Governments across Europe Tremble
as Angry People Take to the Streets |
France paralysed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris resembling a debris-strewn battlefield. The Hungarian currency sinks to its lowest level ever against the euro, as the unemployment figure rises. Greek farmers block the road into Bulgaria in protest at low prices for their produce. New figures from the biggest bank in the Baltic show that the three post-Soviet states there face the biggest recessions in Europe. full story |
|
French Strikes: Violence Erupts as Thousands
Gather to Protest on 'Black Thursday' |
The streets filled with flag-waving protesters and in Paris protesters clashed with police, throwing bottles, overturning cars and starting a fire in the street. Labour leaders hailed the strikes and rallies, which marked the first time France's eight union federations had joined forces against the government since Sarkozy took office in 2007. Unions said 2.5 million people took part in dozens of rallies across France.. full story |
|
|
Lawsuit Challenges Clinton Secretary of State Appointment |
Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against newly sworn-in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Under the "Emoluments" or "Ineligibility" clause of the U.S. Constitution, no member of Congress can be appointed to a civilian position within the U.S. government if the "emoluments" of the position, such as the salary or benefits paid to whoever occupies the office, increased during the term for which the Senator or Representative was elected. full story |
|
|
Rep: Foreclosed Owners Should Squat in Their Own Homes |
If you're poor and the bank is coming for your home, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur has a plan for you. Just squat, she says. Yes, this Ohio Democrat is actually encouraging her financially distressed constituents whose homes have been foreclosed upon, to simply stay put. In Lucas County, Ohio, over 4,000 properties were foreclosed upon in 2008, reports CNN. full story |
|
|
More Disturbing Legislation Emanating from Congress |
It has become increasingly clear over the past several years -- it's just become more blatantly obvious since the appointment of the Bush administration to the White House -- that the U.S. Congress that is supposed to protect and speak for the people they're elected to represent has been doing quite the opposite, once again introducing potentially unconstitutional legislation that tramples rights and liberties. full story |
|
|
Gordon Brown's Lost His Marbles |
Gordon Brown was last night accused of "losing his marbles" after hailing Britain's bloodbath of job cuts as the "birth pangs of a new global order". In a speech that risked a furious backlash, the Prime Minister said the recession was his opportunity to forge a new global financial system. Astonishingly, Mr Brown even claimed to have predicted the current financial crisis 10 years ago. His boasts came as the tally of jobs axed or under threat this month hit 50,000. full story |
|
|
PBS: NSA Could Have Prevented 9/11 Hijackings |
Author James Bamford looked into the performance of the NSA in his 2008 book, The Shadow Factory, and found that it had been closely monitoring the 9/11 hijackers as they moved freely around the United States and communicated with Osama bin Laden's operations center in Yemen. The NSA had even tapped bin Laden's satellite phone, starting in 1996. full story |
|
|
Global Job losses 'Could Hit 51 Million' |
As many as 51 million jobs worldwide could be lost this year because of the global economic crisis, says the International Labour Organization(ILO). The UN agency says that would push up the world's unemployment rate to 7.1% by the end of 2009, compared with 6.0% in 2008 and 5.7% in 2007. The ILO's most optimistic forecast is for 18 million more unemployed, giving a global jobless rate of 6.1%. full story |
|
|
Peanut Processor Knowingly Sold Tainted Products |
The Georgia peanut plant linked to a salmonella outbreak that has killed eight people and sickened 500 more across the country knowingly shipped out contaminated peanut butter 12 times in the past two years, federal officials said yesterday. Companies are not required to disclose their internal tests to either the FDA or state regulators, so health officials did not know of the problem. full story |
|
|
Iceland's Government Collapses |
Iceland's coalition govt. collapsed Monday, the latest fallout from a global financial crisis that has set off angry demonstrations against govt.s across Europe. Iceland has been in crisis since the collapse of its banks because of large debt in Sept. and Oct., with its currency, the krona, plummeting. The standard of living for the average person has sunk along with the currency, and the economy is expected to contract by nearly 10% this year. full story |
|
|
Congress Seeks To Authorize & Legalize FEMA Camp Facilities |
A new bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives called the National Emergency Centers Act. This bill if passed into law will direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers otherwise known as FEMA camp facilities on military installations. This is an incredibly disturbing piece of legislation considering that the powers that be have already set in motion an agenda to setup a nationwide marital law apparatus.. full story |
|
|
Move to End "Internet Neutrality" |
