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Go to 13474
http://www.rense.com/general82/swindle.htm
The Great Oil Swindle
How Much Did The Fed Really Know?
By Mike Whitney
5-31-8

The Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating trading in oil futures to determine whether the surge in prices to record levels is the result of manipulation or fraud. They might want to take a look at wheat, rice and corn futures while they're at it. The whole thing is a hoax cooked up by the investment banks and hedge funds who are trying to dig their way out of the trillion dollar mortgage-backed securities (MBS) mess that they created by turning garbage loans into securities. That scam blew up in their face last August and left them scrounging for handouts from the Federal Reserve. Now the billions of dollars they're getting from the Fed is being diverted into commodities which is destabilizing the world economy; driving gas prices to the moon and triggering food riots across the planet.
For months we've been told that the soaring price of oil has been the result of Peak Oil, fighting in Iraq, attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria, labor problems in Norway, and (the all-time favorite)growth in China. It's all baloney. Just like Goldman Sachs prediction of $200 per barrel oil is baloney. If oil is about to skyrocket then why has G-Sax kept a neutral rating on some of its oil holdings like Exxon Mobile? Could it be that they know that oil is just another mega-inflated equity bubble---like housing, corporate bonds and dot.com stocks-that is about to crash to earth as soon as the big players grab a parachute?
There are three things that are driving up the price of oil: the falling dollar, speculation and buying on margin.

The dollar is tanking because of the Federal Reserve's low interest monetary policies have kept interest rates below the rate of inflation for most of the last decade. Add that to the $700 billion current account deficit and a National Debt that has increased from $5.8 trillion when Bush first took office to over $9 trillion today and it's a wonder the dollar hasn't gone "Poof" already.

According to a January 4 editorial in the Wall Street Journal: "If the dollar had remained 'as good as gold' since 2001, oil today would be selling at about $30 per barrel, not $99. (today $126 per barrel) The decline of the dollar against gold and oil suggests a US monetary that is supplying too many dollars." Wall Street Journal 1-4-08
The price of oil has more than quadrupled since 2001, from roughly $30 per barrel to $126, WITHOUT ANY DISRUPTIONS TO SUPPLY. There's no shortage; it's just gibberish.
As far as "buying on margin" consider this summary from author William Engdahl:
"A conservative calculation is that at least 60% of today's $128 per barrel price of crude oil comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups using the London ICE Futures and New York NYMEX futures exchanges and uncontrolled inter-bank or Over-The-Counter trading to avoid scrutiny. US margin rules of the government's Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex, by having to pay only 6% of the value of the contract. At today's price of $128 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme "leverage" of 16 to 1 helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in sub-prime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population."
So the investment banks and their trading partners at the hedge funds can game the system for a mere 8 bucks per barrel or 16 to 1 leverage. Not bad, eh?

Is it possible that gambling on oil futures might be a temptation for banks that are already underwater from a trillion dollars worth of mortgage-related deals that have "gone south" leaving the banking system essentially bankrupt?
And if the banks and hedgies are not playing this game, then where is the money coming from? I have compiled charts and graphs that show that nearly two-thirds of the big investment banks' revenue came from the securitization of commercial and residential real estate loans. That market is frozen. Besides, this is not just a matter of "loan delinquencies" or MBS that have to be written off. The banks are "revenue starved". How are they filling the coffers? They're either neck-deep in interest rate swaps, derivatives trading, or gaming the futures market. Which is it?
Of course, there is one other possibility, but if that possibility turned out to be right than it would cast doubt on the legitimacy of the entire financial system. In fact, it would prove that the system is being rigged from the top-down by our friends at the Banking Politburo, the Federal Reserve. Here goes:
What if the investment banks are trading their worthless MBS and CDOs at the Fed's auction facilities and using the money ($400 billion) to drive up the price of raw materials like rice, corn, wheat, and oil?
Could it be? Could the Fed really be looking the other way so it can bail out its banking buddies while they drive prices skyward?
If it is true; (and I suspect it is) it hasn't done much good. As the Associated Press reported yesterday:
"The Federal Reserve announced Thursday that it will make a fresh batch of short-term cash loans available to squeezed banks as part of an ongoing effort to ease stressed credit markets. The Fed said it will conduct three auctions in June, with each one making $75 billion available in short-term cash loans. Banks can bid for a slice of the available funds. It would mark the latest round in a program that the Fed launched in December to help banks overcome credit problems so they will keep lending to customers."
Another $225 billion for the bankers and not a dime for the struggling homeowner! The Fed is bankrupting the country with their permanent rotating loans to keep reckless speculators from going under. So much for moral hazard.
As far as speculation, there is ample evidence that the system is being manipulated. According to MarketWatch:
"Speculative activity in commodity markets has grown "enormously" over the past several years, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said in a news release. It pointed out that in five years, from 2003 to 2008, investment in the index funds tied to commodities has grown by 20-fold -- to $260 billion from $13 billion."
And here's a revealing clip from the testimony of Michael W. Masters of Masters Capital Management, LLC, who addressed the issue of "Commodities Speculation" before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs this week:
"Today, Index Speculators are pouring billions of dollars into the commodities futures
markets, speculating that commodity prices will increase. ...In the popular press the explanation given most often for rising oil prices is the increased demand for oil from China. According to the DOE, annual Chinese demand for petroleum has increased over the last five years from 1.88 billion barrels to 2.8 billion barrels, an increase of 920 million barrels.8 Over the same five-year period, Index Speculators' demand for petroleum futures has increased by 848 million barrels. THE INCREASE IN DEMAND FROM INDEX SPECULATORS IS ALMOST EQUAL TO THE INCREASE IN DEMAND FROM CHINA.

Index Speculators have now stockpiled, via the futures market, the equivalent of 1.1 billion barrels of petroleum, effectively adding eight times as much oil to their own stockpile as the United States has added to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the last five years.

Today, in many commodities futures markets, they are the single largest force.15 The huge growth in their demand has gone virtually undetected by classically-trained economists who almost never analyze demand in futures markets.

As money pours into the markets, two things happen concurrently: the markets expand and prices rise. One particularly troubling aspect of Index Speculator demand is that it actually increases the more prices increase. This explains the accelerating rate at which commodity futures prices (and actual commodity prices) are increasing. The CFTC has taken deliberate steps to allow CERTAIN SPECULATORS VIRTUALLY UNLIMITED ACCESS TO THE COMMODITIES FUTURES MARKETS. The CFTC has granted Wall Street banks an exemption from speculative position limits when these banks hedge over-the-counter swaps transactions. This has effectively opened a loophole for unlimited speculation. When Index Speculators enter into commodity index swaps, which 85-90% of them do, they face no speculative position limits.... The result is a gross distortion in data that effectively hides the full impact of Index Speculation." (Thanks to Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis; the one "indispensable" financial blog on the Internet)
Masters adds that the CFTC is pressing to make "Index Speculators exempt from all position limits" so they can make "unlimited" bets on the futures which are wreaking havoc on the global economy and pushing millions towards starvation. Of course, these things pale in comparison to the higher priority of fatting the bottom line of the parasitic investor class.
Brimming oil tankers are presently sitting off the coasts of Iran and Louisiana. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been filled. Demand is flat. The world's biggest consumer of energy (guess who?) is cutting back . As CNN reports:
"At a time when gas prices are at an all-time high, Americans have curtailed their driving at a historic rate. The Department of Transportation said figures from March show the steepest decrease in driving ever recorded. Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less -- that's 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT's Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it "the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history." (CNN)

The great oil crunch is another fabricated crisis; another "smoke and mirrors" fiasco; another Enron-type shell-game engineered by banksters and hedge fund managers. Once again, the bloody footprints can be traced right back to the front door of the Federal Reserve. Don't expect help from the regulators either; they've all been replaced with business reps like Harvey Pitt or Hank Paulson. The only time anyone in the Bush administration finds their conscience is when they're offered a multi-million dollar "tell all" book deal.

