This
Is What Gold Does In A Currency Crisis, Euro Edition
Yesterday
the European Central Bank acknowledged that the currency it manages is being
sucked into a deflationary vortex. It responded in the usual way with, in
effect, a massive devaluation. Eurozone citizens have also responded
predictably, by converting their unbacked, make-believe,
soon-to-be-worth-a-lot-less paper money into something tangible. They’re bidding
gold up dramatically.
The
Dire State Of Our Nation (What You Won’t Hear From The Politicians)
No matter what the politicians say about how great America is
and how we, as a people, will always triumph, the fact is that the nation seems
to be imploding. Despite
the dire state of our nation, however, you can rest assured that none of the
problems that continue to plague our lives and undermine our freedoms will be
addressed by our so-called elected representatives in any credible, helpful
way, and certainly not during a State of the Union address.
Mapping
The World's Greatest Risks (According To Davos)
"War" is back on the minds of the world's richest men
(and women). The
Global Risks Landscape, a map of the most likely and impactful global risks,
puts forward that, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, “interstate
conflict” is once again a foremost concern. As The World Economic Forum notes,
these multiple cross-cutting challenges can threaten social stability,
perceived to be the issue most interconnected with other risks in 2015,
and additionally aggravated by the legacy of the global economic crisis in the
form of strained public finances and persistent unemployment. The central theme
of profound social instability highlights an important paradox that has been
smouldering since the crisis but surfaces prominently in this year’s report.
Global risks transcend borders and spheres of influence and require
stakeholders to work together, yet these risks also threaten to undermine the
trust and collaboration needed to adapt to the challenges of the new global
context. Rather ominously, The WEF concludes, the world is, however,
insufficiently prepared for an increasingly complex risk environment.
·
New King in Saudi Arabia Unlikely to Alter Oil Policy
New
York Times | The death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia early Friday is
unlikely to deter the desert kingdom from maintaining a high level of oil
production.
Planned flogging of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi postponed again
London
Guardian | Medical assessment shows Badawi – who received 50 lashings on 9
January – unfit to face punishment.
President Obama Predicts Collapse of North Korea
Sputnik
News | US President Barack Obama stated that current political regime in North
Korea will eventually collapse.
More Isolation? Russia, China To Build $240 Billion High-Speed
Rail Link
Zero
Hedge | The ongoing ‘isolation’ of Russia took another turn for the
un-isolated-er today.
Mac
Slavo | Former U.S. intelligence linguist and national security veteran Scott
Rickard accused American intelligence of looking the other way to enable the
Hebdo Charlie terrorist attacks in Paris.
·
MONEY WATCH
Gold
& Silver Suddenly Shellacked
Zero
Hedge | Because nothing says sell precious metals in huge size like another central
bank printing a trillion dollars…
Feds Spent $432,000 Studying Gay Hookup Apps
Washington
Free Beacon | NIH project studied ‘arousal’ of gay men when using Grindr.
Oil Prices Jump On News Of King Abdullah’s Death
Reuters
| Oil prices jumped in early Asian trading Friday.
Dr. Doom Explains How To ‘Short’ Central Banks When Public
Confidence Collapses: “It’s The Only Way”
Mac
Slavo | All over the world central banks are printing money.
·
PRISON
PLANET
Web encryption leads to ‘unethical’ spy practices – ex-GCHQ chief
RT |
The increased use of encryption technologies will lead spy agencies to commit
“ethically worse” behavior says the GCHQ head.
Photography
Is NOT A CRIME! Or is it?
Prison
Planet.com | Sleeping Illinois Cop Claims “It’s now illegal to record a police
officer in public”.
Journalism School Dean: Insulting Mohammed Not Protected By First
Amendment
Truth
Revolt | “While free speech is one of democracy’s most important pillars, it
has its limits.”
Profound Stupidity: Vigilante Attacks Concealed Carry Permit
Holder…for Being Armed
The
Daily Sheeple | What would you do if you were entering a store and saw a person
concealing a handgun under their coat in the parking lot?
·
Has Devil’s Advocacy Become the New Thoughtcrime? Lew
Rockwell Blog | Poor Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute (RPI). What did
he do? Obama Has Sentenced Whistleblowers to 25 Times the Jail Time of
All Prior U.S. Presidents COMBINED Washington’s
Blog | And Obama Is Arguably More Hostile Towards The Press Than Any President
In History. Oligarch Justice – Powerful Pedophiles Roam Free as Barrett Brown
Returns to Jail Michael
Krieger | Today was a very big day for journalist, activist and American
political prisoner Barrett Brown. Obama IRS Shares Private Financial Data With Foreign Tyrants New
American | The IRS announced that it will be sharing private financial
information on U.S. bank account holders with foreign powers. ·
MULTIMEDIA Why You Should Care About Barrett Brown’s Prison Sentence Prison
Planet.com | Barrett Brown was sentenced to 5 Years in prison because he copied
and pasted a link. Facebook Censorship: What They’re Not Telling You Paul
Joseph Watson | It’s not just about ‘fake news stories’. Sleeping Illinois Cop Claims “It’s now illegal to record a police
officer in public” Steve
Watson | New Eavesdropping laws being abused by police. ·
U.S. NEWS WWE In DC: The Fake Border Fence Throw-Down Daily
Caller | The new border security bill being rushed forward by the Republican
leadership is merely political theater, says Kenneth Palinkas. Pelosi Won’t Say if Unborn Baby at 20 Weeks is a ‘Human Being’
CNS
News | House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would not directly answer. Black Man Who Tortured, Executed Two White Teens Makes ‘Black
Lives Matter’ Speech at Sentencing Gateway
Pundit | Did the ‘hands up don’t shoot, Black lives matter’ shtick. ·
SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY Russia Passes Even Tighter Restrictions on GMO Imports Christina
Sarich | Will GMOs Soon be Completely Banned There? Giant asteroid unlikely to have created firestorms big enough to
kill off dinosaurs, scientists say London
Independent | Scientists believe that a giant asteroid hitting Earth would not
be able to ignite a firestorm on a global scale. GMOs Were NEVER Proven Safe, PhD Explains Christina
Sarich | Yet the FDA Keeps Approving Them.
CIA
Spy Chief Quits...
Russians
will 'eat less' for Putin...
Netanyahu
'spat in our face,' White House officials say...
BUST:
Housing Weak Even With Govt Programs and Big Bank Interest...
Rents
keep climbing...
Milwaukee
sheriff tells Sharpton to crawl back to his 'gutter'...
Early
Speeches Reveal Obama's AG Pick's Passion for Racial InJustice/Pro-Black
Bias ...
12
Disasters That Could Bring About The End Of The World As We Know It
Our
way of life is far more vulnerable than most people would ever dare to
imagine. A single major catastrophe could fundamentally alter all of our
lives at any moment. But since most people have not experienced such a
catastrophe during their entire lifetimes, most people just assume that there
will never be one. This is called “normalcy bias” and it can lull us into
a very false sense of complacency. The other day, Michael Hanlon of the
Telegraph wrote an article entitled “How
will the world end? From ‘demonic’ AI to nuclear war — seven scenarios that
could end human race“. Below, I discuss each of those seven scenarios
along with five additional ones that I have added. We live in a world
that is becoming increasingly unstable, and as a society we have become
exceedingly dependent on the technology that we have surrounded ourselves
with. If something were to happen which would force us to live like our
grandparents and great-grandparents did, most of us would be in a tremendous
amount of trouble. And as our technology has advanced, so has the
potential that this technology will be used for war and destruction. There
is great evil in the heart of man, and the potential to hurt others with that
evil has never been greater. And of course there are always other “black
swan events” to be concerned about as well. The following are 12
disasters that could bring about the end of the world as we know it… (Read More...)
1. ASTEROID STRIKE
A single asteroid could
potentially produce an “ELE” – an extinction level event. And scientists
are finding more asteroids that are potentially a danger to Earth all the
time. For example, just the other day Russian researchers discovered a
massive asteroid that will fly close to our planet every three years…
Scientists
have calculated that 2014 UR116 asteroid will fly in dangerous proximity to
Earth every three years. If it collides with the planet the energy of the
explosion could be a thousand times greater than the impact of the Chelyabinsk
meteorite.