If the cable and phone companies that transmit Internet data are allowed to charge higher rates to some producers for faster service the result will be "a ten pin strike against political freedom," a prominent legal authority warns. That's because the change will enable the wealthy to "quickly take over the high speed transmissions (for their trash commercial content).." full story |
|
|
Britain Is Facing Return of Three-day Week |
The prospect of the three-day week returned to haunt Britain yesterday as it emerged that ministers are considering paying firms to cut hours in order to survive the recession. While the move would safeguard jobs, it would mean that the financial crisis is on a much larger scale, further undermining confidence in the economy with the suggestion of Britain grinding to a halt. full story |
|
|
Can Wolves Restore an Ecosystem? |
Wolves last roamed the Olympic Peninsula nearly a century ago. A controversial new study argues the absence of these predators has led to dramatic and often destructive shifts in the area's ecology. No trace remains of the wolves whose howls ricocheted for millennia down the lush valleys of the Olympic Peninsula. Settlers and trappers killed them all in little more than three decades. full story |
|
|
Crisis Meeting Called on Violent Protest across Europe |
Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Greece and Iceland have all faced social unrest and rioting as unemployment soars and as many European countries have been forced to impose severe cuts to government spending. A senior EU source has told The Daily Telegraph that a March summit of European leaders will examine the increasing unrest as unemployment rises across Europe and cuts to social programmes bite. full story |
|
|
Alleged NSA Spying Targeted Journalists, Raising New Questions |
Tice, during an appearance on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann the prior evening, proclaimed, "The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications. It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications." full story |
|
|
Garden Birds in Decline, Survey Shows |
House sparrows and starlings remain the most common birds but numbers are declining dramatically in part due to habitat loss through development like concreting over gardens to create parking spaces. Other small birds like the gold finch, which is more suited to the warmer winters in Britain, has been recovering from very low numbers, while bigger birds like wood pigeons and collared doves have done well from scraps on offer at bird tables. full story |
|
|
In-flight Confrontations Can Lead to Terrorism Charges |
Tamera Jo Freeman was on a Frontier Airlines flight to Denver in 2007 when her two children began to quarrel over the window shade and then spilled a Bloody Mary into her lap. She spanked each of them on the thigh with three swats. The incident aboard the Frontier flight ultimately led to Freeman's arrest and conviction for a federal felony defined as an act of terrorism under the Patriot Act. full story |
|
|
2009 Heralds "A New Age of Rebellion" |
2009 heralds the start of a "new age of rebellion" according to an editorial in the highly influential London Times newspaper, and the year in which masses of people will take to the streets to riot in response to drastically falling standards of living. Riot police were again deployed to combat demonstrators in Iceland last night after protesters all but stormed the parliament building in Reykjavik.. full story |
|
|
Police Stage 'Raid' on Commons Office of Another Tory MP |
A Tory MP claims police entered his House of Commons office last night without a warrant and demanded to see constituency correspondence. Daniel Kawczynski said he was informed by his office about the police raid as he was due to make a speech in a Commons debate. In November, Tory MP Damian Green was arrested and four addresses linked to him, including his office in the Commons, searched under anti-terror laws. full story |
|
|
Supreme Court Strikes Down Internet Censorship Law |
It took ten years, but free speech advocates are celebrating the demise of a controversial law they said violated the First and Fifth Amendments in its aims to "protect children." "For over a decade the government has been trying to thwart freedom of speech on the Internet, and for years the courts have been finding the attempts unconstitutional," said ACLU senior staff attorney and lead counsel Chris Hansen. full story |
|
|
Gordon Brown Brings Britain to the Edge of Bankruptcy |
They don't know what they're doing, do they? With every step taken by the Government as it tries frantically to prop up the British banking system, this central truth becomes ever more obvious. Yesterday marked a new low for all involved, even by the standards of this crisis. Britons woke to news of the enormity of the fresh horrors in store. full story |
|
Unconstitutional & Illegal National
Firearm Licensing Program Proposed |
The terrorists in the federal government are continuing to destroy any freedom and liberty that might be left in this country. Now that the Democrat faction of the one party system has a majority in both houses of Congress and will shortly be in control of the executive branch, we can expect a different agenda of enslavement and dehumanization to be implemented. One of these agendas will be the continued destruction of the Second Amendment. full story |
|
|
25% of Retailers May Go Bankrupt |