Can you hear me, Scotty?




Go to 13473
http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff226.htm
THE NETWORK BEHIND THE BUSH-BASHING BOOK

By Cliff Kincaid

May 31, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

Publisher Peter Osnos, who admits to personally working with former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellan on his new book, What Happened, began his career as an assistant to I.F. Stone, the pro-communist “journalist” named as a Soviet agent of influence who was the uncle of Weather Underground communist terrorist Kathy Boudin.

But the connections don’t end there. Boudin’s son Chesa was raised by Barack Obama associates Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who were Boudin’s comrades in the communist terrorist group, after Kathy Boudin went to prison for her involvement in an armed robbery and assault that took the lives of two policemen and a security guard. Dohrn later served jail time for refusing to cooperate in an official investigation of the crime.

Obama stands to benefit from the McClellan book because it was obviously crafted, under the guidance of Osnos, to inflict maximum damage on President Bush and, by extension, fellow Republican and Iraq War supporter Senator John McCain. None of this can be called an accident.

One question that has been raised by critics is whether McClellan is in it for the money. But that’s less important than the fact that the network that has made this book into a reality incorporates many elements of the far left. Some of these links have been commented on already. For example, the Osnos firm, PublicAffairs Books, has also published books by George Soros, John Kerry, and Vladimir Putin. But Osnos’s ties to I.F. Stone and the media constitute the story behind the story.

The network that included Stone, who died in 1989, was the subject of Susan Braudy’s 2003 book, Family Circle, about the Boudin family’s communist and socialist ties. Page 185 shows Kathy Boudin and Bernardine Dohrn together, “after Bernardine’s return from Cuba,” where she had “a warm meeting with members of the Viet Cong.” That was before she and Ayers finished their bombing campaign, which included a blast that killed a San Francisco policeman, and helped launch Barack Obama’s political career.

None of this background, of course, is being mentioned by those anxious and eager to interview McClellan, even though virtually all of his former friends say that what he is writing and saying now doesn’t sound like him at all. The obvious explanation is that, for whatever reason or motivation, he is reading from a script prepared by Osnos & Company and the far left.

The ploy is working. So far, according to the firm’s website, McClellan’s interviews are scheduled to include:

• NBC-TV “Today” - 5/29
• CNN “The Situation Room” - 5/30
• CNN “American Morning” - 6/2
• Comedy Central “Daily Show” - 6/2
• NPR “Fresh Air” - 6/3
• NPR “Talk of the Nation” (LIVE from the Newseum in DC) - 6/11

Favorable stories about the book have already appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, and USA Today.

This is quite impressive until you realize that Osnos says that every book he publishes includes a dedication to Benjamin C. Bradlee, I.F.Stone and Robert Bernstein, former head of Random House. The first two are worth mentioning. Bradlee was the executive editor of the Washington Post, famous for once remarking that, during coverage of the Iran-Contra affair under President Reagan, he was having “the most fun since Watergate.” Bradlee was hoping to bring down Reagan, as they had brought down President Nixon in the paper’s coverage of the Watergate scandal.

Nixon had developed a national reputation as a Congressman and had laid the basis for his runs for national office by helping expose Soviet spy Alger Hiss in the State Department and a communist network inside the U.S. Government. Interestingly, one of Bradlee’s reporters on the Watergate story was Carl Bernstein, whose parents were members of the Soviet-controlled Communist Party.

Iran-Contra did not bring down Reagan, but the far-left apparently hopes the McClellan book will help bring down or further damage President George W. Bush. It can also, in their view, do some collateral damage to McCain.

It is a tactic that has been employed time and time again. Pegging their coverage to a book, the media create the appearance of a “scandal,” this time with a former “insider,” and try to inflict political damage that benefits the Democrats. The problem for McClellan is that he appears transparently foolish, reciting charges about the Iraq War and so forth that have mostly been raised before by the President’s political enemies. McClellan, who never objected to the policies when he promoted and defended them, is acting like a puppet.

Osnos is the key to understanding the network that is working behind-the-scenes. A former national news editor of the Post, Osnos was an assistant to I.F. Stone in the 1960s. Stone postured as an independent radical writer but was exposed as a Soviet agent in the transcripts of Soviet messages known as the Venona intercepts and by other sources.

Former Soviet KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin had identified Stone as a Soviet agent, but under pressure from Stone’s friends in the media later backed away from that precise description. However, in his book, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West, Kalugin still identified Stone as a “fellow traveler” of the Soviet Union who “made no secret of his admiration for the Soviet system” over a period of many years and had regular contacts and lunches with him.

Osnos is still one among many far-left journalists who do not want to accept the terrible facts about their hero and icon. But as AIM founder Reed Irvine told the New York Times back in 1992, “The charge that I.F. Stone was a Soviet agent does not surprise those who knew that as a fellow traveler, if not a [Communist] party member, Stone remained a faithful Stalinist through the purges, the Hitler-Stalin pact and the absorption of Eastern Europe…”

Braudy’s book about the Boudins, Family Circle, has a lot to say about Kathy Boudin and her uncle, I.F. Stone, also known as Izzy. Before turning to a life of crime as a communist terrorist, she had wanted to work for her uncle’s newsletter, which is also where Osnos worked. On page 72 of the book, which tends to avoid harsh judgments, she tells us that Stone tried to organize opposition to U.S. involvement in the Korean War, in order to make South Korea safe for communism, and that he would later work to remove U.S. forces from South Vietnam, in order to pave the way for a communist military victory there. Stone and his comrades were successful in the case of Vietnam. His pro-communist record was clear for all to see, except to Osnos and his ilk.

According to Braudy, Stone had “achieved fame in the 1950s for fighting for the rights of people who were accused of having been members of the American Communist Party.”

But none of this apparently bothered Osnos, who went to work for Stone in the 1960s. And Osnos’s tie to Stone didn’t bother the Post. “After working for I.F. Stone, Peter Osnos became a correspondent around the world for The Washington Post and the newspaper’s foreign and national editor,” the official I.F. Stone website proclaims.

I first came across Osnos back in 1980, just a year or so after coming to Washington, D.C., when he was guest-lecturing at the pro-Marxist Institute for Policy Studies (IPS.) I signed up and covered the Karen DeYoung class on “foreign reporting.”

DeYoung, then a foreign reporter for the Post, is now an associate editor at the paper. The IPS class was being held during a time when the old Soviet Union and its surrogate, Communist Cuba, were destabilizing Central America and hoping to install a series of communist governments. Reagan had stopped the Soviet takeover at a critical juncture when he ordered the military liberation of communist-controlled Grenada. However, Reagan was also supporting the democratic government of El Salvador, which faced a communist terrorist movement, and freedom fighters in Nicaragua. It was the latter that led to the “Iran-Contra affair” when National Security Council staffer Oliver North arranged for unofficial assistance to the Nicaraguan resistance when the liberal Congress was attempting to cut off their aid.