Vladimir
Lipunov, a leading scientist on the team which discovered the asteroid this
October, says the scientists now know its orbit and its period which is 3
years, but they cannot say precisely when the asteroid will approach the Earth.
“We
should track it constantly. Because if we have a single mistake, there will be
a catastrophe. The consequences can be very serious,” he said in the
documentary “Asteroids attack” posted on Roscosmos website.
If
a very large asteroid does hit us in just the right place, we could be talking
about tens of millions of deaths and the collapse of entire nations. The
following is an excerpt from one of my previous articles about what could
happen if a very large asteroid were to come crashing down just off the east
coast of the United States…
According
to the University of California at
Santa Cruz website, if a massive asteroid were to crash into the
Atlantic Ocean it could produce a giant tsunami with a wall of water as high as
400 feet that would slam into the east coast of the United States…
If an asteroid crashes into the Earth, it is likely to splash
down somewhere in the oceans that cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface.
Huge tsunami waves, spreading out from the impact site like the ripples from a
rock tossed into a pond, would inundate heavily populated coastal areas. A
computer simulation of an asteroid impact tsunami developed by scientists at
the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows waves as high as 400 feet sweeping onto the Atlantic Coast of the
United States.
In
case you were wondering, yes, that would be absolutely catastrophic.
2. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Could
the machines one day rise up and take over?
Personally,
I am skeptical, but some of the brightest minds in the world are deeply
concerned about this. Just consider the following excerpt from Michael Hanlon’s article in the
Telegraph…
Humanity
may have already created its own nemesis, Professor Stephen Hawking warned last
week. The Cambridge University physicist claimed that new developments in the
field of artificial intelligence (AI) mean that within a few decades, computers
thousands of times more powerful than in existence today may decide to usurp
their creators and effectively end humanity’s 100,000-year dominance of Earth.
This
Terminator scenario is taken seriously by many scientists and technologists.
Before Prof. Hawking made his remarks, Elon Musk, the genius behind the Tesla
electric car and PayPal, had stated that “with artificial intelligence, we are
summoning the demon,” comparing it unfavourably with nuclear war as the most
potent threat to humanity’s existence.
3. A GENETICALLY CREATED PLAGUE
Ebola
has kind of fallen out of the news in the United States, but the virus is still
spreading like wildfire over in Sierra Leone.
But
of potentially even greater concern is what could happen if someone started
releasing a weaponized form of Ebola, Smallpox or the Marburg virus in our
major cities.
A
bioweapon can be a brutally efficient killer. It spreads silently and
invisibly, and a full-blown pandemic could ultimately kill hundreds of millions
of people.
And
every single day, our ability to manipulate these bugs grows. Many
believe that it is only a matter of time before these types of weapons are used
as instruments of terror.
When
that era arrives, all of our lives will change forever.
4. NUCLEAR WAR
This
is one that most Americans greatly underestimate.
Even
though tensions with Russia are extremely high, most of us just assume that
“the Cold War is over” and that a nuclear war is virtually impossible.
Unfortunately,
that is not even close to the truth.
The
following is an excerpt from my recent article entitled “10 Signs That Russia Is Preparing
To Fight (And Win) A Nuclear War With The United States“…
Back
in 1967, the U.S. military possessed more than 31,000 strategic nuclear warheads.
Now, we only have 1,642 deployed, and that number is scheduled to be further
reduced to about 1,500.
Sadly,
reducing the size of our nuclear arsenal by close to 95 percent is not enough
for anti-nuke crusader Barack Obama. He has spoken of unilaterally
reducing the size of our strategic nuclear arsenal down to just 300 warheads.
During
this same time period, the Russians have been developing some very impressive
stealth delivery systems which have the capability of hitting targets inside
the United States within just minutes of an order being issued. This is
particularly true of their submarine-launched missiles. The newest
Russian subs have the ability to approach our coastlines without us even knowing
that they are there. If the Russians came to the conclusion that war with
the United States was unavoidable, an overwhelming first strike using
submarine-based missiles could potentially take out nearly our entire arsenal
before we even knew what hit us. And if the Russians have an
anti-ballistic missile system that can intercept the limited number of rockets
that we can launch in return, they may be able to escape relatively unscathed.
In
order for “mutually assured destruction” to work, we have to see the Russian
missiles coming and have enough time to order a launch of our own. Thank
to emerging technologies, the balance of power has fundamentally shifted.
The old way of thinking simply does not apply anymore and the Russians
understand this.
5. PARTICLE ACCELERATOR DISASTER
Michael
Hanlon considers this one to have a “very low” probability, and I concur.
Although our ability to destroy ourselves is growing by leaps and bounds, I
believe that any disaster involving the Large Hadron Collider would be a
localized event.
But
as we continue to try to “play God” and build machines like this, we
potentially open up gateways and expose ourselves to dangers beyond anything
that most of us ever imagined.
6. ‘GOD’ REACHES FOR THE OFF-SWITCH
I
thought that it was very interesting that Michael Hanlon included this one in his article…
Many
scientists have pointed out that there is something fishy about our universe.
The physical constants – the numbers governing the fundamental forces and
masses of nature – seem fine-tuned to allow life of some form to exist. The
great physicist Sir Fred Hoyle once wondered if the universe might be a “put-up
job”.
More
recently, the Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom has speculated that
our universe may be one of countless “simulations” running in some alien
computer, much like a computer game. If so, we have to hope that the beings
behind our fake universe are benign – and do not reach for the off-button
should we start misbehaving.
So
could God step in and alter the course of history?
Well,
it has certainly happened before, and many are convinced that it will happen
again.
Many
Christians believe (myself included) that we are moving into the period of time
that the Bible refers to as “the last days”. According to the Scriptures,
there has never been a time as horrible as the last days will be, and there
never will be a time like it afterwards.
Of
course the Bible also says that “the last days” will not be the end of the
world.
But
it will be the end of the world as we know it.
7. CLIMATE CATASTROPHE
There
are a lot of people out there that believe that global warming caused by human
activity is the greatest threat that humanity is currently facing.
I
am not one of those people. The climate has always been changing, and it
will always be changing. And the amount of carbon dioxide and other
“greenhouse gases” produced by human activity is a negligible percentage of the
total.
In
addition, scientists tell us that there were times in the history of this
planet when carbon dioxide levels were far, far greater than they were
today. So even if we were to move back in that direction substantially,
it would certainly not mean the end of our planet.
However,
that doesn’t mean that we are not going to see tremendous changes in our
weather in the years ahead. The primary driver of climate change, the
sun, is behaving very strangely right now. If it continues to behave
erratically, that could cause dramatic climate shifts.
In
addition, the increase in seismic activity that we have been witnessing all
over the planet could also greatly affect our climate. Volcanic ash can
have a tremendous cooling impact on global weather patterns, and volcanoes that
erupt on the ocean floor could potentially cause ocean temperatures to rise
substantially. Scientists tell us that if ocean temperatures were to rise
far enough, we could see billions of fish dying. If such an event were to
occur, a global famine would not be too far behind.
8. SUPERBUGS THAT ARE RESISTANT TO ANTIBIOTICS
Medical
professionals are becoming increasingly alarmed by the antibiotic-resistant superbugs
that are starting to pop up all over the place. So far it is not a
catastrophic threat, but experts warn that it could soon become one. The
following is an excerpt from one of my previous articles…
The
“wonder drugs” that we have been using since the middle of the last century are
rapidly losing their effectiveness, and medical authorities are warning that
the emergence of very powerful antibiotic-resistant superbugs represents “one of the gravest threats in the
history of medicine“. Of course the “wonder drugs” that I am
talking about are known today as antibiotics. These drugs attack
bacteria, and when they first began to be developed back in the 1950s and 1960s
they were hailed as “miracles” that would save countless numbers of
lives. Well, it turns out that nature is having the last laugh. All
over the planet bacteria are developing resistance to these drugs, and
scientists are warning that they can’t really do anything to stop these
superbugs. With each passing year these superbugs are gaining ground, and
there appears to be not much hope on the horizon of being able to fight
them. In fact, no new classes of antibiotics have been invented since
1987, and none are being developed right now. Meanwhile,
scientists are telling us that many current antibiotic treatments will be
completely obsolete by the year 2030. Are you starting to understand why
so many high profile members of the scientific community are using the words “catastrophic threat” to describe this crisis?