Analysts estimate that from about 10% to 26% of all retailers are in financial distress and in danger of filing for Chapter 11. AlixPartners LLP estimates that 25.8% of 182 large retailers it tracks are at significant risk of filing for bankruptcy or facing financial distress in 2009 or 2010. In the previous two years, the firm had estimated 4% to 7% of retailers then tracked were at a high risk for filing. full story |
|
|
Salmon in Near-shore Pacific Contaminating Killer Whales |
The most contaminated wildlife on Earth, killer whales in the Pacific Northwest, are picking up nearly all their chemicals from Chinook salmon in polluted ocean waters off the West Coast, according to a new scientific study. The whales, which feed in coastal waters from British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands to the San Francisco area, were declared an endangered species in the U.S. and Canada after their numbers shrank. full story |
|
|
Eastern Europe Braced for a Violent 'Spring of Discontent' |
Eastern Europe is heading for a violent "spring of discontent", according to experts in the region who fear that the global economic downturn is generating a dangerous popular backlash on the streets. Hit increasingly hard by the financial crisis, countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states face deep political destabilisation and social strife, as well as an increase in racial tension. full story |
|
Government Regulators Aided
IndyMac Cover-Up, Maybe Others |
Investigators probing how Treasury regulators allowed a bank to falsify financial records hiding its ill health have found at least three other instances of similar apparent fraud. In at least one instance, investigators say, banking regulators actually approached the bank with the suggestion of falsifying deposit dates to satisfy banking rules -- even if it disguised the bank's health to the public. full story |
|
|
Under Obama, Feds May Still Snoop Library Files |
Eric Holder said at his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he supports renewing a section of the USA Patriot Act that allows FBI agents investigating international terrorism or espionage to seek records from businesses, libraries and bookstores. If not renewed by Congress, the provision will expire at the end of 2009. The searches must be authorized by a court that meets secretly.. full story |
|
|
Monetary Union Has Left Half of Europe Trapped in Depression |
Events are moving fast in Europe. The worst riots since the fall of Communism have swept the Baltics and the south Balkans. An incipient crisis is taking shape in the Club Med bond markets. A great ring of EU states stretching from Eastern Europe down across Mare Nostrum to the Celtic fringe are either in a 1930s depression already or soon will be. Greece's social fabric is unravelling before the pain begins, which bodes ill. full story |
|
|
Obama's Mass Movement Gets a New Mission |
In order for the banksters and ruling elite behind Obama to realize their political agenda and wipe out all effective opposition in the process, the Obama mass movement, initially described as merely a grassroots political movement organized to get Obama elected, will now become "Obama 2.0," or officially "Organizing for America," a "new group that aims to continue the grassroots advocacy that Obama began in his presidential campaign." full story |
|
|
Bald Eagles in Region Face New Threat |
After being pushed by humans to the brink of extinction and then re-establishing habitats in the Hudson River Valley and Catskill Mountains, bald eagles are again facing a manmade threat to their existence. A Maine-based environmental organization has found an alarming accumulation of mercury in the blood and feathers of both juvenile and adult bald eagles in the Catskills. full story |
|
|
200,000 War Veterans Homeless in US |
"We've had people brought into the VA, turned away, who have committed suicide after coming back from the war with post-traumatic stress disorder. We’ve had people redeployed to Iraq, even after they were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. We have 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans coming home with traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage. We have 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have filed disability claims with the federal government." full story |
|
|
Washington Bill Would Ban Chemical in Baby Bottles |
Washington lawmakers are backing a House bill to ban the chemical, known as BPA, in food or drink containers for children age 3 and younger, including plastic baby bottles and infant formula. "Even small amounts of BPA can be very toxic to babies and young children," said Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, primary sponsor of House Bill 1180. full story |
|
Big Brother Database a 'Terrifying'
Assault on Traditional Freedoms |
Proposals in the Coroners and Justice Bill include measures to authorise ministers to move huge amounts of data between government departments and other agencies and public bodies. Bodies that hold personal information include local councils, the DVLA, benefits offices and HM Revenue and Customs. The Bill will allow ministers to use data-sharing orders to overturn strict rules that require information to be used only for the purpose it was taken. full story |
|
|
The Floodgates Open Wide: Obama and Our Eugenical Future |
