rate of teenage pregnancies has fallen from the peak years of the late 1990s, it is still the second highest in the Western world after the U.S. In 2005, there were 39,804 conceptions by under-18s in England - a rate of 41.3 per thousand.

The Department of Health said it wants to see greater use of LARCs because the success of condoms and contraceptive pills depends on "correct and consistent use".

It estimates that £100million a year could be saved by tackling the level of teenage conception.

At the moment, only 14 per cent of women use LARCs. But family planning clinics will be encouraged to use them rather than simply dishing out condoms and the Pill.



Go to 12573
http://www.rense.com/general80/3sdate.htm
Why Obama Is A Sure Loser
And A Prelude To The McCain-Lieberman Disaster
By Webster Tarpley
2-8-8

With David Swanson, Michael Moore, and David Lindorff (who should know better) all joining the swoon of the controlled corporate media for Obama, it is time to re-assert reality. The Super-Tuesday results show conclusively that Obama could never win the general election in November. He would be yet another losing Democratic candidate, acceptable to wealthy elitists but not to the voters from working families of the middle class and lower middle class, doomed to go the way of George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry. He appeals to two groups ­ well-off suburbanites and blacks, and these will never be enough to carry the general election.

Any Democratic candidate who cannot win California and New York should probably call it a day. That applies to Obama, but his situation is even worse. The voter pool for the Democratic primaries is notoriously not typical of the broader US population. The Democratic primaries have been skewed for decades by the presence of large numbers of upper-middle class elitists concerned about environmentalism, race and gender quotas, balanced budgets, good government, corruption, gridlock, excessive partisanship, and related issues. They are not interested in the minimum wage, trade union rights, stopping home foreclosures, and other kitchen table concerns of the less well off. In this year's Super Tuesday, it was estimated that about 56% of the voters on the Democratic Party side had been to college ­ about twice the level for the population as a whole. Yet, even with this voter pool, Obama could not win a single Electoral College megastate vital for any Democratic candidate, with the sole exception of his own home base of Illinois.

OBAMA TROUNCED IN THE MEGA-STATES

The list of states captured by Obama on Feb. 5 is largely a joke, except for Illinois and a couple of others. He proudly lists Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, and Utah. What do these states have in common? They are states which a Democrat could never win in a general election. Under the Electoral College system, Democratic votes in these states are worthless ­ they will be thrown away. How many people are there in the Alaska Democratic Party? The caucus turnout seems to have been below 10,000 people. Idaho is one of the most reactionary states ­ the Democratic Party there could meet in a phone booth. The same goes for Utah. Delaware is a perfect state for Obama ­ rich Volvo-driving, chablis and brie elitists in the Philadelphia suburbs, but it does not look like America. Colorado is another Obama state where the well-off suburban voter can be decisive in a Democratic primary. True, Obama won Connecticut, which has some union voters, but it looks like Greenwich, Cos Cob, and Yale carried the day. Missouri might fall to Clinton on a recount; in any case, the race was very close. Minnesota is a special case because of the Democrat Farmer-Labor Party; this was in any case a state that went for Mondale, for various reasons ­ not a good bellwether.

To win an election, a Democrat must win the Electoral College megastates to get to the 270 plus electoral votes needed to eject the GOP from the White House. Mrs. Clinton carried these states convincingly, starting with California, where all of Obama's money could not save him. California is so huge, so crucial, and so much a symbol of America's future in the Pacific century, that the argument could well end here. A Democrat who cannot win California has no hope of entering the White House. But there is much more.

RICH ELITISTS FOR OBAMA

The Obama campaign looks very much like the past campaigns of Howard Dean, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, and other losers of the past. He appeals to wealthy elitists, and therefore has a fundraising base. He can turn out small numbers of dedicated liberal activists for caucuses, as we have seen in Iowa. He can use the Internet to get money in the same way that Howard Dean did. He enjoys the benefits of a collective media swoon, and the systematic fawning of the media elites. But none of this adds up to the ability to win a general election.