9. CYBERWAR
Did
you see what just happened to
Sony? It is probably the most embarrassing and financially
damaging incident in company history. Of course the North Koreans are
denying that they were behind the attack, but there is a good chance that they
were.
Sadly,
this could just be a preview of what is coming.
For
example, what would happen if a cyberattack took down all of our major
banks? What would we do?
Most
people don’t realize this, but our banks are already under assault every minute of every single day…
Wall
Street banks are getting hit by cyber attacks every single minute of every
single day. It is a massive onslaught that is not highly publicized
because the bankers do not want to alarm the public. But as you will see
below, one big Wall Street bank is spending 250 million dollars a year just by
themselves to combat this growing problem. The truth is that our
financial system is not nearly as stable as most Americans think that it
is. We have become more dependent on technology than ever before, and
that comes with a potentially huge downside.
10. ANOTHER FUKUSHIMA
The
Fukushima nuclear disaster showed all of us how a single natural disaster can
absolutely cripple a nuclear reactor.
And
of course things are still not under control at Fukushima. It is already
the greatest nuclear disaster in human history, and it is still releasing even
more nuclear material into the environment every single day.
Once
this material gets into the food chain, it can silently kill for
generations. The following comes from an opinion piece by Helen Caldicott
that was published in the Guardian…
Internal
radiation, on the other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter
the body by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides
such as iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in
the sea and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food
chains (for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then
humans; or soil, grass, cow’s meat and milk, then humans). After they
enter the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific
organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously
irradiate small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma
radiation, and over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that
is, cancer. Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the
environment for generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of
cancer and genetic diseases over time.
So
what happens one day when a catastrophic natural disaster in the United States
or elsewhere in the world causes several “Fukushimas” at the same time?
That
is something to think about.
11. A MASSIVE ERUPTION AT THE YELLOWSTONE SUPERVOLANO
Around
the globe, there are some volcanoes that are so absolutely massive in size that
they are referred to as “supervolcanoes”.
One
of these supervolcanoes is in the United States. The following facts
about the Yellowstone supervolcano come from one
of my previous articles…
#1
A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone could be up to 1,000 times more powerful than the eruption of
Mount St. Helens in 1980.
#2
A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone would spew volcanic ash 25 miles up into the air.
#3
The next eruption of Yellowstone seems to be getting closer with each passing
year. Since 2004, some areas of Yellowstone National Park have risen by as much as 10
inches.
#4
There are approximately 3,000 earthquakes in the Yellowstone area every
single year.
#5
In the event of a full-scale eruption of Yellowstone, virtually the entire
northwest United States will be completely destroyed.
#6
A massive eruption of Yellowstone would mean that just about everything within
a 100 mile radius of Yellowstone would be immediately killed.
#7
A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone could also potentially dump a layer of
volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away.
#8
A full-scale eruption of Yellowstone would cover virtually the entire midwest
United States with volcanic ash. Food production in America would be
almost totally wiped out.
#9
The “volcanic winter” that a massive Yellowstone eruption would cause would
radically cool the planet. Some scientists believe that global
temperatures would decline by up to 20 degrees.
#10
America would never be the same again after a massive Yellowstone
eruption. Some scientists believe that a full eruption by Yellowstone
would render two-thirds of the United States completely uninhabitable.
#11
Scientists tell us that it is not a matter of “if” Yellowstone will erupt but
rather “when” the next inevitable eruption will take place.
12. A GIANT ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE FROM THE SUN
This
last one that I have added to the list is one of the least understood.
A
giant electromagnetic pulse from the sun has the potential to fry much of the
technology that we have become so dependent upon.
How
would you survive in a world where nobody has electricity, the Internet has
been fried, the financial system is offline indefinitely, nobody can make any
phone calls and virtually all commerce across the entire country has been
brought to a complete standstill?
A
massive EMP blast has the potential to send all of us back to the 18th century
in a single instant. And just two years ago there was a “near
miss” that almost got us.
So
don’t think that it can’t happen. In fact, experts tell us that it is
only a matter of time before it does.
And
when it does happen, it could turn our society totally upside down…
According
to Peter Vincent Pry, who advises Congress on homeland security issues, a large
enough geomagnetic solar storm could produce effects similar to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP)
generated by a nuclear weapon that “could collapse power
grids everywhere on the planet and destroy EHV (extra high voltage)
transformers and other electronic systems that would require years to repair or
replace.” While the danger posed by a G5 solar storm gets mentioned
occasionally at Congressional hearings, there really hasn’t been any major
action.
Earlier
this year, a Homeland Security adviser said America is not ready for an EMP
attack, never mind a G5 solar storm, and it’s claimed that the U.S. power grid fails more often
than any other in the world. If a large enough solar storm does impact
the United States, the damaged electronic systems can cause a cascade of
failures throughout the broader infrastructure, including banking systems,
energy systems, transportation systems, food production and delivery systems,
water systems, emergency services, and even the internet, so people may not
even realize at first what has happened. Effectively, the U.S. would be thrown
back to the pre-industrial age following a solar superstorm, and yet we are not
prepared for the worst.
So
what do you think about all of this?
Are
there any additional potential disasters that you would add to this list?
Please
feel free to add to the discussion by posting a comment below…
New
Law Would Make Taxpayers Potentially Liable For TRILLIONS In Derivatives Losses New
Law Would Make Taxpayers Potentially Liable For TRILLIONS In Derivatives Losses
Michael Snyder { Me: Yeah ... it's really quite amazing (but
predictable) that Senator Warren would be the 'bad guy' in all of this for
standing against this wall street enriching paper/digital fraud bailout
/debacle ... again ... though promised by Washington, 'never again' ...
Remember, as previously set forth innumerable times in this site, only a small
fraction of what wall street does is a net economic positive in real economic
terms (less than 5 percent) ... Think of these technologically enabled
lightning-fast worthless paper/digital commissioned bubble frauds as
'liquidated babies' down the drain (wall street) with the bath water, termites
eating away at the foundation/fabric of the nation, etc.. They must be
prosecuted, disgorgement imposed for their gargantuan frauds, not
rewarded/bailed out/positively reinforced/conditioned for further
nation-destroying behavior ... }
If
the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble implodes, who should be stuck with
the bill? Well, if the “too big to fail” banks have their way it will be
you and I. Right now, lobbyists for the big Wall Street banks are pushing
really hard to include an extremely insidious provision in a bill that would
keep the federal government funded past the upcoming December 11th
deadline. This provision would allow these big banks to trade derivatives
through subsidiaries that are federally insured by the FDIC. What this
would mean is that the big banks would be able to continue their incredibly
reckless derivatives trading without having to worry about the downside.
If they win on their bets, the big banks would keep all of the profits.
If they lose on their bets, the federal government would come in and bail them
out using taxpayer money. In other words, it would essentially be a
“heads I win, tails you lose” proposition. (Read More....)