The Obama Campaign stated: "Senator Obama would overturn the global gag rule and reinstate funding for UNFPA". Representative Carolyn Maloney would later express her confidence in the Obama promise to fund the UNFPA during a press conference at the National Press Club Starr, "Congresswoman Confident Obama Will Fund UNFPA, Which Supports China's Coercive Abortion Program" full story |
|
|
Bush Removes Gray Wolf Protected Status |
The Bush administration on Wednesday announced plans to remove gray wolves in the western Great Lakes and northern Rocky Mountains regions from the federal endangered species list. Previous attempts by the federal government to remove wolves in both regions from the endangered list and return management authority to the states have been overruled by courts. full story |
|
|
Fed Mob Boss Geithner's Confirmation Sidelined |
He failed to pay some taxes in the past and had employed a housekeeper whose work papers had expired. Big deal. Geithner will be appointed regardless because the banksters want their boy in the Treasury so they may continue their unbridled looting and screwing of the American people. It's just politics as usual in the district of criminals and Geithner's arrogance, not paying taxes and hiring an illegal alien to clean up after him, is par for the course. full story |
|
|
Obama Breaks Bread with Neocons |
President-elect Barack Obama enjoyed an intimate dinner Tuesday with several scions of conservative journalism at stately Will Manor, the swank, $1.9 million home of conservative columnist George Will. The Weekly Standard's William Kristol was in attendance. So was David Books of the New York Times and Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post. It was a knot of "tight, right suits," according to a White House pool report. full story |
|
|
Chavez Will Try Again to End Term Limits |
In Venezuela, a referendum is expected next month on a measure that would allow President Hugo Chavez and others to run for reelection an unlimited number of times. Despite the prospect of economic hard times as oil revenue plunges, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is preparing to go before voters with a plea that they've rejected once before: End term limits that block him from staying in power indefinitely. full story |
|
|
Rainforests Are Regrowing: Will Displaced Species Return? |
The continuing rapid expansion of logging and mining roads makes forest access easier for commercial poachers and hungry people. Animals are being hunted for exotic food, trophies, medicine and pets on levels that threaten the continued existence of many species. This increasing harvest of animals, combined with the emergence of devastating wildlife diseases, habitat loss due to industrial scale development, climate change and other factors, is a recipe for catastrophic biodiversity collapse full story |
|
|
US Tested Mustard Gas on Its Own Soldiers During WWII |
In the short term, Smith said, the mustard gas tests caused blistering, loss of pigmentation and hair, eye injuries, damage to the lungs and severe swelling of the genitalia as well as "psychological consequences from the intense fear". In the long run, she added, these tests caused post-traumatic stress disorder, cancer, asthma, emphysema and blindness. full story |
|
|
Army Suicides Rise as Time Spent in Combat Increases |
A cook at the dining facility, Barber sat in his truck wearing battle fatigues, earplugs and a camouflage hood on his head. He had an arsenal: seven loaded guns, nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition, knives in his pockets. On the front seat, an AK-47 had a bullet in the chamber. Despite the firepower he brought with him, Barber, 31, took only one life that day. He killed himself with a shot to the head. full story |
|
|
Research Ties Human Acts to Harmful Rates of Species Evolution |
Based on an analysis of earlier studies of 29 species, mostly fish, but also a few animals and plants like bighorn sheep and ginseng, researchers from several universities found that rates of evolutionary change were 3 times higher in species subject to "harvest selection" than in other species. "Targeting large, reproducing adults and taking so many of them in a population in a given year, that creates this ideal recipe for rapid trait change". full story |
|
Turley: Obama 'Owns' Bush 'War
Crimes' If He Looks the Other Way |
"There's no real question that crimes were committed here by [Obama's] predecessor," concluded Turley, "and he can either begin his administration as a man of principle, and allow the law to take us wherever it may lead, or he will inherit the same type of moral relativism that really corrupted the previous administration. I'm going to say a silent prayer for principle." full story |
|
|
ACLU Website Tracks Public Surveillance |
ACLU's Technology and Liberty program has launched a Web site to let America know - YouAreBeingWatched.us. The Web site provides news related to public video surveillance, links for more information, ways to take action, a 'horror stories' tab detailing recent misuse of surveillance authority and a flash map of locations in the US where municipal surveillance cameras have been installed. full story |
|
|
George Will: Obama on Torture Like Ford Pardon of Nixon |
President-elect Barack Obama's suggestion that he will probably not prosecute the Bush administration for torture is analogous to Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, conservative commentator George Will said on ABC's This Week. Obama said he would shut down Guantanomo's detention center, but that he won't be able to do so in his administration's first 100 days. full story |