Obama lost Massachusetts, in spite of the effusions of the politically decadent Kennedy clan. Despite media hype, he lost New Jersey. He lost border states like Tennessee and Oklahoma that a Democrat might win. Mrs. Clinton had already won megastates Florida and Michigan. She is likely to win in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. What can we do with a Democratic candidate who cannot win California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida ­ cannot win even the skewed Democratic primary voters of these critical states? The question answers itself. As sociologist Fabio Rojas has noted: "The Obama campaign assumed that winning big states, aside from Illinois, was simply impossible. [Obama's] strengths do not undermine Hillary's single most powerful asset: rock solid support among the white women, retirees, and unionists who make up the majority of the Democratic base. There is nearly nothing that Obama can say to sway those voters.Obama can continue to win his kind of state (caucuses, low union, small to medium size, heavily Affirmative Action) and have the money to continue till the end, but he can't deliver a knockout punch by winning in California, NY, NJ, Texas, Florida, Ohio or PA." Obama's campaign depends on creating the illusion of success. When there is no real success.



Go to 12572
http://www.progressive.org/mag_rothschild0308
Exclusive! The FBI Deputizes Business
By Matthew Rothschild, February 7, 2008
Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.
InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.

InfraGard started in Cleveland back in 1996, when the private sector there cooperated with the FBI to investigate cyber threats.

“Then the FBI cloned it,” says Phyllis Schneck, chairman of the board of directors of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, and the prime mover behind the growth of InfraGard over the last several years.

InfraGard itself is still an FBI operation, with FBI agents in each state overseeing the local InfraGard chapters. (There are now eighty-six of them.) The alliance is a nonprofit organization of private sector InfraGard members.

“We are the owners, operators, and experts of our critical infrastructure, from the CEO of a large company in agriculture or high finance to the guy who turns the valve at the water utility,” says Schneck, who by day is the vice president of research integration at Secure Computing.

“At its most basic level, InfraGard is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector,” the InfraGard website states. “InfraGard chapters are geographically linked with FBI Field Office territories.”

In November 2001, InfraGard had around 1,700 members. As of late January, InfraGard had 23,682 members, according to its website, www.infragard.net, which adds that “350 of our nation’s Fortune 500 have a representative in InfraGard.”

To join, each person must be sponsored by “an existing InfraGard member, chapter, or partner organization.” The FBI then vets the applicant. On the application form, prospective members are asked which aspect of the critical infrastructure their organization deals with. These include: agriculture, banking and finance, the chemical industry, defense, energy, food, information and telecommunications, law enforcement, public health, and transportation.

FBI Director Robert Mueller addressed an InfraGard convention on August 9, 2005. At that time, the group had less than half as many members as it does today. “To date, there are more than 11,000 members of InfraGard,” he said. “From our perspective that amounts to 11,000 contacts . . . and 11,000 partners in our mission to protect America.” He added a little later, “Those of you in the private sector are the first line of defense.”

He urged InfraGard members to contact the FBI if they “note suspicious activity or an unusual event.” And he said they could sic the FBI on “disgruntled employees who will use knowledge gained on the job against their employers.”

In an interview with InfraGard after the conference, which is featured prominently on the InfraGard members’ website, Mueller says: “It’s a great program.”

The ACLU is not so sanguine.

“There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS program, turning private-sector corporations—some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers—into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI,” the ACLU warned in its August 2004 report The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society.

InfraGard is not readily accessible to the general public. Its communications with the FBI and Homeland Security are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act under the “trade secrets” exemption, its website says. And any conversation with the public or the media is supposed to be carefully rehearsed.

“The interests of InfraGard must be protected whenever presented to non-InfraGard members,” the website states. “During interviews with members of the press, controlling the image of InfraGard being presented can be difficult. Proper preparation for the interview will minimize the risk of embarrassment. . . . The InfraGard leadership and the local FBI representative should review the submitted questions, agree on the predilection of the answers, and identify the appropriate interviewee. . . . Tailor answers to the expected audience. . . . Questions concerning sensitive information should be avoided.”