Horrific
Torture Report Shows Why Much Of The World Considers America To Be The Nazis Of
The 21st Century { Yeah … it’s
really quite amazing (but predictable) that Senator Feinstein would be the ‘bad
guy’ in all of this … What was she supposed to do … cover it up? … pretend she
didn’t do a job entrusted to her? … make the expenditure of time, resources,
and energy compiling this reality a mere folly and hence, a typical government
boondoggle? … Is anybody so foolish as to believe anything the rebuttal /cia
/bureaucratic cheerleaders say? (Oh well, cheerleaders, drunken ones at that is
something dumbya bush did at yale … not to be sexist -I’m not- but, really, how
embarrassing for a guy!) . As far as worsening the perception of america in
light of this report … WAKE UP! … can’t get worse than it already is, is (the
meaning of what is, is). Look … bush, cheney, et als are war criminals; and, as
in nazi germany, that ‘just following orders thing’ just doesn’t cut it … Does
anybody recall dumbya bush making a joke of the non-existent wmd’s (one of
those Washingtonian special dinner events, I don’t recall which one) … we’re
talking certifiable socio-psychopathic behavior as was true of the nazis … }
Good guys do not sadistically
torture people. Good guys do not threaten to sexually abuse the family
members of their prisoners, and they certainly do not forcibly ram things up
the rear ends of those in their custody. One of the greatest dangers that
our country is facing is the fact that we are not passing on what it means to
be “American” to future generations. Once upon a time, Americans were the
good guys. But now, instead of fighting the Nazis we are behaving just
like them. The details of the Senate torture report that was just released are
almost too horrifying to talk about. We must talk about them though,
because we are losing our soul as a nation. So please be warned – this
article is going to be quite graphic. The reason for this is so that we
can all take a long, hard, honest look at what we have become. After
everything that has happened, top politicians from both political parties are
still standing up and defending those that conducted and authorized this
torture. The rest of the world is watching this, and the number of people
that are absolutely convinced that America is pure evil is growing by the
day. By not loudly condemning this torture and bringing the perpetrators
to justice, we add fuel to the fire of those that hate this country, and we
make it more likely that Americans will be targets of violence all over the
planet. (Read More...)
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
Our Cats, Ourselves
By
Photo
Credit Melody Newcomb
DAVIS, Calif. —
IT’S commonplace to call our cats “pets.” But anyone sharing a cat’s household
can tell you that, much as we might like to choose when they eat in the
morning, or when they come inside for the night, cats are only partly
domesticated.The likely ancestors of the domestic dog date from more than 30,000
years ago. But domestic cats’ forebears join us in the skeletal record only
about 9,500
years ago. This difference fits our intuition about their comparative
degrees of domestication: Dogs want to be “man’s best friend”; cats, not so
much.Fossils are handy snapshots of the past, but a genomic sequence is a time
machine, enabling scientists to run evolutionary history backward. The initial sequence of
the domestic cat was completed in 2007, but a
recent study to which I contributed compared the genomes of the domestic
cat and the wildcat (Felis silvestris) and sheds new light on the last 10,000
years of feline adaptations.Domestic cats are not just wildcats that tolerate
humans in exchange for regular meals. They have smaller skulls in relation to
their bodies compared with wildcats, and are known to congregate in colonies.
But in comparison with dogs, cats have a narrower range of variation in size
and form.Wesley C. Warren, an author of the study, notes that domestic cats
have excellent hunting skills, like their wild ancestors. This, too, supports
the notion that cats are only semi-domesticated.Comparing the genomes of the
wildcat and the domestic cat added much to what we had known. Michael J.
Montague, the lead author, told me he’d anticipated that the two genomes would
be very similar, but our study found a specific set of differences in genes
involved in neuron development. This brain adaptation may explain why domestic
cats are docile.Scientists have long observed that domesticated species exhibit
a suite of strikingly similar traits, from floppy ears to smaller brains, than
those of their wild ancestors. Domestication may select for a few similar
traits encoded by genetic changes (like smaller brains), but these may produce
what we assume are secondary effects (like floppy ears).Once they were living
among us, cats didn’t need to think so much to stay alive; nor did they need
such large jaws after we started feeding them our processed scraps. Hence
smaller skulls. The same dynamic holds for dogs: Wolves beat dogs in general
intelligence tests.By examining patterns in our animals’ genomes, we’ve
confirmed that the same sets of genes seem to be targeted again and again in
evolution. As far back as Charles Darwin, domestic animals in particular have
yielded insights about evolution because we know what sorts of selection
pressures they were subject to. After all, it was us they were primarily
adapting to.Which brings us to the genome of one critical tame animal:
ourselves, humans. The Nobel Prize-winning zoologist
Konrad Z. Lorenz once suggested that humans were subject to the same dynamics
of domestication. Our brain and body sizes peaked during the end of
the last ice age, and declined with the spread of agriculture.
Instead of
poring over the meager fossil record, we can survey patterns of variation
across tens of thousands of living individuals. Genomics now provides evidence
that humans have been subject to a great deal of natural selection
over the past 10,000 years. A beautiful example is the ancestors of Tibetans’ absorption
of small portions of the genome of ancient human relatives adapted for living
at high altitude.
Our cultural flexibility
and creativity since the end of the ice age have not freed humans from
evolutionary forces, but have opened up novel and startling paths. Thinking of
domestication as an evolutionary process that occurs through “artificial”
selection creates a false dichotomy of nurture and nature that plays into a
conceit of human exceptionalism. In fact, the idea that we are apart from
nature, that it is ours to tame and exploit, is an outmoded approach.A more
useful interpretation is that over the past 10,000 years, humans fashioned
their own ecosystem. We were part of a natural process that altered the
landscape. In that light, we can think of the domestic cat as an ecological
response to the emergence of parasites (rodents attracted by early Neolithic
granaries). The same forces that reshaped the genomes of our domesticates also
reshaped ours.No longer roving in small bands subsisting on game and
unprocessed plants, we settled down in villages, harvesting the same crops year
after year. For millenniums, peasants fed on what we might today term porridge,
of various types. Our teeth became smaller — indeed, both dogs and humans show
evidence of adaptation to starchy diets.Just as the fur of our mammalian
domesticates, freed from the constraint of needing to fade into the landscape,
became a riot of diverse colors, human pigmentation started to change and many
populations became light-skinned.
With a cheek-by-jowl existence, humans and their animals began sharing
diseases, remolding the immunity of whole populations, but leaving those who
did not experience this co-evolution untouched and vulnerable. Possibly, some
pathogens incubated in cats, like
Toxoplasma gondii, may even alter human
behavior.Many of us conceive of our relationship to our pets as analogous
to that between a parent and child. But the natural history tells a more
pragmatic tale. Cats emerged in the context of profound ecological changes to
the post-ice-age landscape wrought by humans.We were the authors of those
changes, but in the process of telling that story, we became protagonists
within it. One of the essential steps in knowing ourselves, and seeing where we
are going, is to look around and take note of how we’ve reshaped those nearest
to us, and they us.
Razib Khan, a doctoral candidate in genomics
at the University of California, Davis, writes about genetics, evolution, history,
politics and philosophy.
A version of
this op-ed appears in print on November 25, 2014, on page A27 of the New York
edition with the headline: Our Cats, Ourselves. Order
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Detroit,
Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans Make List Of World's Most Violent Cities... Murder is more common in Latin America than in any other part
of the world.
That's the most striking
takeaway from a ranking of the most violent cities compiled earlier this year
by Mexico's
Citizens' Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice. The ranking
doesn't count deaths in war zones or cities with unavailable data.
Thirty-four of the 50 worst
cities were located in the region, including repeat murder capital of the
world — San
Pedro Sula, Honduras — which saw 187 homicides per 100,000
inhabitants in 2013 and is getting steadily worse. A full one-third
of global homicides occur in Latin America even though the region
has just 8% of the world's population, according to United Nations
data.
Drug trafficking, gang wars,
political instability, corruption, and poverty combine to cause the region's
elevated violence.
US cities also made the list,
led by Detroit at No. 24 and New Orleans at No. 26.
50. Valencia, Venezuela, had 30.04
homicides per 100,000 residents.
49. Port-au-Prince, Haiti, had
30.05 homicides per 100,000 residents.
48. Durban, South Africa, had
32.42 homicides per 100,000 residents.
47. Tijuana, Mexico, had 32.50
homicides per 100,000 residents.
46. Aracaju, Brazil, had 33.36
homicides per 100,000 residents.
45. St. Louis had 34.14 homicides
per 100,000 residents.
44. Belo Horizonte, Brazil,
had 34.73 homicides per 100,000 residents.
43. Cuernavaca, Mexico, had 34.91
homicides per 100,000 residents.
42. Maracaibo, Venezuela, had
35.44 homicides per 100,000 residents.
41. Nelson Mandela Bay, South
Africa, had 35.76 homicides per 100,000 residents.
40. Macapá, Brazil, had 36.59
homicides per 100,000 residents.