To Karen DeYoung, as she told the class, “most journalists now, most Western journalists at least, are very eager to seek out guerrilla groups, leftist groups, because you assume they must be the good guys.” This betrayed the left-wing media bias that continues to this day and is reflected in the publication of the McClellan book. Any Republican president who dares to take on America’s enemies is targeted for destruction.



For his part, as I noted in an April 1983 Human Events article, “The IPS and the Media: Unholy Alliance,” Osnos exhibited a strange view of communism. He claimed not to know why the Soviets behaved as they did. But he had visited Cuba, where he found no evidence of Soviet control, and came away convinced that there was “’apparently genuine rapport” between Castro and the Cuban people.

On March 12, 2008, as he was preparing publication of McClellan’s book, Osnos found enough time to pay tribute to I.F. Stone on the anniversary of Stone’s birthday. Others paying tribute were Robert Kaiser, associate editor and former managing editor of the Washington Post, and Myra MacPherson, author of a book about Stone and former reporter for the Washington Post.



This is the milieu that has spawned the McClellan book. Whatever you may think of Bush, McCain or the Iraq War, there can be no doubt that Bush’s former press secretary has fulfilled the function of “useful idiot.”

Once again, the media are having their fun.



Go to 13472
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/may2008/310508Congressmen.htm
FOX News Documentary Shows Congressmen Sent Millions in Earmarks to Their Own Families

FOX News
Saturday, May 31, 2008

A number of U.S. congressmen and their families — including former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert — have personally profited from congressional earmarks they slipped into federal legislation, a FOX News documentary reveals.

The documentary, “Porked: Earmarks for Profit,” hosted by Chris Wallace, premieres Sat., May 31, at 8 p.m. EDT on FOX News Channel.

Budget earmarks became a national scandal — and a national joke — after some wasteful schemes made headlines recently: a $223 million “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, a $500,000 teapot museum in North Carolina, a $10 million extension to Coconut Road in Florida.

Many lawmakers earmark taxpayer money for projects supported by contributors to their campaigns.

But the FOX News investigation exposes a far more disturbing practice: federal lawmakers earmarking taxpayer dollars on projects that offer them not just political advantage, but personal financial gain.

The FOX documentary focuses on three current and former congressmen — two Republicans and one Democrat.

The most recognizable name is Illinois Republican Dennis Hastert, who stepped down as Speaker of the House in 2007.

In February 2004, Hastert, with partners and through a trust that did not bear his name, bought up 69 acres of land that adjoined his farm some 60 miles outside Chicago. The price was $340,000. In May 2005, Hastert transferred an additional 69 acres from his farm into the trust.

Two months later, Congress passed a spending bill into which Hastert inserted a $207 million earmark to fund the “Prairie Parkway” which, when completed, would run just a few miles from the 138 acres owned by Hastert’s trust.

After President Bush flew to Hastert’s district in August 2005 to sign the bill, Hastert and his partners flipped the land for what appeared to be a multi-million dollar profit.

Hastert declined repeated interview requests from FOX News, but on Thursday, after FOX began to promote the program, Hastert’s lawyer emailed the documentary unit producer Jason Kopp.

“As you might imagine we are very sensitive to even a suggestion, innuendo, or inference that Speaker Hastert's work on the Prairie Parkway was improper or illegal,” attorney J. Randy Evans wrote.



Go to 13471
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/may2008/310508Baby.htm
Parents Refuse Injection, CPS Takes Baby

Saturday, May 31, 2008

The birth of a baby should be one of the most exciting moments a couple will ever experience. But an aggressive campaign by the state to screen newborn infants turned that moment into a nightmare for one couple.

Little Kate Ellis is healthy and normal but her birth was traumatic for her parents. It started just minutes after Kate was born.

Kate's father, Mike Ellis, said a doctor walked in and told Kate's mother that he was going to have to administer methadone.

Ellis said he was shocked and worried about giving such a powerful drug to his daughter.

"And I knew methadone...I've heard in the past that is for people that have a heroin habit. That threw up red flags immediately. I said, 'We're not doing that,' immediately," said Ellis.

Ellis was in a panic. His baby had just been born at Methodist Towers. He wanted to talk with a pediatrician.

His wife, Shannon Ellis, was in a panic too. But her medical history is what triggered the methadone suggestion.

Shannon said her doctor had prescribed hydrocodone for her after she suffered injures in a February car accident. She and Mike trusted that the prescribed drug would not affect the baby.

"Why would you prescribe this to her if this was going to be an issue?...He didn't have an answer for any time I asked that. I said, 'I'm very upset'," said Mike.

"If I had to do it all over again I would have dealt with the pain," said Shannon.

It turns out that anytime a mother is on a drug, prescription or not, a doctor can order a newborn to be screened. If a parent questions or protests, which Mike Ellis did, the red flags go up and the state takes action.

Back at the hospital a urine drug screen result on Kate was negative. But it was already too late. Child Protective Services was in the process of taking custody of her away from Mike and Shannon.



Go to 13470
http://www.doctorsaredangerous.com/articles/statin.htm
Government Health Agencies Complicit in Cholesterol Ruse
by Bill Sardi

The revelation that statin cholesterol drugs may be of little or no benefit, as revealed in a lengthy cover story in January 28 issue of Business Week (BW) magazine, begs the question: how did this misdirection go on for so long?

As the BW article pointed out, statin drugs "are the best-selling medicines in history, used by more than 13 million Americans and an additional 12 million patients around the world, producing $27.8 billion in sales in 2006."

How can anyone question the benefits of such a drug, asks BW, when they are "thought to be so essential that, according to the official government guidelines from the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), 40 million Americans should be taking them. Some researchers have even suggested – half-jokingly – that the medications should be put in the water supply, like fluoride for teeth. And it's almost impossible to avoid reminders from the industry that the drugs are vital. A current TV and newspaper campaign for one statin drug, as endorsed by Dr. Robert Jarvik, artificial heart inventor, proclaims that this drug ‘reduces the risk of heart attack by 36%...in patients with multiple risk factors for heart disease’."

Statin drug ruse revealed

But the cholesterol/statin drug ruse finally unraveled when, after two years of foot dragging delays to release data from a large study involving Zetia, a cholesterol-lowering drug that inhibits cholesterol absorption from foods, and Vytorin, which is a combination of Zetia plus Zocor, the latter a statin drug that inhibits formation of cholesterol in the liver, revealed no health benefits.

Even though this drug combo lowered circulating cholesterol numbers better than either drug alone, it did not reduce plaque formation in arteries and did not confer a projected reduction in mortality.

In fact, an earlier review published last year in the British journal Lancet by Drs. John Abramson of Harvard Medical School and James M. Wright MD of the University of British Columbia , could find no evidence for a reduction in cardiac mortality in a combined review of all published statin drug studies. [The Lancet 2007; 369:168–169]

Falsifying the numbers

The Business Week report says statin drugs benefit only 1 in 100 users, but they claim to reduce the risk of a non-mortal heart attack by 36%. But that figure is a relative number, not a hard one. About 3% of patients taking an inactive placebo pill will experience a heart attack compared to 2% taking a statin drug, which produces the so-called 30-plus percent risk reduction. But in hard numbers, this is only a 1% reduced risk.

This type of misleading advertising wouldn’t pass Federal Trade Commission guidelines. But public health agencies, serving as free publicity agents for the statin drug manufacturers, repeat the claim to give it a ring of credibility.