One of the advantages of InfraGard, according to its leading members, is that the FBI gives them a heads-up on a secure portal about any threatening information related to infrastructure disruption or terrorism.

The InfraGard website advertises this. In its list of benefits of joining InfraGard, it states: “Gain access to an FBI secure communication network complete with VPN encrypted website, webmail, listservs, message boards, and much more.”

InfraGard members receive “almost daily updates” on threats “emanating from both domestic sources and overseas,” Hershman says.

“We get very easy access to secure information that only goes to InfraGard members,” Schneck says. “People are happy to be in the know.”

On November 1, 2001, the FBI had information about a potential threat to the bridges of California. The alert went out to the InfraGard membership. Enron was notified, and so, too, was Barry Davis, who worked for Morgan Stanley. He notified his brother Gray, the governor of California.

“He said his brother talked to him before the FBI,” recalls Steve Maviglio, who was Davis’s press secretary at the time. “And the governor got a lot of grief for releasing the information. In his defense, he said, ‘I was on the phone with my brother, who is an investment banker. And if he knows, why shouldn’t the public know?’ ”

Maviglio still sounds perturbed about this: “You’d think an elected official would be the first to know, not the last.”

In return for being in the know, InfraGard members cooperate with the FBI and Homeland Security. “InfraGard members have contributed to about 100 FBI cases,” Schneck says. “What InfraGard brings you is reach into the regional and local communities. We are a 22,000-member vetted body of subject-matter experts that reaches across seventeen matrixes. All the different stovepipes can connect with InfraGard.”



Go to 12571
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Part 1: A Short Walk into the World’s Largest Prison
Charles E. Carlson Feb 05, 2008


Part 1: A Short Walk into the World’s Largest Prison

Charles E. Carlson, March 3, 2003



Across the border from the Egyptian Sinai town of Taba is Elate, the posh Israeli tourist town on the Red Sea. If one approaches Taba from the Egyptian side, as our auto did, it appears like a mirage out of a fog bank that shrouds the sea cliffs from the vast desolation of the Sinai. I was unprepared for the sight of half-billion dollar casinos rising from the steep red rocks of the Red Sea coast. Only a few miles behind us, our van had sped past a herd of 20 or more wild camels nosing in the sparse vegetation along the road.



Taba is 300 kilometers South of Tel Aviv, and the same distance west of Cairo. My Arab guide and our driver had not told me any of this. Hani and Gammel had simply said they thought the best way to get into the occupied territories of Palestine was by way of Taba. It turned out they were right, but they neglected to tell me how far it was or that we were going to Gaza, by way of the Red Sea.



Hani pointed me at Egyptian customs. In Taba, none of the Egyptians spoke English, and none of them knew how to get to Gaza or how much it would cost. All were smiling and one told me the half-truth of the day, "America is the Greatest." I told him it is the greatest and also the worst, and he did not understand a word I said.



Hani told me I would find out how to get to Tel Aviv only when I got to the Jewish side, if I got through Jewish immigration. If not, he would wait for me one hour before returning home.



My backpack was full of miniature recording disks, borrowed photographic equipment, film and a laptop. Hani insisted I go through my gear and remove all references to We Hold These Truths and all of our writings that I had brought along as calling cards. "It's not good if the Israelis find what you write when they go through your baggage," he said. "Tell them you are strictly a tourist on busses."



On the previous morning, the Egyptian TV in our hotel room was filled with chilling news of successful killings by both sides in Gaza. On March 3rd, a single unknown Palestinian had managed to ambush an Israeli military unit at a Jewish settlement near the town called Rafah, killing and wounding up to a dozen Israeli boy soldiers and settlers with a sniper rifle. He had gotten away.



Reprisals from Israel were swift. Tanks had rolled into Rafah, the border town where I was planning to cross the next morning, and it was closed. Israelis brought in F-16s to bomb the Rafah refugee camp with a large death count of civilians. The Israelis also destroyed two ambulances with tank cannons, killing the passengers including one 57-year old doctor and two nurses who were trying to evacuate the wounded.