39. Recife, Brazil, had 36.82 homicides
per 100,000 residents.
38. San Juan, Puerto Rico, had
37.40 homicides per 100,000 residents.
37. Juárez, Mexico, had
37.59 homicides per 100,000 residents.
36. Baltimore had 37.77 homicides
per 100,000 residents.
35. Medellin, Colombia, had 38.06 homicides
per 100,000 residents.
34. Pereira, Colombia, had 39.81
homicides per 100,000 residents.
33. Cúcuta, Colombia, had
42.22 homicides per 100,000 residents.
32. Santa Marta, Colombia, had
42.44 homicides per 100,000 residents.
31. Manaus, Brazil, had 42.53
homicides per 100,000 residents.
30. Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, had
42.90 homicides per 100,000 residents.
29. Cuiabá, Brazil, had 43.95
homicides per 100,000 residents.
28. Goiânia, Brazil, had 44.56
homicides per 100,000 residents.
27. San Salvador, El Salvador, had
44.74 homicides per 100,000 residents.
26. New Orleans had 45.08
homicides per 100,000 residents.
25. Campina Grande, Brazil, had 46
homicides per 100,000 residents.
24. Detroit had 46.99 homicides
per 100,000 residents.
23. Belém, Brazil, had 48.23
homicides per 100,000 residents.
22. Victoria, Mexico, had 49.22
homicides per 100,000 residents.
21. Chihuahua City, Mexico, had
50.12 homicides per 100,000 residents.
20. Cape Town, South Africa, had
50.94 homicides per 100,000 residents.
19. Kingston, Jamaica, had 52.83
homicides per 100,000 residents.
18. Torreón, Mexico, had 54.24
homicides per 100,000 residents.
17. Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, had
54.27 homicides per 100,000 residents.
16. Culiacán, Mexico, had 54.57
homicides per 100,000 residents.
A woman walks by a mural that reads in
Spanish "Wave of violence and blood" in Culiacan, the capital city of
Mexico's Sinaola state, Thursday, May 15, 2008.
15. São Luís, Brazil,
had 57.04 homicides per 100,000 residents.
A protest in São Luís, Brazil.
14. Vitoria, Brazil, had 57.39
homicides per 100,000 residents.
Amazon Indians talk to police at the
entrance to the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam construction site, as they
continued their occupation of the area in Vitoria do Xingu, near Altamira in
Para State, May 5, 2013.
13. Salvador (and RMS), Brazil,
had 57.51 homicides per 100,000 residents.
A Brazilian drug gang member nicknamed
Poison, 18, poses with a gun atop a hill overlooking a slum in Salvador, Bahia
State, April 11, 2013.
12. Natal, Brazil, had 57.62
homicides per 100,000 residents.
A soldier stands outside at the Maria Lamas
Farache-Frasqueirao stadium before the Mexico's national soccer team's training
session in Natal, June 14, 2014.
11. Palmira, Colombia, had 60.86
homicides per 100,000 residents.
A Colombian soldier organize packs of
confiscated cocaine in a laboratory near Palmira, Valle del Cauca province
August 20, 2004.
10. Barquisimeto, Venezuela, had
64.72 homicides per 100,000 residents.
Venezuelan police officers stand guard
outside the morgue where the bodies of prisoners killed in a riot were taken in
Barquisimeto,Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013.
9. João Pessoa, Brazil, had 66.92
homicides per 100,000 residents.
João Pessoa, Brazil
8. Guatemala City, Guatemala, had
68.40 homicides per 100,000 residents.
The body of a man lies covered on a pavement
after being killed during a shootout at the El Guarda market in Guatemala city
Sept. 8, 2011.
7. Fortaleza, Brazil, had 72.81
homicides per 100,000 residents.
Riot policemen face off with demonstrators
near a burnt vehicle during a protest near the Estadio Castelao, where the
Confederations Cup semi-final match between Spain and Italy is being played, in
Fortaleza June 27, 2013.
6. Distrito Central, Honduras, had
79.42 homicides per 100,000 residents.
A Honduran police officer guards an injured
prisoner, standing inside a cell at the Hospital Escuela.
5. Maceió, Brazil, had 79.76
homicides per 100,000 residents.
Brazil's drug lord Luiz Fernando Costa, also
know as "Fernandinho Beira Mar" (Freddy Seashore), arrives at Federal
Police Headquarter in Brasilia March 24, 2006.
4. Cali, Colombia, had 83.20
homicides per 100,000 residents.
Colombian special investigators carry the
body of a car bomb victim in Cali city Sept. 1, 2008.
3. Acapulco, Mexico, had 112.80
homicides per 100,000 residents.
A body lies in the street in Acapulco,
Mexico.
2. Caracas, Venezuela, had 134.36
homicides per 100,000 residents.
In this May 15, 2013 photo, National Guard
soldiers frisk a man at a checkpoint as part of the "Secure Homeland"
initiative in Petare, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Caracas,
Venezuela.
1. San Pedro Sula, Honduras, had
187.14 homicides per 100,000 residents.
Police fire tear gas to break up a protest
in San Pedro Sula, Honduras November 29, 2009. Honduras chooses a new president
on Sunday but neither ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya nor arch-rival
and de facto leader Roberto Micheletti are running in the election, which could
give a new president the chance to take Honduras beyond the political gridlock
that has divided the Central American nation and cut off international aid.
Read
more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-violent-cities-in-the-world-2014-11?op=1#ixzz3Ivh1ocBL
Norway
ranked world's most prosperous country...
USA 10TH...
Prosperity Index: Top 20
1 Norway
3 New Zealand
4 Denmark
5 Canada
6 Sweden
7 Australia
8 Finland
9 Netherlands
10 United States
11 Iceland
12 Ireland
13 United Kingdom
14 Germany
15 Austria
16 Luxembourg
17 Belgium
18 Singapore
19 Japan
20 Hong Kong
France was just outside the Top
20 in 21st place, Spain was 26th and Italy was The Local's poorest
performing country in 37th place.
Cat
lovers flock to Northern California's cat cafe
Most
People Cannot Even Imagine That An Economic Collapse Is Coming
The
idea that the United States is on the brink of a horrifying economic crash is
absolutely inconceivable to most Americans. After all, the economy has
been relatively stable for quite a few years and the stock market continues to
surge to new heights. On Friday, the Dow and the S&P 500 both closed
at brand new all-time record highs. For the year, the S&P 500 is now
up 9 percent and the Nasdaq is now up close to 11 percent. And American
consumers are getting ready to spend more than 600 billion dollars this
Christmas season. That is an amount of money that is larger than the
entire economy of Sweden. So how in the world can anyone be talking about
economic collapse? Yes, many will concede, we had a few bumps in the road
back in 2008 but things have pretty much gotten back to normal since
then. Why be concerned about economic collapse when there is so much
stability all around us? (Read More....)
Unfortunately, this brief period
of stability that we have been enjoying is just an illusion.
The fundamental problems that
caused the financial crisis of 2008 have not been fixed. In fact, most of
our long-term economic problems have gotten even worse.
But most Americans have such
short attention spans these days. In a world where we are accustomed to
getting everything instantly, news cycles only last for 48 hours and 2008 might
as well be an eternity ago.
In the United States today, our
entire economic system is based on debt.
Without debt, very little
economic activity happens. We need mortgages to buy our homes, we need
auto loans to buy our vehicles and we need our credit cards to do our shopping
during the holiday season.
So where does all of that debt
come from?
It comes from the banks.
In particular, the "too big
to fail banks" are the heart of this debt-based system.
Do you have a mortgage, an auto
loan or a credit card from one of these "too big to fail"
institutions? A very large percentage of the people that will read this
article do.
And a lot of people might not
like to hear this, but without those banks we essentially do not have an
economy.
When Lehman Brothers collapsed
in 2008, it almost resulted in the meltdown of our entire system. The
stock market collapsed and we experienced an absolutely wicked credit crunch.
Unfortunately, that was just a
small preview of what is coming.
Even though a few prominent
"experts" such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman have declared that the
"too big to fail" problem is "over", the truth is that it
is now a bigger crisis than ever before.