Complicity by public health agencies

Articles posted at websites administered by the Food & Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health repeat this misleading claim. In fact, a recent posting by the NIH claims statin drugs reduce the risk for a sudden death heart attack by 19%, when in hard numbers it is actually just 0.8% (reduction from 3.8 to 3.0% over 4.4 years).

How did the FDA ever approve these drugs except to ignore these facts? Why did the FDA allow pharmaceutical companies two years to report critical data on the effectiveness of a life-saving drug?

Do benefits outweigh the risk for side effects?

For years there has been criticism that statin drugs are not totally safe, that they produce muscle aches and mental problems. But advocates for statin drugs have repeatedly claimed the benefits of statin drugs far outweigh any risks, said to occur among 2–3% of users. But the BW report cited side effects occur among 10–15% of users, which is backed by current research. [Current Opinion Lipidology 2007 Aug;18(4):401–8] The risks for serious side effects far outweigh any alleged benefits.

Collusion by medical journals

Others in modern medicine are also complicit in this subterfuge. The following is an example.

On April 8, 2004 the New England Journal of Medicine published an authoritative report about the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs among patients hospitalized for acute coronary syndrome (acute heart attack or highly unstable chest pain/angina). The study, conducted by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston , enrolled 4162 patients at 349 sites in 8 countries. [ New England Journal Medicine 350: 1495–1504, April, 8, 2004 ]

The study compared the use of standard-dose (40 mg) pravastatin (Pravachol) with intensive-cholesterol lowering with high-dose (80 mg) atorvastatin (Lipitor). The chart below appears to show a slight advantage (about 4–5% difference) in reduction of mortality for the high-dose statin drug regimen. This slight advantage is shown as a 16% relative risk reduction in the published paper. These relative numbers are used to magnify the effects of these types of intensive drug regimens. Examine the chart below, as published in the New England Journal of Medicine:

Do statin drugs mimic a vitamin?

In 2006 Dr. Davis S. Grimes of the Blackburn Royal Infirmary in Great Britain, ruffled a lot of feathers in the medical world when he revealed that statin drugs appear to be synthetic versions (called analogs) of vitamin D. [Lancet 2006 Jul 1; 368(9529):83–6] All the alleged health benefits of statin drugs, prevention of osteoporosis, cancer prevention, promotion of arterial health, parallel those of vitamin D. The pharmaceutical world was quick to deny the allegation.

In his report entitled "Are statin analogs of vitamin D?" Dr. Grimes claims that the concept of statin drugs may come from vitamin D as they appear to be molecular alterations of this vitamin. A more recent study confirms that statin drugs modestly increase vitamin D levels. (See chart below.)



Go to 13469
http://www.newsmax.com/weyrich/leasing_infrastructure/2008/05/28/99424.html
May 28, 2008
By: Paul M. Weyrich

The Reason Foundation estimates that states of the Union are facing a $9 billion a year shortfall to deal with infrastructure, mainly roads.


Governors aren’t sure what to do about the problem. The public is intolerant when it comes to raising taxes. From the public’s point of view, tolls are taxes, so raising tolls is also politically radioactive. As a consequence, more and more governors are turning to so-called private/public investments.


The latest to turn to this “solution” is Pennsylvania’s Gov. Edward G. (Ed) Rendell. At least he has been popular. But what of his announcement that the Albertis Group of Spain was the winner of major competition to lease portions of the Pennsylvania Turnpike? The multiyear lease could bring in as much as $18 billion, depending on how much of the turnpike is leased.


It would appear that the public does not like private interests leasing infrastructure. When the leasing agent is from a foreign country the opposition goes off the charts. When the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, upon which I served, took up the question of private/public investments the recommendation only passed when commissioners agreed that no foreign government or private consortium should be the leasing agent.


In other words, if states are to make a deal let it be with fellow Americans and not a foreign country.


The public, having paid for the building of toll roads, feels as if they own these facilities and they just intensely dislike foreign entities owning them. One libertarian economist who favors such partnerships said when asked about public reaction, “Well, if it gets to be a problem we can always nationalize the facility."


I suppose so but that is highly unlikely to happen, especially when the United States would then be nationalizing facilities belonging to an ally. Or if an ally becomes an enemy, then what? Do we want enemies holding key properties in this country?


The problem is not simple. Revenues from the highway trust fund are declining and will be out of money in only a few years. And as people drive less (this last Memorial Day we saw the first decline in people going on trips since 9/11) tolls produce less revenue.


If a private/public partnership owns the toll road it can raise tolls any time without public hearings and without being subject to the political pressure that any current plan to raise tolls would have.


Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels got in hot water for leasing portions of the Indiana Turnpike to a foreign entity. His opponent this November is making that lease an issue.


Only Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who leased the Chicago Skyway for $1.8 billion to a consortium consisting of Macquarie and Cintra from Spain, may have survived politically. Gov. Rendell claims that his $12.8 billion deal with bring in 13 percent more revenue than the state is able to collect.


He said without the tolls that the private/public partnership will bring in the toll revenue from state ownership would be only $450 million annually compared with $1.7 billion needed for infrastructure expenditures over the next 10 years. It now costs $22.75 to cross Pennsylvania. Next year there will be a 25 percent increase in tolls. And inflation increases will be permitted at 2.5 percent per year. At the end of a 75-year lease, Dennis Enright, a principal of New Jersey-based NW Financial Group, told The Wall Street Journal, it would like cost $176 to cross the state.


That is exactly what citizens of Pennsylvania fear, although very few current drivers would be behind the wheel at the end of the lease.


My father always said when a deal appears too good to be true it probably is. Foreign money for infrastructure looks tempting but it may not be worth the political grief to those who propose it and put it through.


Paul M. Weyrich is chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.



Go to 13468
http://www.evertiq.com/news/read.do?news=11286&cat=5
RFID on Printed Circuit Boards
The market for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is growing fast. Market experts predict sales will increase from US$ 1.2 bn in 2008 to US$ 3.5 bn by 2012. A reason for the increasing demand for RFID technology is the avid interest in managing and tracing products and services, in particular in safety-conscious sectors.

This is where alpha-board’s concept comes to the fore: The Berlin based company for electronics design and manufacturing now supplies PCBs with RFID technology.

PCB identification
PCBs are usually labelled with barcodes or 2D code labels in order to identify, e.g., product series during further manufacturing steps. Labels are a cost-effective solution - however, they require lots of space on the PCB. A scanner identifies the PCBs which are then assigned with the aid of a database.

Manufacturers profit from labelling their assembled PCBs with RFID technology:
• Space saving solution
• Improved assignment due to increased identification number
• Improved readability (e.g. for soiled, hard to reach positions, etc.)
• Additional storage space for assembled PCB-related information

Below a brief overview of various methods to identify assembled PCBs:
1. Barcode: An adhesive label is attached to the PCB. The barcode usually identifies an assembled PCB series. The barcode just consists of an identification number for which assembled PCB information is stored in a database.


2. 2D code (e.g. dot-matrix): This is a two dimensional code which in contrast to the barcode can also store assembled PCB-specific data. 2D codes have excellent error correction properties and can sometimes still be read even after being damaged, e.g. scratched or soiled. These labels are also attached to the PCB. Disadvantage: A special 2D scanner is required to read the matrix!


3. RFID label: An adhesive label with integrated RFID TAG is attached to the PCB the same as a barcode label. Non-destructive removal of these labels is not possible. RFID labels can be read via a scanner - also from greater distances - thus identifying the assembled PCB. Moreover, the labels store assembled PCB-specific additional information. The space-saving labels are extremely small (the size depends on the actual reading range) - i.e. they can be attached to very small PCBs or flex boards. In comparison to barcodes or 2D codes, RFID labels are more expensive, but they offer considerably more benefits.