A half an hour later, I was in Israel. No one on the elaborate entry system had shown the slightest interest in reading my articles or in even opening my bags. Furthermore, every Israeli employee spoke acceptable English and a few were nearly polite. Obviously, they encouraged tourists to buy Shekels and spend them in Elate's casinos. I bought a cheap ticket on a clean but crowded subsidized Israeli bus bound to Tel Aviv leaving in 30 minutes. The depot was crowded with IDF, carrying their weapons muzzle down.



I was not prepared for the bus trip. Up to half the people on it were rifle carrying Israeli boy and girl soldiers. Along the way I took photos out the bus window of the Bedouin villages I saw along the highway. It was here I had my first lesson about what it is like to be an Arab in Israel. My peripheral vision is first rate, and I became aware I was being watched and referred to by several soldiers. One, who seemed to be in command, was interested in my running photography of Bedouins, discussing it with his mates. I sensed why. Israel's treatment of the independent nomadic people of the Negev desert is a well known national disgrace in Israel.



Bedouins live on the Negev without rights or recognition.

Who knows how long they have been here, perhaps back to Abraham and his sons, who are thought to have wandered here. The Jews from Europe arrived and stripped them of every right of citizenship. I casually stowed my camera, my goal was to get into Arez Gate without being asked why I wanted to go there.



That evening I passed the time in an Israeli pool hall in Askalon, run by a friendly Russian immigrant who was doing quite well catering to off-duty military. I spent the night in a junky hotel in Askalon, run by another Russian who let me know they catered to prostitutes and IDF couples from the nearby bases.



At Arez gate in north Gaza, an Israeli girl soldier was the first of several to ask for my passport. After she had provided directions for the next stop, her companion, a tall pink-faced male under 20, said in the most polite tone I had yet to hear in Israel, "Excuse me sir, but do you mind if I ask why you would want to go there?"



It was as if he was asking why I would want to sleep in a pigsty, with complete sincerity. He simply did not regard the other side fit for human habitation and wondered why I would degrade myself by looking at it. I suddenly realized I wanted to be inside Gaza very badly...and away from the Israelis even worse. Their iciness toward life frightened me...I could begin to imagine being in one of their interrogation cells



The boy soldier was not the first to let me know he considered Palestinians subhuman. In Elate the morning before an Israeli cab driver first asked where I was going. When I told him he said, "You will never get in, they have closed all that area off on account of war.... There are lots of great things to see in Israel, why would you want to see those animals?" Not satisfied that I was convinced, the Israeli went on with his recital in total arrogance and without any hint of apology for his profession of racism. "Let me give you some advice, don't go there. You have an American passport, how long do you think you will last in there alone...don’t you know what they think of Americans?"



The cabby had no doubt served his time in the military and was my first witness to the open, incredibly harsh racist bigotry that Israelis harbor toward the million Arabs. Like the man I will call Ahmad, my guide in Gaza, some of these Arabs are Christians. Even if you do not ask them, Israelis (some but not all by any means) do not mind telling you that they feel perfectly justified to imprison and even to kill a million Arabs in Gaza because they are "animals."



A half mile long cement and razor wire gauntlet connects Israel to occupied Palestine on the north end of the Gaza Strip. I pulled my bag and carried my backpack from station to station and no one even looked at my luggage. In the 15 or so minutes it took to cross no mans land, not another person or auto crossed the border going either way. I heard about three volleys of small arms fire, but I was later to learn this was a funeral salute to the Palestinian killed the previous night in the Jambalaya Refugee Camp.



I was greeted in Gaza by the sounds of a funeral. I entered the world’s largest prison, with one million captured and incarcerated men, women and children.



We Hold These Truths Executive Director C. E. Carlson made a trip through Palestine to get a first hand view of the captors and the captives. His 9 part impressions: http://whtt.org/index.php?id=435



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