Compared to five years ago, the
four largest banks in the country are now almost 40 percent larger. The
following numbers come from a recent article in the Los Angeles Times...
Just
before the financial crisis hit, Wells Fargo & Co. had $609 billion in
assets. Now it has $1.4 trillion. Bank of America Corp. had $1.7 trillion in
assets. That's up to $2.1 trillion.
And
the assets of JPMorgan Chase & Co., the nation's biggest bank, have
ballooned to $2.4 trillion from $1.8 trillion.
At
the same time that those banks have been getting bigger, 1,400 smaller banks
have completely disappeared from the banking industry.
That
means that we are now more dependent on these gigantic banks than ever.
At
this point, the five largest banks account for 42 percent of all loans in the United
States, and the six largest banks account for 67 percent of all assets in our
financial system.
If
someone came along and zapped those banks out of existence, our economy would
totally collapse overnight.
So
the health of this handful of immensely powerful banking institutions is
absolutely critical to our economy.
Unfortunately,
these banks have become deeply addicted to gambling.
Have
you ever known people that allowed their lives to be destroyed by addictions
that they could never shake?
Well,
that is what is happening to these banks. They have transformed Wall
Street into the largest casino in the history of the world. Most of the
time, their bets pay off and they make lots of money.
But
as we saw back in 2008, when they miscalculate things can fall apart very
rapidly.
The
bets that I am most concerned about are known as "derivatives". In essence, they are bets about
what will or will not happen in the future. The big banks use very
sophisticated algorithms that are supposed to help them be on the winning side
of these bets the vast majority of the time, but these algorithms are not
perfect. The reason these algorithms are not perfect is because they are
based on assumptions, and those assumptions come from people. They might
be really smart people, but they are still just people.
If
things stay fairly stable like they have the past few years, the algorithms
tend to work very well.
But
if there is a "black swan event" such as a major stock market crash,
a collapse of European or Asian banks, a historic shift in interest rates, an
Ebola pandemic, a horrific natural disaster or a massive EMP blast is unleashed
by the sun, everything can be suddenly thrown out of balance.
Acrobat
Nik Wallenda has been making headlines all over the world for crossing vast
distances on a high-wire without a safety net. Well, that is essentially
what our "too big to fail" banks are doing every single day.
With each passing year, these banks have become even more reckless, and so far
there have not been any serious consequences.
But
without a doubt, someday there will be.
What
would you say about a bookie that took $200,000 in bets but that only had
$10,000 to cover those bets?
You
would certainly call that bookie a fool.
But
that is what our big banks are doing.
Right
now, JPMorgan Chase has more than 67 trillion dollars in exposure to
derivatives but it only has 2.5 trillion dollars in assets.
Right
now, Citibank has nearly 60 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives but it
only has 1.9 trillion dollars in assets.
Right
now, Goldman Sachs has more than 54 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives
but it has less than a trillion dollars in assets.
Right
now, Bank of America has more than 54 trillion dollars in exposure to
derivatives but it only has 2.2 trillion dollars in assets.
Right
now, Morgan Stanley has more than 44 trillion dollars in exposure to
derivatives but it has less than a trillion dollars in assets.
Most
people have absolutely no idea how incredibly vulnerable our financial system
really is.
The
truth is that these "too big to fail" banks could collapse at any
time.
And
when they fail, our economy will fail too.
So
let us hope and pray that this brief period of false stability lasts for as
long as possible.
Because
when it ends, all hell is going to break loose.
10
Examples Of The Extreme Incompetence That Now Pervades The Federal Government
There has always been a
substantial level of incompetence at federal agencies, but under the Obama
administration incompetence has risen to unprecedented levels. This year
the incompetence of the Secret Service, the Veterans Administration, the Department
of Homeland Security and the CDC have all made national headlines. And it
is hard to forget how the launch of Obamacare was such a failure that it became
a global joke. We live at a time when our government officials can’t seem
to do anything right. When Americans complain about the government, most
of the time they focus on how corrupt and wicked our politicians have become,
and that should not be downplayed whatsoever. But just replacing those
politicians is not going to fix what ails our government. The quality of
the workers throughout the government bureaucracy has fallen so
dramatically that our federal agencies can no longer be depended upon to
perform even the most basic governmental functions competently. The
following are 10 examples of the extreme incompetence that now pervades the
federal government… (Read More...)
#1 The Secret Service
Once upon a time, the Secret
Service was considered to be one of the finest security organizations in the
entire world. But these days, they seem to be too busy partying and chasing prostitutes
around to do their jobs properly.
For instance, multiple intruders
have recently been able to cross the White House lawn and walk right into
the White House without being stopped by anyone. Here is just one example…
An
intruder made his way across the White House lawn and through the building
almost to the Obama living quarters before being stopped by a Secret Service
officer who was off duty: This chilling news is more than just a kind of
melodramatic movie scenario come true.
Next
to the military, the Secret Service is probably the most highly regarded
institution within the executive branch. Or it was.
Now
we learn its agents can’t catch a guy running across the White House lawn;
can’t stop the guy at the front door; can’t get to him before he gets to the
stairs that lead to the rooms where the president’s daughters sleep.
#2 The Obamacare Website
The
launch of Obamacare overall has been a complete and total disaster, but the
launch of the Obamacare website in particular was such a dramatic failure that
it is hard
to put into words. The Obama administration spent more than 2 billion
dollars on healthcare.gov and trumpeted it as the future of healthcare in
America, but the website was a technical nightmare. The following is how one news outlet described it…
Healthcare.gov
has shutdown, crapped out, stalled, and mis-loaded so consistently that its
track record for failure is challenged only by Congress.
#3 Dropping Weapons To ISIS Terrorists
It
is well known that ISIS is using captured U.S. vehicles and
weapons to take over vast stretches of territory in Iraq and Syria.
So
what do we do? U.S. planes drop even more weapons into the region to aid
in “the fight against ISIS”, but ISIS is ending up with many of those weapons too…
At
least one bundle of U.S. weapons airdropped in Syria appears to have fallen
into the hands of ISIS, a dangerous misfire in the American mission to speed
aid to Kurdish forces making their stand in Kobani.
An
ISIS-associated YouTube account posted a new video online Tuesday entitled,
“Weapons and munitions dropped by American planes and landed in the areas
controlled by the Islamic State in Kobani.” The video was also posted on the
Twitter account of “a3maq news,” which acts as an unofficial media arm of ISIS.
The outfit has previously posted videos of ISIS fighters firing American made
Howitzer cannons and seizing marijuana fields in Syria.
ISIS
had broadly advertised its acquisition of a broad range of U.S.-made
weaponsduring its rampage across Iraq. ISIS videos have showed its fighters
driving U.S. tanks, MRAPs, Humvees. There are unconfirmed reports ISIS has
stolen three fighter planes from Iraqi bases it conquered.
#4 The Immigration Crisis
The
Obama administration has refused to secure our borders and has openly
encouraged mass illegal immigration from Central and South America.
As
a result, our border patrol is absolutely overwhelmed. Tens of thousands of women and
children are turning themselves over to border patrol agents and
asking for asylum. They expect to be taken care of and given a new life
in this country. As a result, “processing centers” along our southern
border are packed to the gills with women and children living in absolutely
deplorable conditions as the federal government figures out what to do with
them.
#5 The VA Scandal
Under
the Obama administration, military veterans have been treated like
human garbage. For years they have been denied the care
that they need, and many Americans were absolutely shocked when they learned
that countless veterans have died waiting to get an appointment at one of our
VA facilities. Needless to say, this scandal has greatly shaken the confidence that the public has in
the Veterans Administration…
The
Veterans Administration was viewed favorably by 68 percent of those polled last
year. But it too has since been swept up in a scandal over long wait times for
veterans seeking care and records that were falsified to camouflage the
problems. In the CBS poll, just 30 percent rated the VA as doing a good job.
#6 The SEC
Many
wonder why the SEC never seems to go after the big Wall Street banks.
Well, perhaps one of the reasons is because many SEC employees have been too
busy watching porn all
day long…
One
senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington spent up to eight hours a day
accessing Internet porn, according to the report, which has yet to be released.