4. TAG: A TAG is a complete RFID transponder with chip and antenna, and usually sealed in a housing. A complete TAG can be embedded in a PCB. The chip is mounted on the PCB and the conductors are used as the antenna. Both these processes require additional steps and depend on the structure and specifications of the PCB, e.g. thickness, flexibility or rigidness, etc. Since new calculations are always required for this version, it is comparatively expensive. Further cost factor: If the TAG is defective, the PCB can also be discarded!

However, it is beneficial that the RFID transponder is connected permanently to the PCB and cannot be removed. TAGs are placed the same as a PCB component or attached like an adhesive label.


Solutions from alpha-board
The RFID label is favoured by alpha-board. In a cost-benefit sense this version is less expensive and easier to realise. RFID labels can always be attached to a PCB if the PCB is large enough and the substrate is non-metallic. If a label cannot be attached to a PCB which is too small or due to the high packing density, alpha-board pursues a different strategy: A small TAG is mounted on the PCB just like a board component.

Traceability is an important feature for PCBs in safety-conscious sectors, e.g. the aerospace industry. For example, if certain components malfunction and all the coordinates of certain parts have to be traced, the RFID comes into its own: It is possible to read all the PCB data relatively quickly via the reader. This not only results in increased safety, it also saves time.

Even the initial costs for the utilization of RFID technology are favourable: The existing barcode technology can be effortlessly updated. And the more TAGs used, e.g., in an aeroplane, the lower the actual costs per unit are.

RFID in the aerospace industry
RFID chips on PCBs are, as yet, not a standard feature in the aerospace industry. However, all the signs are that traceability right down to the smallest screw will become obligatory. In the RFID field, "alpha-board offers something which everyone is currently looking for: We predict a high future demand for RFID labels on all PCBs in the aerospace industry," says Frank Külich, Technical Manager at alpha-board.

RFID on board also provides support for maintenance purposes. For example, as additional redundancy, the following assembled PCB information would be interesting for direct probing at the part:
• Manufacturer data
• Part number/Order number
• Current production number/Production date
• Configuration status
• If applicable, software release
• Malfunctioning history
• Repair history

This information can be provided by the assembled PCB directly via the chip or retrieved from a central database. For example, RFID could allow information to be read for an entire rack of circuit boards or individually (bulk reading) - a highly attractive option. www.alphaboard.de
May 28 2008



Go to 13467
http://www.rense.com/general28/skolover15.htm
The Overthrow Of The American
Republic - Part 15
Supplement and Update
By Sherman H. Skolnick
9-4-2

Background

For more than ten years, we have mentioned that up to 1988-89, CBS Network received the American CIA subsidy. CBS used those clandestine funds to finance and staff their overseas bureaus. Not that much actual news to go-on-the-air was filed from this expensive set-up. CBS News overseas bureaus were used as a "vacuum pump", to gather up useful intelligence for the American spy agencies.

After 1989, the CIA secret subsidy was transferred to ABC Network News. For example, ABC's "Nightline" Program with Ted Koppel often had on as guests and experts, CIA operatives, not identified as such, who worked for CIA-funded Foundations.

[Identifying CIA Foundations has been one of our specialties since 1968. 1969-70, I taught a 16-week course including such at a Chicago-based broadcast school. I conducted 10-week seminars on such at the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois. Scroll all the way down our website to "A Short History of CIA Fronts".]

Following our part 15 of this "Overthrow" series, some network and foreign correspondents apparently confronted the reputed male sex-mate of George W. Bush who has stayed with the same on his ranch and on occasion travels with him.. The person in question did not ostensibly deny what is in our Part 15 story but put off any denial by simply referring to our story as "a smear job".

This reputed arrangement with George W. Bush and his male sex-mate is not a private matter. It has great national security ramifications.

A coincidence? Reportedly financially failing MSNBC ran on-line a review of a new book about the super-secret Skull & Bones Society. "Secrets of the Tomb---Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power", by Alexandra Robbins, MSNBC 9/4/2. A more detailed book is the earlier one about "Skull and Bones" by Antony Sutton.

Mentioned in these books is that persons at Yale University have been selected to be pushed to the top by the American Aristocracy, including members of the Bush Family. To be initiated, they are forced to divulge their entire sex life and other deep personal details. These satanic rituals are carried out in a window-less building at Yale, known as The Tomb.

New members engage in homosexual acts while they lay in a coffin.

[A recent scheduled documentary by Connie Chung of CNN on the Bush Family and Skull & Bones, was cancelled after CNN heavily promoted the same. Was it just a warning to George W. Bush, or blackmail, typical of the press-fakers?]

Two important reputed pictures of George W. Bush were in the custody of American Media, Inc., headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. publisher of several supermarket tabloids including National Enquirer. One was an authenticated one of George W. Bush, laying in the satanic ritual coffin while engaging in homosexual acts with his male sex-mate who was later to engage in such over later years and traveled with Bush and reportedly on occasion stayed at Bush's Texas ranch. The other picture was mentioned in Part 13 of this "Overthrow" series.

To obstruct the use of these two reputedly authentic pictures, the America Media picture editor, Bob Stevens, was snuffed out by way of anthrax-by-mail. [See pt 13 of this series.]

In October, 2001, after the death (murder) of Bob Stevens, the FBI caused the closing and sealing of the entire American Media building in Boca Raton. Some months later, the FBI refused to reportedly permit officials of the publisher to retrieve important pictures inside the building in a database. Some familiar with the situation, contend it was the two mentioned pictures.

If you understand how the American monopoly press is the best in the world on propaganda, and side-stepping revealing items, you would smile to yourself at the following.

White House correspondents as well as foreign journalists are well aware of the correctness and validity of the matters as in Part 15 as to George W. Bush and his male sex-mate. So far, CIA-funded ABC Network News, seems to be engaging in a stealthy type of counter-attack and diversion.

As of this date, ABC is planning to air a segment of their "Prime Time" program. In advance blurbs, ABC contends they have interviewed the purported mistress of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. His reputed mistress, says ABC, contends that in their sexual encounters, Saddam uses Viagra.

Of course, ABC is not prepared to discuss that the Bush Family wants to assassinate Saddam Hussein. Why? Because Saddam has direct testimony and proof that Daddy Bush engaged in a treasonous deal. First, the elder Bush instigated Saddam to want to go to war against neighbor Iran. Little known, religious objects deeply important to Iran are actually located in Iraq. Saddam was to block Iranians from visiting these religious sites in Iraq. The Iranians were stirred up about this by Daddy Bush. The result? In September. 1980 began the Iraq-Iran war which went on until 1988.

In October, 1980, Daddy Bush reportedly paid forty million dollars to the top mullahs of Iran, at a meeting secretly filmed by the French CIA in a Paris suburb. The Iranians received many millions of dollars worth of weapons later also. trans-shipped via Portugal and Israel. As we mentioned, Daddy Bush, to cover this up in part arranged the sabotaged air crash to murder the Prime Minister of Portugal. The purpose? The Iranians were to reject all deals by incumbent President Jimmy Carter running for re-election; deals prior to the November, 1980 election to release the 52 U.S. Embassy hostages in Teheran.The treasonous arrangement by Daddy Bush was called "The October Surprise", an event feared by the Reagan/Bush ticket. Carter thus shown as a wimp, the Reagan/Bush ticket won. The 52 U.S. Embassy Hostages were released at the very moment in January, 1981, as Reagan/Bush were being inaugurated. By this treason, the Americans had not been released prior to the Election. Saddam also participated in this arrangement having been promised certain geopolitical benefits.