|
|
Coal-ash Waste Poses Risk Across the Nation |
The billion-gallon wave of toxic coal-ash sludge that burst from a power-plant retention pond and buried 300 acres of rural Tennessee hints at a far larger problem: hundreds of similar threats nationwide. More than 1,300 coal-ash waste sites are dotted across the U.S., about half of them actively used, federal data show. Some are landfills. The rest are storage lagoons, which, like the one in Tennessee, mix ash with water. full story |
|
|
Divers Cut Away at Net That Has Been Killing Marine Life |
The Infidel came to rest on its keel, about 150 feet under the sea. But in the turbid currents, the fine-mesh hemp and polypropylene net, 40 feet high, several hundred feet long and made to last thousands of years, wrapped itself around the wreck and became a deadly snare for marine life. It has been entangling and killing sea lions, dolphins, sharks and fish ever since, littering the sandy bottom with skulls and bones picked clean by crabs. full story |
|
|
Obama Taps Neocons to Run Middle East Policy |
Dennis Ross is nothing if not a neocon, albeit of the Democrat stripe. He is in bed with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Project for the New American Century, the organization that brought us the invasion of Iraq and so far more than a million dead Iraqis. He also haunts the American Enterprise Institute, the think tank where Bush once bragged he selected the "minds" that have run his foreign policy over the last eight years. full story |
|
|
Army Assembles 'Mad Scientist' Conference. Seriously. |
"The objective of the seminar was to investigate proliferating technologies with the potential to empower individuals and groups in the next 10-25 years,". As you'd expect from such a colorfully-titled gathering, the collected brains predicted a world in which individuals would have easy access to everything from ray guns to nano-bots to bioengineered weapons to arms for creating international chaos online. full story |
|
|
U.S. Army Recruiting at the Mall with Video Games |
The U.S. Army, struggling to ensure it has enough manpower as it fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is wooing young Americans with video games, Google maps and simulated attacks on enemy positions from an Apache helicopter. Departing from the recruiting environment of metal tables and uniformed soldiers in a drab military building, the Army has invested $12 million in a facility that looks like a cross between a hotel lobby and a video arcade. full story |
|
|
Obama's Energy Czar: Socialist Agent for World Government |
Barack Obama's "climate czar" Carol Browner has been exposed as being a member of Socialist International, a highly influential group headed by a Bilderberg Group luminary that calls for the implementation of global government, despite Socialist International's attempts to seemingly "memory-hole" information about Browner on their website. full story |
|
Big Government Is Back: Obama Pledges
That US Will Give a Lead to World |
The world is "watching and waiting for America to lead once more", Barack Obama proclaimed yesterday as he set out the case for an economic policy that heralds a return of big-spending government intervention. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is likely to cost more than $700 billion on top of a federal deficit already projected to hit a record $1.2 trillion this year. full story |
|
|
Congress Bans Kids from Libraries? |
On February 10, the new law gets teeth. After that day, all products for children under 12, books, games, toys, sports equipment, furniture, clothes, DVDs, and just about every other conceivable children's gadget and gewgaw, must be tested for lead, and fall below a new 600 part-per-million limit, or face the landfill. Thanks to the CPSC, the lead limit applies not only to new products, but also to inventory already on store shelves. full story |
|
|
States of Emergency Declared across Europe over Gas |
Governments across Europe declared states of emergency and ordered factories to close as Russia cut all gas supplies through Ukraine yesterday in their worsening dispute over unpaid bills. Schools and factories were closed and trees were felled to keep home fires burning after Russia turned off the gas taps to more than a dozen countries. It was a clear demonstration of the dependence of the Continent on Russian gas supplies. full story |
|
|
Martial Law, the Financial Bailout, and War |
Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details of TARP spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, while the New York Federal Reserve has refused to provide information about its own bail-out (using govt.-backed loans) that amounts to trillions. This lack of transparency has been challenged by Fox TV in a FOIA suit against the Treasury Department, and a suit by Bloomberg News against the Fed. full story |
|
|
Jobless Rate Jumps to 7.2% in December |
The nation's unemployment rate bolted to 7.2% in Dec., the highest level in 16 years, as nervous employers slashed 524,000 jobs, capping one of the worst years in modern history for American workers. For all of 2008, the economy lost a net total of 2.6 million jobs. That was the most since 1945, when nearly 2.8 million jobs were lost. Though the U.S. labor force has more than tripled since then, losses of this magnitude are still being painfully felt. full story |
|
|
Racial Profiling Charged after Texas Man Shot in Own Driveway |