When he filled all the space on his government computer with pornographic
images, he downloaded more to CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his
offices.
An
SEC accountant attempted to access porn websites 1,800 times in a two-week
period and had 600 pornographic images on her computer hard drive.
Another
SEC accountant used his SEC-issued computer to upload his own sexually explicit
videos onto porn websites he joined.
And
another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single
month.
#7 The Environmental Protection Agency
You
know that things are bad at your agency when employees have to be told not to poop in the hallways…
It
appears, however, that a regional office has reached a new low: Management for
Region 8 in Denver, Colo., wrote an email earlier this year to all staff in the
area pleading with them to stop inappropriate bathroom behavior, including
defecating in the hallway.
In
the email, obtained by Government Executive, Deputy Regional
Administrator Howard Cantor mentioned “several incidents” in the building,
including clogging the toilets with paper towels and “an individual placing
feces in the hallway” outside the restroom.
Confounded
by what to make of this occurrence, EPA management “consulted” with workplace
violence “national expert” John Nicoletti, who said that hallway feces is in
fact a health and safety risk. He added the behavior was “very dangerous” and
the individuals responsible would “probably escalate” their actions.
And
just like the SEC, there has been a lot of porn watching going on at the EPA
too. The following is from a recent Washington Post article…
In
May, the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general disclosed that a
senior-level employee was caught spending as much as six hours of his day
looking at porn. The IG found that the employee had downloaded and viewed more
than 7,000 pornographic files. The Justice Department is investigating further
for possible prosecution.
Four
months later, the employee has not been fired and is still collecting
government pay, Environment & Energy Publishing reported
last week.
That
prompted Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) to introduce
a bill the day Congress left town to make it a uniform federal government law
that employees cannot look at porn at work.
#8 NASA
Generally,
NASA has been regarded as one of the more competent government agencies.
That is why it is so alarming that a rocket recently exploded just before
liftoff at a NASA facility in Virginia…
An
unmanned commercial rocket headed for the International Space Station to
deliver supplies exploded just after launching Tuesday, filling the sky with a
massive fireball.
The
Antares rocket supplied by contractor Orbital Sciences blew up moments after
liftoff at NASA’s space launch facility on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the
space agency said.
The
explosion destroyed the rocket and spacecraft and immediately raised questions
about the future of NASA’s reliance on private commercial ventures to carry
vital payloads into space to supply and support the orbiting space station.
#9 The Federal Reserve
The
Federal is NOT a government agency, but it claims such a close
relationship with the government that I have added it to this list.
Since
the Federal Reserve was initially created, the U.S. dollar has become more than
20 times less valuable, and the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000
times larger.
More
recently, the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program has been an
unmitigated failure. The Federal Reserve created 3.5 trillion dollars out of thin air and pumped it
into the financial system, but all of that money has done next to nothing for
the real economy. The percentage of Americans that are employed is about
the same as it was during the depths of the last recession,
the homeownership rate in this country has been falling for seven years in a row, and half of all Americans
now make less than $28,031 a year.
#10 Ebola
This
is the one area where the incompetence of the federal government could be the
most dangerous. Originally we were told by the CDC that Ebola could only
be spread by “direct contact” with the bodily fluids of someone else. But
now we have learned that the government believes that Ebola is “aerostable“,
and we have also learned that researchers have discovered that Ebola can remain
on surfaces for
up to 50 days. If Ebola does start spreading widely in this
country, giving people bad information could accelerate the spread of the
disease.
And
Barack Obama continues to refuse to ban all
non-essential air travel between the United States and the nations
in West Africa where Ebola is raging out of control.
As
far as Obama is concerned, incompetence is the best case scenario. There
is absolutely no excuse for not protecting the American people from what could
become the greatest health crisis that any of us have ever seen. If a
major Ebola pandemic does erupt in this country, the blood of countless numbers
of Americans could potentially be on his hands.
So
what do you think?
Are
there other examples of incompetence that you would add to this list?
Please
share your thoughts by posting a comment below…
Posted by : Cognitive Dissonance
Post date: 11/02/2014 - 13:41
The
perks that come with being kept will not survive the breaking of the keep.
Bread,
Circuses, & Bombs - Decline Of The American Empire { Yes, this is
indeed quite true … After all, keep in
mind the adage, ‘rome wasn’t destroyed in a day’ … In the scheme of things, to
be sure, it’s also true that america ‘died fast’ relative to other so-called
‘empires’ … and it was really the pervasive corruption at the highest levels
and in all branches of the u.s. government that irrevocably cast that die …
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
http://albertpeia.com/fbimartinezcongallard.htm }
History may not repeat exactly because technology, resource
discoveries, and political dynamics change the nature of society, but it does
rhyme because the human foibles of greed, lust for power, arrogance, and desire
for conquest do not vary across the ages. The corruption, arrogance, hubris, currency
debasement, materialism, imperialism, and civic decay that led to the ultimate
downfall of the Roman
Empire is being repeated on an even far greater scale today as the
American Empire flames out after only two centuries. The pillars of western
society are crumbling under the sustained pressure of an immense mountain of
debt, created by crooked bankers and utilized by corrupt politicians to sustain
and expand their welfare/warfare state. Recklessness, myopia, greed,
willful ignorance, and selfish disregard for unborn generations are the
earmarks of decline in this modern day empire of debt, delusion and decay.
Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning
Platform blog,
“Already long ago, from when
we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the
People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office,
legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two
things: Bread and Circuses.”
– Juvenal
– Satire (100 A.D.)
Roman satirist and poet Juvenal
was displaying contempt for a degraded Roman citizenry that had shunned civic
responsibility, shirked their duties of citizenship within a republic, and had
chosen to sell their votes to feckless politicians for assurances of bread and
circuses. Rather than govern according to noble principles based upon reason,
striving for public policies that led to long term sustainability and
benefitting the majority of citizens, politicians chose superficial displays
and appeasing the masses utilizing the lowest common denominator of "free'
food and bountiful spectacles, pageants, and ceremonies in order to retain
power.
The Roman
Empire’s decline stretched across centuries as the gradual loss of
civic virtue among its citizenry allowed demagogues to gain power and
barbarians to eventually overrun the weakened empire. While the peasants were
distracted with shallow exhibitions of palliative pleasures, those in power
were debasing the currency, enriching themselves, and living pampered lives of
luxury. The Roman leaders bought public approval and support, not through
exemplary public service, but through diversion, distraction, and the
satisfaction of base immediate needs and desires of the populace. Satisfying
the crude motivations of the ignorant peasants (cheap food and entertainment)
is how Roman politicians bought votes and retained power. Free wheat, circus
games, and feeding Christians to lions kept the commoners from focusing on
politicians pillaging and wasting the empire’s wealth.
History may not repeat
exactly because technology, resource discoveries, and political dynamics change
the nature of society, but it does rhyme because the human foibles of greed,
lust for power, arrogance, and desire for conquest do not vary across the ages. The corruption, arrogance, hubris, currency
debasement, materialism, imperialism, and civic decay that led to the ultimate
downfall of the Roman
Empire is being repeated on an even far greater scale today as the
American Empire flames out after only two centuries. The pillars of western
society are crumbling under the sustained pressure of an immense mountain of
debt, created by crooked bankers and utilized by corrupt politicians to sustain
and expand their welfare/warfare state. Recklessness, myopia, greed, willful
ignorance, and selfish disregard for unborn generations are the earmarks of
decline in this modern day empire of debt, delusion and decay.
“Armaments, universal debt,
and planned obsolescence – those are the three pillars of Western prosperity.
If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you’d collapse. And while you
people are over-consuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into
chronic disaster.”
– Aldous
Huxley – Island
Rome was eight and a half
centuries old when Juvenal scornfully described the degenerative spiral of the
Roman populace. Still, the Western Empire lasted another three centuries before
finally succumbing to the Visigoths and Vandals. The far slower pace of history
and lack of other equally matched competing nation states allowed Rome to exist
for centuries beyond its Pax Romana period of unprecedented political stability
and prosperity, which lasted for two centuries. Prior to becoming an empire,
the Roman Republic was a network of towns left to rule themselves with varying
degrees of independence from the Roman Senate and provinces administered by
military commanders. It was ruled, not by Emperors, but by annually elected
magistrates known as Roman Consuls. The Roman citizens were a proud people who had
a strong sense of civic duty and made government work for the people.