[The private business partnership between Daddy Bush and Saddam Hussein. Subject of a little-known Chicago federal suit. Visit our website story, "The Secrets of Timothy McVeigh.]

Saddam Hussein is so far a living direct witness who, in addition, has documents supporting his testimony, of treason committed against the American people by Daddy Bush, father of George W.



Go to 13466
http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/Treasons_and_Assasinations_Treachery_and_War/
Treasons and Assasinations, Treachery and War
Posted: May 28 2008

More on what Ted told Obama, Hillary exposes her Freudian Slip for all to see, real threats to security and stability, the neocons intentions to stay in power, new theatres of war, the fall of Rome and other great civilizations

In a recent issue, we outlined how Barack Obama was told by Ted Kennedy not to take Hillary Clinton on as a running mate and gave some of the background behind that recommendation. Basically, Ted knows that the Clinton and Bush crime families, who have reeked their reign of terror on the citizens of the US in the Bush-Clinton-Bush triple whammy, were most likely behind the assassination of JFK, Jr., or if you prefer, the "accidental" plane crash that took him out of contention as a potential presidential candidate for the 2000 election year. The "accident" took place in 1999 while Clinton was finishing his second and final term as President and the candidates for the office of President for the 2000 election year were being lined up. JFK, Jr. could probably have beaten Dubya hands down if he had taken the Democratic nomination away from Al Gore, who in fact later won the election, but for the fraud in Florida voting counts where brother Jeb took care of things for brother George. Al Gore, under pressure from the Bush crime family, who were in the process of "influencing" the US Supreme Court, was promised a special hat trick in connection with a movie about global warming disinformation he was asked to create and promote by upper tier Illuminists. Hence, the piece of cinematic garbage, "An Inconvenient Truth," which brought Gore an Emmy, an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize as payola for giving up the Presidency to Caligula.

Ted also has to know that the Clinton's have left behind scores of dead bodies in the wake of their notorious political careers and would not hesitate to take Obama out to push Hillary into the Presidency. He also has to know that both the Bush and Clinton crime families were major players in the neocon setup of the phony "War on Terror" and the dastardly 911 mass murder the beginnings of which were well underway during the Clinton Administration, which saw both the First World Trade Center Bombing in 1993 followed by the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. So clearly Senator Obama is taking on some extremely dangerous, hardcore sociopaths, as is Ron Paul for that matter. And Ted knows they would not hesitate to take Obama out to put the Queen of Marxism, often referred to as the "Womanoid," into the Oval Office, if Obama was foolish enough to make her his running mate and then was to win the Presidential election against the Bush Clone, McCain, aka the "Albino Chipmunk."

So now, a couple weeks after our original comment about Ted's recommendation to Obama, when Hillary Clinton is asked why she is not conceding the nomination to Obama despite being hopelessly behind in the delegate count, she reminds the reporter about the Robert Kennedy assassination in June of 1968. Nice little "Freudian slip" there, eh! You mean when the frontrunner was assassinated? Her statement seems more like a thinly veiled threat to us. Later we are told that she was simply referring to the fact that the nomination was still being contended in June of that election year, but come on, what does that have to do with the facts and circumstances of this election and whether she should concede or not. If Obama takes the Democratic nomination and then makes the mistake of selecting the Queen B as his running mate, he is inviting an assassination attempt, ala Gerald Ford and Rockefeller's attempt to take him out, twice, or he will be compromised and disgraced like Richard Nixon, ala Rockefeller's revenge on Nixon for naming Ford as his Vice President over Rockefeller to avoid the inevitable assassin's bullet (Nixon was indeed a reprobate, but a smart one).

Did you really think that Watergate was about Nixon getting caught in the cover-up and about seeking truth, justice and the American way? Please, spare us. No one gets caught, unless the elitists want them to be caught. Ask Elliot Spitzer.

Watergate was all about taking Nixon out to make way for elitist Rockefeller to become President. The arrangement to propel S&M Master, Nelson Rockefeller, into the Presidency, came complete with a full pardon for Nixon in exchange for dupe Gerald Ford's ascendency to the Presidency, to be followed by Rockefeller's subsequent appointment as Vice President (which required a Constitutional amendment that Rockefeller had made mighty efforts to pass beforehand so he could step into the Vice Presidency without being voted in by the US public who hated his perverted guts), and then Gerald Ford's assassination to put the King of Perverts (Rocky) in the White House. This all followed Vice President Agnew's elitist-arranged removal through exposure of certain of his income tax "problems" so Nixon could appoint Rocky as his Vice President. As we said, Nixon appointed Ford instead to avoid assassination at the hands of the Prince of Darkness (Rocky).




Incidentally, Ford was in on the Warren Commission's cover-up of JFK, Sr.'s treasonous assassination, and was a dupe for the elitists from the beginning. For his services to the Illuminati, Gerald Ford received the Presidency for what, apparently unbeknownst to him, was supposed to be a very short period of time that was supposed to end with each of the two assassination attempts. Had he been assassinated, considering his actions while on the Warren Commission, it would have been a nice piece of poetic justice. But that would mean that elitist scumbag, Nelson Rockefeller, would have become President and taken us into World War III, so we're glad that Ford survived.




We are called the greatest nation on earth, yet this is how our politics are conducted. What a sham. What a disgrace. We predict that if Obama makes Clinton his running mate, and then beats McCain, he will not make it through his first term in office. He will be either assassinated or disgraced out of office so the evil Marxist Womanoid can become President. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.




Of course, this all assumes we have an election in November, which is in substantial doubt. Because of the treasonous actions and mass murder of 911, the neocons must stay in power to continue the cover-up of their actions. This is why we had voter fraud during the 2004 election, this time in Ohio instead of Florida, to ensure a Bush victory. A loss would mean the loss of control over the CIA and the military and the potential for a real investigation into 911, into the phony "War on Terror", into the lies about Saddam Hussein and Iraqi WMD's to justify our entry into Iraq, into torture and other war crimes and into the mountain of corruption in connection with military and civilian no-bid contracts, payments for non-performance and missing cash and weapons, to name but a few.




The neocons are quaking in terror at the prospect of leaving their seats of power and at the potential for being exposed to endless inquiries and recriminations which might lead them to the gallows, which is where they all belong. So all this adds up to the potential for another 911-type false-flag attack, this time to keep the neocons in power so they can continue the cover-up of their misdeeds during a period of martial law to be declared under the auspices of the Patriot Acts and the Military Commissions Act. As a bonus, this type of situation would be intended to draw our attention away from the intentional and malevolent destruction of our economy, which was enabled by the Illuminist, privately-owned Fed and which occurred primarily during the era of unparalleled debauchery which we refer to as the Bush-Clinton-Bush triple whammy. The non-stop rise of oil prices may be reflecting some insider knowledge about such a false-flag attack or about the creation of a new theater of war in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Kosovo and/or Georgia to distract attention away from the failings of our incumbent miscreants with respect to the handling of our economy (not included among the miscreant incumbents is of course, Ron Paul, one of the few remaining true patriots left in our corrupt government). Bush, Sr. has picked up some remote land in Paraguay as a new potential criminal family compound in order to hedge his bets.