The family of a young black Texas man who was shot in his own driveway by a white police officer believes that racial profiling was the cause and are asking for criminal charges to be filed against the officer. Robbie Tolan and his cousin were returning to Tolan's home in the mostly white Houston suburb of Bellaire in the early hours of 12/31, when they were approached by officers who suspected the SUV they had just gotten out of was stolen. full story |
|
|
Red Cross Reports Grisly Find in Gaza |
The Red Cross said Thursday that it had found at least 15 bodies and several children, emaciated but alive, in a row of shattered houses in the Gaza Strip and accused the Israeli military of preventing ambulances from reaching the site for four days. When rescue workers arrived at the site, they found 12 corpses lying on mattresses in one home, along with 4 young children lying next to their dead mothers.. full story |
|
|
Rescuers Are Baffled over Ailing Pelicans |
Hundreds of brown pelicans have turned up sick or dead in the last two weeks from Baja California to Washington, stumping scientists who suspect toxic algae, disease or unpredictable weather conditions. The birds with distinctive prehistoric silhouettes are turning up disoriented in odd places, some with discolored or bruised pouches. They fly onto highways and parking lots or sit quietly in backyards where they are rescued. full story |
|
|
Proposed Law May Allow Obama AG Holder to "Ban Guns at Will" |
It looks like the gun-grabbers may have a field day when the new Congress convenes. Obama's AG nominee, Eric Holder, may have the ability to ban guns at will. Unruh cites H.R. 1022, sponsored by New York Democrat Carolyn McCarthy and 67 co-sponsors. It was introduced in February 2007 and the next month referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, where it bogged down. full story |
|
|
Vets Sue CIA Over Mind Control Tests |
For two decades or more during the Cold War, the CIA and the military allegedly plied the unwitting with acid, weed, and dozens of psychoactive drugs, in a series of zany (and sometimes dangerous) mind-control experiments. Now, the Vietnam Veterans of America are suing the agency and the Pentagon for perceived abuses suffered under the so-called "MK-ULTRA" and other projects. full story |
|
|
FACTBOX-U.S. Economic Report Shows Poor Hit Hard |
The U.S. recession is shaping up to give Americans their hardest economic times since World War Two. A new assessment of the economy was presented on Wednesday by the Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan budget analyst for Congress. More people need food stamps. Unemployment rolls are growing. Medicaid is expanding. Retirees won't get a raise in 2010. full story |
|
|
Ron Paul: Failure of Dollar Will Dwarf Current Crisis |
Barack Obama has started warning that getting the country out of its current economic hole may mean trillion-dollar deficits for years to come but Ron Paul has very different ideas. "I think it's just more of the same," Paul told John Roberts on Wed. "I don't think it'll solve the problems. It's turning the spending responsibility over to government. rather than individuals, and that's not the way you make an economy work." full story |
|
|
Corals in Peril |
Nearly one-fifth of the world's coral reefs have already succumbed to the combined onslaught of global warming, water pollution, and overfishing. Without immediate measures to mitigate climate change and reduce the local pressures on reefs, the world is set to lose another 15% of coral reefs over the next 10-20 years and 20% over 20-40 years. full story |
|
Obama Selects CFR Member Sanjay
Gupta to be Surgeon General |
Gupta was not only chosen for his "broadcasting skills," but also because he is a trusted insider. Not surprisingly, Gupta is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Part of Gupta's "public message" is that thermersol and its mercury-based preservative has nothing to do with autism. In 2007, Gupta went on CNN to state there appears to be no relationship between thimerosal and autism. full story |
|
|
Kissinger: Obama's 'Task' Is to Help Create a 'New World Order' |
President Nixon's Secretary of State, the aging Henry Kissinger, recently told CNBC that he believes the current world economic crisis is a "great opportunity" for President-elect Obama to help create a "new world order." "I think that his task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period, when really a "New World Order" can be created. It's a great opportunity. It isn't such a crisis." full story |
|
Olbermann: 'Fatuous, Condescending
Lunatic' Cheney Failed to Prevent 9/11 |
"There's no question about what the new administration are going to have their hands full with," Cheney went on to say. "The new set of problems, if you will, centered especially on the economy, just as our task when we came in was ultimately to deal with the aftermath of 9/11." "Listen, you fatuous, condescending lunatic," Olbermann erupted. "Your task was not to deal with the aftermath of 9/11, it was to prevent 9/11." full story |
|
|
More Groups Than Thought Monitored in Police Spying |
The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored, and labeled as terrorists, activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes. One of the possible "crimes" in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: "civil rights." full story |
|
EPA 'Cow Tax' Could Charge $175 per
Dairy Cow to Curb Greenhouse Gases |