The ongoing destruction of our economy and the free trade agenda were energized during the period of the Bush-Clinton-Bush triple whammy of Presidential Administrations, and all of their nefarious dealings were assisted by Reagan's Executive Order creating the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, also known as the PPT. The PPT has been used to manipulate markets to assure insider-trading profits for elitists on Wall Street, in corporate America and in our government, and also to hide the destruction of our economy by preventing our markets from reflecting the truth about underlying fundamentals. Our markets are not free, and many decisions are made based on economic statistics that are more related to opium and mushroom induced pipe-dreams of the fiction writers at the Bureau of Lying Statistics than they are to any financial realities. This is why our markets have become counterintuitive. And if you try to trade based on truth instead of on elitist lies about the economy, you are destroyed by nonsensical, schizophrenic market action brought about by the PPT to cover up the nefarious dealings of the Illuminati. Charts, graphs and software programs are useless under these circumstances and cartel knowledge of what these methods predict is actually used against those who cling to them for a crutch.




Our entire society, from its citizens, to its corporations, to its government, is one big monumental cluster-you-know-what, and will only be changed when the people of our nation are made to feel the full impact of the destructive forces unleashed by the Illuminati and which the people of our nation, by their sluggish, doltish and oafish inaction, have allowed to happen. Yes indeed, you get the kind of government you deserve, and our disgusting and revolting government, which has now succeeded in utterly destroying the US economy, could not be more richly deserved by our ignorant, complacent, narcissistic and hedonistic citizens. The Fall of Rome will no longer be discussed. The Fall of the United States of America will take its place.




If we get a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton quadruple whammy, it's all over but the crying. If this monumentally disastrous event occurs, you should immediately remove yourself and as many of your family members as possible from the US. If you can't leave, be sure to accumulate weapons, ammunition and freeze-dried food by the truckload and get ready to rumble. A new Clinton Administration means that the epic battle of Armageddon approaches. Anything she does will increase the destructive power of our current debacle by an order of magnitude. The fact that so many of our citizens are head-over-heels about the Womanoid's candidacy tells you all you need to know about the intellect of average American citizens, who now appear to have I.Q.'s that can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The public's current disinterest in gold and silver is an equally good indicator of America's cretinism. The stupidity of our citizens is probably the scariest thought of all. How do you work your way out of a crisis when everyone around you is an idiot?



Go to 13465
http://www.rense.com/general82/dapt.htm
Fulford - Chinese Secret
Society Warns US, EU
By Benjamin Fulford
5-30-8
The secret government of the US and EU has promised a major overhaul in the wake of the warning it got from the Chinese secret society, according to a senior Japanese public security police officer and Freemason who has been acting as an intermediary with the Chinese secret society. "Expect big changes this autumn," he said in comments confirmed by a member of the Japanese royal family. "What you will be seeing is the unwinding of George Bush senior's 50-year campaign to turn the U.S. into a fascist regime," the secret police agent says. "George Bush senior is now a broken man showing signs of senile dementia," he adds.

If the sources are to be believed, U.S. President George Bush's government will resign, before his term expires, and will be replaced by an interim regime headed by Al Gore. This will start a 2-3 year transition period during which suppressed technology, such as free energy, will be released and a new system for running the planet will be implemented, according to these two sources. "They [The illuminati] know their rule is ending but they do not want it to end in an ugly way," the security police source says.

The recent market turmoil, including the Chinese threat to sell dollars, was part of the bargaining towards major changes in the secret balance of power, we are told.

Certainly there are some encouraging signs. The tearful resignation of U.S. presidential "brain" Karl Rove removes a central lynchpin of Bush's regime. Since it follows six other resignations; it does look like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

In Japan, meanwhile, the victory of the opposition Democratic Party in the recent upper house elections could lead to the end of the Iraq and Afghan wars. Japan Democratic Party leader Ichiro Ozawa has promised to block renewal of an "anti-terrorist" bill that allows Japan's Self-Defense Forces to provide considerable logistical support to the U.S. sponsored wars in the region. Without that support, it is unlikely the U.S. will have enough money or military might to continue the wars.

Since this follows UK Prime Minister Brown's vow to remove British troops with or without U.S. approval, it will mean the Bush regime has lost its last big war allies. Brown also publicly rebuked Bush during a recent visit by doing such things as pointedly refusing to take home a souvenir he was given.

There are also signs the Japanese election was manipulated behind the scenes to promote a Democratic Party victory in Japan. Just before the election, the Japanese mainstream media suddenly began reporting heavily about a pension scandal the JDP has been talking -unreported- about for at least 5 years. This was crucial for their victory. We may see a general election as early as this fall, followed by the birth of a JDP government and an end to the post-war Japanese regime. It could be a sign of diminished Rockefeller influence in Japan. However, it is not a sign of diminished illuminati control of Japan since Ozawa is himself a Freemason.

Despite the positive developments, the biggest worry is all the public hints about a new "terrorist attack" on the U.S. to be used as an excuse to trigger martial law. However, such an attack at this time "would fool nobody," the sources said. Many U.S. citizens might be fooled but no other government in the world would believe it. "The secret government knows they cannot use their old tricks anymore," the sources said.

The Chinese secret societies meanwhile, are watching carefully for any sign of new attempts to spread disease or otherwise carry out genocidal attacks. They only give one warning and have now initiated a news blackout. I am not in the loop about what they would do if a new breach was found but, they did say whatever action they took would be "unpredictable and worse than expected."

At the same time, an anti-Rothschild alliance has been formed in Tokyo. They warn that the entire Bush regime was probably set up as a "bad cop" to scare people in the arms of the EU "good cop." They say there may be other surprises, possibly including a fake UFO invasion that Henry Kissinger hinted at during the 1991 Bilderberg meeting. "We will have to look at least four or five steps ahead in order to keep on top of these people," the alliance says.

So far, the EU only consists of governments that are controlled in secret by the Rothschilds etc. (Turkey is also a Rothschild fief). Their secret parliament, the Bilderbergers, have already shown they are racist by refusing to allow any Japanese to join. As a result, any effort to turn the EU into the base of a world government is doomed to fail.

The anti-Rothschild alliance, (with the discreet backing of the Chinese secret societies), will be contacting leaders of Russia, China, India, the Muslim countries, South America, Africa etc. to create a global alliance that will demand a new way of running the planet.

The UN Security Council will have to be replaced with a new grouping that more accurately represents the people of this planet. As it stands, 4 out of the 5 permanent Security Council members are representatives of Caucasian nations even though only 17% of the world's people are Caucasian. This global apartheid will have to end.

The world's financial system will also have to be replaced with a more transparent and equitable system that relies on more than simple human selfish greed as the main incentive for transactions.

Once this is done, a three-year campaign against the five curses of humanity: war, poverty, environmental destruction, ignorance and disease could be carried out. This could be a test case for replacing the Hegelian system of pitting opposite forces against each other in war with a system for people to compete towards agreed upon peaceful goals.

The industries and lobbies that have depended on war and turmoil will have to be given new goals and direction. One possibility would be a long-term campaign to terraform Mars.

People will have to be patient, however. These changes will happen over a period of years, not months. In the meantime, let us see if the autumn surprise appears as promised.



Go to 13464
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6031
BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 5/30/2008 2:26PM
Failure of ES&S Touch-Screen Voting System 'Should Not Have Been Possible,' Says Arkansas Official Where Election Outcome Was Reversed
'Paper Trails' Said to Have Been Correct, but Internal Numbers Wrong; System 'Worked to Perfection' During Early Voting Period
Voting Machine Company Tasked With Auditing Own Machines to Find Cause of Failure Before November...
By all means, let's not pay attention to this report until after November.