The New York Farm Bureau assigned a price tag to the cost of greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA in a release last month. "The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog," the release said. "Any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would have to obtain permits." full story |
|
Blair, His Catholic Assistant, and Their New
Yale Office Near Her Opus Dei Father's Office |
Tony Blair, who has recently converted to Catholicism, is teaching classes on "Faith and Globalization" at Yale. Meanwhile, the former Nazi Youth member and Sith Lord look-a-like Pope just said that the financial crisis should be seen as a "test-case" about the future of globalization. Do they all show up to the tomb for evening cocktails and to hang out with the Brotherhood of Death folks? full story |
|
|
Crops Absorb Livestock Antibiotics, New Science Shows |
For half a century, meat producers have fed antibiotics to farm animals to increase their growth and stave off infections. Now scientists have discovered that those drugs are sprouting up in unexpected places. People have long been exposed to antibiotics in meat and milk. Now, the new research shows that they also may be ingesting them from vegetables, even ones grown on organic farms. full story |
|
Beware the Liberal Fascists Who Aim to
'Save' Us by Controlling Everything We Do |
Late last year, a British energy company created a website to teach children how to become 'climate cops' and turn in their own parents. Hillary Clinton summarised the attitude well when she insisted Americans 'have to start thinking and believing that there isn't really any such thing as someone else's child'. In her book, It Takes A Village, she reveals that babies of all classes are born in a state of crisis so profound that immediate state intervention is required. full story |
|
|
Troubled Waters |
The evidence abounds. The fish that once seemed an inexhaustible source of food are now almost everywhere in decline: 90% of large predatory fish (the big ones such as tuna, swordfish and sharks) have gone, according to some scientists. In estuaries and coastal waters, 85% of the large whales have disappeared, and nearly 60% of the small ones. Many of the smaller fish are also in decline. full story |
|
|
Depleted Uranium Found in Gaza Victims |
Medics tell Press TV they have found traces of depleted uranium in some Gazan residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive into the strip. The report comes after Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground operation after eight days of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces on the impoverished region. full story |
|
UK Police Set to Hack into Personal
Computers without a Warrant |
The Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people's personal computers without a warrant. The move, which follows a decision by the European Union's council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives "a coach and horses" through privacy laws. full story |
|
|
Orange Drinks with 300 Times More Pesticide Than Tap Water |
Fizzy drinks sold by Coca-Cola in Britain have been found to contain pesticides at up to 300 X the level allowed in tap or bottled water. A worldwide study found pesticide levels in orange and lemon drinks sold under the Fanta brand, which is popular with children, were at their highest in the UK. They called on the Govt., the industry and the company to act to remove the chemicals and called for new safety standards to regulate the soft drinks market. full story |
|
|
Home Schooling Grows |
The ranks of America's home-schooled children have continued a steady climb over the past five years, and new research suggests broader reasons for the appeal. The number of home-schooled kids hit 1.5 million in 2007, up 74% from when the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics started keeping track in 1999, and up 36% since 2003. full story |
|
|
India Sleepwalks to Total Surveillance |
In the name of fighting terrorism governments across the world have been creating new regulations that infinitely augment the state power of surveillance with no meaningful public or parliamentary debate. The Information Technology Bill, 2006 passed by the Indian Parliament recently allows the government to intercept messages from mobile phones, computers and other communication devices to investigate any offence. full story |
|
|
Factories Slash Output, Jobs around World |
Factories in China and India joined much of Europe in slashing output and jobs at a record pace in December, another sign the biggest emerging markets were wilting under the recession gripping industrialized nations. Factory activity surveys in the U.S. were also expected to show a steeper contraction in December, as demand collapses in the Western countries that developing nations rely on as export markets. full story |
|
|
Army Recruiter Suicides Prompt Investigations |
The Army is investigating a cluster of suicides in the Houston Recruiting Battalion, where five soldiers have taken their own lives since 2001. Nationally, 17 recruiters have committed suicide during the same period. Back in March of 2007, Aron Andersson locked himself in the cab of his Ford 150 pickup, called home to say he was going to kill himself, shot up the dashboard radio, and then put a bullet in his head. full story |
|
|
Lead for Car Batteries Poisons an African Town |