This is a follow-up to several previous items we ran last week (here, here and here) on a number of elections in Arkansas where the outcome was reversed after the lucky discovery of mistallies on the ES&S electronic voting system which failed widely in a number of counties during local primary elections there last week.

Here's the latest explanation, most notable passages excerpted below, on what went wrong in Faulkner County's very low turnout election for their District 45 State Representative Democratic Primary in which voters casting ballots in the Cadron Township Constable race had their votes recorded erroneously for the Dist. 45 State Rep race instead.

While these same touch-screen voting systems, the ES&S iVotronic, are widely used across the country, and have failed notoriously in a number of races over the years, and thus, theoretically prone to the same or worse failures this November when the turnout will be far higher, the full article by Joe Lamb in Arkansas' Log Cabin Democrat notes two more additionally chilling points:

"[T]he votes for the constable race were later found to have recorded accurately on the voter-verifiable paper trail and therefore would not have appeared erroneous to voters either." (Which means there also would have been a fight, in any contested recount, about which numbers actually reflected voter intent!)
"What makes the situation all the more baffling, [Faulkner County Election Commissioner Bruce Haggard] added, is that the machine in question, along with its associated software and coding, were found to have worked to perfection during early voting." (So pre-election tests and early voting gave no indication that something would go wrong on election day, despite election official and voting machine company claims that such tests protect against such problems!)



Go to 13463
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto052720081843551863
UBS tells unit staff to avoid US visits

By Haig Simonian in Zurich
Tuesday May 27 2008 17:35
UBS (NYSE:UBS) has told members of its former private banking team responsible for rich US clients not to travel to America.

The Swiss bank has also made lawyers available to the more than 50 bankers involved, many of whom have left UBS since it decided last November to wind down its cross-border private banking business for US ­customers.

The move follows the recent indictment of one of the unit's former senior executives, Bradley Birkenfeld, who US authorities have accused of helping a billionaire client evade taxes. Mr Birkenfeld has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have made no public statement on the matter.



Go to 13462
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i73RTx_Xp2evaqhA-mIfFKizQQVQD9107JE81
111 nations, but not US, adopt cluster bomb treaty
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK – 12 hours ago

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) — Chief negotiators of a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs predicted Friday that the United States will never again use the weapons, a critical component of American air and artillery power.

The treaty formally adopted Friday by 111 nations, including many of America's major NATO partners, would outlaw all current designs of cluster munitions and require destruction of stockpiles within eight years. It also opens the possibility that European allies could order U.S. bases located in their countries to remove cluster bombs from their stocks.

The United States and other leading cluster bomb makers — Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan — boycotted the talks, emphasized they would not sign the treaty and publicly shrugged off its value. All defended the overriding military value of cluster bombs, which carpet a battlefield with dozens to hundreds of explosions.

But treaty backers — who long have sought a ban because cluster bombs leave behind "duds" that later maim or kill civilians — insisted they had made it too politically painful for any country to use the weapons again.

"The country that thinks of using cluster munitions next week should think twice, because it would look very bad," said Espen Barth Eide, Deputy Defense Minister of Norway, which began the negotiations last year and will host a treaty-signing ceremony Dec. 3.

"We're certain that nations thinking of using cluster munitions won't want to face the international condemnation that will rain down upon them, because the weapons have been stigmatized now," said Steve Goose, arms control director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, who was involved in the talks.

However, the treaty envisions their future use — and offers legal protection to any signatory nation that finds itself operating alongside U.S. forces deploying cluster bombs, shells and rockets.

The treaty specifies — in what backers immediately dubbed "the American clause" — that members "may engage in military cooperation and operations" with a nation that rejects the treaty and "engages in activities prohibited" by the treaty.

It suggests that a treaty member could call in support from U.S. air power or artillery using cluster munitions, so long as the caller does not "expressly request the use of cluster munitions."

The treaty also contains promises to mobilize international aid to cluster bomb-scarred lands such as southern Lebanon, where a 2006 war between the militant group Hezbollah and Israel left behind an estimated 1 million unexploded "bomblets."

The pact requires treaty members to aid explosives-clearance work and provide medical, training and other support to blast victims, their families and communities.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the treaty would not change U.S. policy and cluster munitions remain "absolutely critical and essential" to U.S. military operations.

He said U.S. officials in the State and Defense departments were studying whether the treaty would eventually oblige American bases in Europe to withdraw cluster munitions.

Goose said this decision would be up to individual U.S. allies. The treaty, he noted, requires nations that ratify it to eliminate all cluster weapons within their "jurisdiction or control."

He said most NATO members were likely to conclude that U.S. bases were operating under their jurisdiction and order U.S. cluster munitions to be removed or destroyed, while Germany and Japan were most likely to permit the weapons stocks to remain.

U.S. defense analysts said the treaty drafters do not appreciate the importance that the world's most powerful militaries place on cluster munitions. They doubted that the treaty would force any American retreat on the matter, noting that a majority of U.S. artillery shells use cluster technology.

"This is a treaty drafted largely by countries which do not fight wars," said John Pike, a defense analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org.

"Treaties like this make me want to barf. It's so irrelevant. Completely feel-good," he said.

Asked whether U.S. forces would ever ban or restrict cluster-bomb technology, Pike said, "It's not gonna happen. Our military is in the business of winning wars and using the most effective weapons to do so."

Ivan Oelrich, vice president for strategic security programs at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said he expected U.S. forces to keep using shells, rockets and bombs that break apart into smaller explosive objects because they have 10 times or more killing power than traditional munitions, particularly against troops in exposed terrain or in foxholes.

Government and military spokesmen in other cluster bomb-defending nations were similarly dismissive of the treaty.

"Russia will not ban cluster bombs and land mines," Lt. Gen. Yevgeny Buzhinsky said earlier this week in Moscow. "We stand for evolutionary development of these weapons. Russia's Defense Ministry objects to radical and prohibitive measures of this kind."

The treaty spells out future requirements for legal cluster weapons.

Each would have to contain no more than nine weapons inside, known formally as "submunitions." Each submunition must weigh at least 8.8 pounds, or four kilograms, have technology that allows it to identify a specific human or armored target, and contain electronic fail-safes to ensure that any duds cannot detonate later.

Patricia Lewis, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, said the weight rule represented "a very neat and clever way of closing off a loophole."

"In the future, things weighing less than four kilograms could be designed that would give a large explosive impact, so the idea is to prevent future developments," Lewis told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.

But U.S. analysts derided the conditions as illogical.

Both Oelrich and Pike said it would be technically possible to design new cluster munitions that meet all of the treaty's criteria — but questioned why the treaty sought to limit the number of devices per shell, rocket or bomb.

Oelrich said the treaty's insistence on electronic fail-safes ignored the possibility of producing submunitions encased in metals that rapidly deteriorate when exposed to sun or moisture, depending on the theater of war.

"I don't see the point of the `nine' thing," Oelrich said. "What difference does it make how you package the submunition? What matters is the performance of the submunition on the ground. And nobody in any military wants duds."

Pike said if other countries insist on shells, rockets and bombs that contain no more than nine submunitions each, the military logic would be inescapable.

"It would just mean I'm going to have to shoot more of them!" he said with a laugh.

Associated Press writers Foster Klug in Washington, Mike Eckel in Moscow and Frank Jordans in Geneva, Switzerland contributed to this report.



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