First, it took the animals. Goats fell silent and refused to stand up. Chickens died in handfuls, then en masse. Street dogs disappeared. Then it took the children. Toddlers stopped talking and their legs gave out. Women birthed stillborns. Infants withered and died. Some said the houses were cursed. Others said the families were cursed. The mysterious illness killed 18 children in this town on the fringes of Dakar, Senegal's capital. full story |
|
|
What is Wrong With the UN Population Fund? |
Why shouldn't the U.S. fund the population controllers at the United Nations? The short answer is that the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) is implicated in some of the most coercive anti-people campaigns in the world today. The UNFPA, like its founder, John D. Rockefeller III, believes that the way to reduce poverty is to reduce the numbers of the poor through sterilization, contraception, and abortion campaigns. full story |
|
|
Tennessee's Toxic Nightmare |
Just-released independent water sampling data from the Tennessee coal ash disaster has shown alarmingly high levels of arsenic and seven other heavy metals, including cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and thallium. Arsenic levels were especially worrisome. "From the water samples you gave us, we had anywhere from 35 to 300 times that [EPA] level" of 10 parts per billion for drinking water. full story |
|
|
Parents' Voice Stifled in China Milk Issue |
Chinese police detained at least five parents for 24 hours to block a news conference at which they planned to publicize the plight of their children, who are suffering from kidney stones as a result of drinking tainted baby formula. The parents were seized about 11:30 p.m. Thursday and taken to a hotel often used by police as a temporary detention center on the outskirts of Beijing. full story |
|
|
Trumpeter Swan and Osprey Numbers Grow in Wisconsin |
By the early 1970s in Wisconsin, the call of the trumpeter swan no longer echoed across the state's marshlands. And the heart-stopping drop of an osprey from the heavens toward a fish-filled river or lake was a rare sight. Lost to hunting, toxins and the destruction of their wild homes, they were on the verge of joining the growing roster of species that live only in stories of what used to be. full story |
|
|
U.S. Debt Expected To Soar This Year |
With President-elect Obama and congressional Democrats considering a massive spending package aimed at pulling the nation out of recession, the national debt is projected to jump by as much as $2 trillion this year, an unprecedented increase that could test the world's appetite for financing U.S. government spending. Foreign investors may prove unable to absorb the skyrocketing debt, undermining confidence in the U.S. as the bedrock of the global financial system. full story |
|
|
The Economist: U.S. in Depression, Not Recession |
Renowned financial publication The Economist reports that, based on the characteristics of the current financial crisis, the U.S. is in a depression, not a recession. The admission marks the first time that a major international financial news outlet has acknowledged that the scale of the economic mess is unlike anything seen in recent decades. full story |
|
|
Video: Depression Hits Detroit |
Detroit is facing a crisis of epic proportion. The average home price in Detroit is now $18, 513 and the unemployment rate is 21%. The unemployment rate is expected to get worse according to the statistics. Detroit is in a depression -- not a recession. full story |
|
|
Power Plant Has No Plans to Stop Killing Fish |
Despite legal threats from the city of San Francisco and protests from environmentalists, regulators have no plans to stop a local power plant from using a cooling system that kills fish, discharges heated water into the bay and stirs up sediment that can be harmful both to wildlife and people. One of the generators, known as Unit 3, draws in millions of gallons of water per day from the bay, killing an undetermined number of fish. full story |
|
|
Torch-wielding Crowd Forces Icelandic Prime Minister off TV |
A nationally televised meeting between Iceland's prime minister and other political leaders was forced off the air Wednesday night when angry protesters disrupted the broadcast. This year's show with Prime Minister Geir Haarde was cut short 45 minutes into the program when a torch-wielding crowd stormed Reykjavik's Hotel Borg in an attempt to get to the studio. full story |
|
|
Former Head of Chinese Dairy Pleads Guilty |
The former chairwoman of one of China's biggest dairy producers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to selling tainted powdered baby formula and acknowledged for the first time that the company knew of the problem months before alerting local officials to what has become one of the country’s biggest food-safety crises, according to the state-run news media. Tian Wenhua could face life imprisonment or even the death sentence if convicted. full story |
|
|
Socialism Is Cruel |
Many today view socialism as the kindest and gentlest method of organizing civilized society. Dyed-in-the-wool socialists are referred to as "bleeding hearts" because of the popular perception that they possess heightened empathy for the downtrodden. The sellers of socialism, whether left-wing Fabian socialists or right-wing revolutionary socialists, always peddle their theory as the best means for society to provide a social "safety net" for those who are left behind by the ravages of the free market. full story |
|