During the 1st
century B.C. Rome suffered a long series of internal conflicts, conspiracies
and civil wars, while greatly extending their imperial power beyond Italy
through military conquest. After the assassination of Julius Caesar and the
ascension of Augustus to emperor in 27 BC, after a century of civil wars, Rome
experienced an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. During this era,
the solidity of the Empire was furthered by a degree of societal stability and
economic prosperity. But it didn’t last. The successors to Augustus contributed
to the progressive ruination of the empire. The repugnant reigns of Tiberius,
Caligula, Claudius, and Nero reflected the true nature of the Roman people, who
had relinquished their sovereignty to government administrators to whom they
had granted absolute powers, in return for food and entertainment. It was the
beginning of the end.
The American Republic began as a
loose confederation of states who ruled themselves, with little or no direction
from a central authority. The Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781 by
all 13 States, limited the powers of the central government. The Confederation
Congress could make decisions, but lacked enforcement powers. Implementation of
most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous
approval of all thirteen state legislatures. After winning the war for
independence from England, the U.S. Constitution, which shifted power to a central
authority, was ratified in 1789. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments
to the Constitution, was passed in 1791 with the purpose of protecting
individual liberties and insuring justice for all. Their function was to
safeguard the citizens from an authoritarian federal government. These
imperfect documents would benefit and protect the rights of the American people
only if applied by moral, just, incorruptible, noble, honorable leaders and
enforced by an educated, concerned, vigilant citizenry.
As with the Roman Empire, the
quality of leadership has rapidly deteriorated over the last two centuries and
now wallows at disgustingly low levels. These leaders are a reflection of a
people who have abandoned their desire for knowledge, responsibility for their
lives, work ethic, belief in freedom and the U.S. Constitution. The Juvenal of
our times was H.L.
Mencken who aptly and scornfully described the citizenry in 1920
as an ignorant mob who would eventually elect a downright moron to the
presidency. He was right.
“The larger the mob, the
harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man
occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of
his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged
chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so
readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is,
intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most easily
adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year
by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents,
more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty
ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach
their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a
downright moron.” –
H.L.
Mencken
A Republic was formed 225
years ago, as opposed to a monarchy, by men of good intentions. They weren’t perfect, but their goals for
the new nation were honorable and decent. Ben Franklin had his doubts regarding
whether we could keep a republic. He had good reason to doubt the long-term
sustainability of this experiment. Freedom is not something bestowed on us by
men of higher caste. We are born into this world free, with the liberty to live
our lives as we see fit, the opportunity to educate oneself and the freedom to
succeed as far as our capabilities and efforts allow. Only a self-reliant,
virtuous, moral, civic minded people are capable of enjoying the fruits of
freedom. Once corruption, self-interest, greed, and dependency upon government
bureaucrats for sustenance become prevalent, the populace seeks masters who
promise safety and security in return for sacrificing essential liberty and
basic freedoms.
The country has defeated foreign
invaders, withstood financial calamities, endured a bloody civil war,
benefitted immensely from the discovery of oil under its soil, became an
industrial power, fought on the winning side of two world wars, and since 1946
has become the greatest imperial empire since Rome fell to the barbarians. Over
the course of our 225 year journey there has been a gradual relinquishment of
the citizens’ sovereignty and autonomy to an ever more overbearing central
government. Lincoln’s unprecedented expansion of Federal government authority
during thwe Civil War marked a turning point, as state and local rights became
subservient to an all-powerful central authority. Individual liberty has been
surrendered and freedoms forfeited over a decades long insidious regression of
a once courageous, independent, self-sufficient citizenry into a mob of
cowering, willfully ignorant dependents of the deep state.
From the inception of the
country there has been a constant battle between the banking interests and the
common people.
Bankers have used fraudulent fractional reserve banking to speculate for their
own benefit, made risky loans, and created every financial crisis in the
country’s history. The profits from excessive risk taking are retained by the
bankers. The inevitable losses are borne by taxpayers with the excuse that the
financial system must be saved and preserved. The storyline never changes. The
beginning of the end of the American Empire can be pinpointed to the year 1913,
only 124 years after its inception. Private banking interests captured the
monetary system of the empire with the secretive creation of the Federal
Reserve. The power of the central state was solidified with the implementation
of the personal income tax, allowing politicians to bribe their constituents
with modern day “bread and circuses”, paid for with money taken at gunpoint
from them by the central state. We are now nothing but the hollowed out shell
of a once noble Republic.
A century of central banking and
heavy taxation of the people by bought off politician puppets has coincided
with a century of war, depressions, currency debasement, overconsumption,
obscene levels of consumer debt, trillions of excessive debt financed
government spending, hundreds of trillions in unfunded entitlement liabilities,
and a persistent decline in standard of living for the masses due to Federal
Reserve manufactured inflation. We have failed to heed the lessons of
history. We have repeated the blunders committed by the Romans.
The American Empire will
not be murdered by an external force because it is too busy committing suicide. The moneyed interests, corporate oligarchs
and their hand-picked politician front men see themselves as conquering heroes.
Their colossal hubris and arrogance is only matched by the ignorance,
gullibility, quivering fear of bogeymen, and susceptibility to propaganda of
the general populace. The Wall Street bankers and feckless politicians are not
gods, they are only men. Death is the great equalizer for emperors and peasants
alike. The only thing that remains is your legacy and whether you positively
impacted the world. It can be unequivocally stated that those in power today
are leaving a legacy of despair, destruction, and debt.
Empires are born and
empires die. The
American Empire will not be sustained for eight centuries, as the swiftness of
modern civilization, nuclear proliferation, religious zealotry, and sociopathic
leadership ensures we will flame out in a blaze of glory before reaching our
third century. The spirit of independence, idealism, self-reliance,
entrepreneurship, knowledge seeking, advancement, and goodwill towards our
fellow citizens that marked the height of our fledgling country has succumbed
to a malaise of government dependency, cynicism, living on the dole, financial
Ponzi schemes, willful ignorance, materialism, delusion, and myopic
self-interest. The moral decline of the American populace has been reflected in
the deteriorating quality of leaders we have chosen over the last century.
Prosperity was taken for granted and no longer earned. We abdicated our civic
responsibility to corrupt financiers and power seeking politicians. As time has
passed, the ruling elite have grown ever more powerful and wealthy, at the
expense of the peasantry. These sociopaths see themselves as god-like emperors,
on par with the vilest of the Roman emperors.
Historians will mark 1980 as
another turning point, when the nation capitulated to the financiers and ceded
control of our destiny to Wall Street bankers, the military industrial complex,
and globalist billionaires. The final deformation from a productive society
built upon savings, capital investment, and goods production to a borrowing,
gambling, and consumption society built upon debt and profiteering by powerful
corporate and banking interests had commenced. The peak of this warfare/welfare
state insanity was reached in 2000 and the road to decline and decay is now
littered with the figurative corpses of a gutted middle class and the literal
corpses of men, women and children across the globe, killed during our never
ending imperial conquests. The ruling elite sense the futility and foolishness
of their folly, but their insatiable appetite for wealth, power, triumph and
glory blind them to the destructive consequences of their actions upon the
nation and their fellow man. Power and dominion over others is a powerful
aphrodisiac for our current day emperors and self-preservation at all costs is
their mantra.
While they bask in their
perceived triumph and glory, achieved through rigging the financial and
political systems in their favor, they should heed the faint whisper in their
ear that all glory is fleeting.
“For over a thousand years
Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a
tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals
from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and
captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed
prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white
stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind
the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that
all glory is fleeting.”
– George
S. Patton, Jr.
The decline of the Roman Empire
can be attributed to a number of supportable hypotheses, which have been
documented by historians over time. They include:
- Perpetual warfare depleted the treasury and wasted the
manhood of the empire. The use of mercenary armies eventually led to the
sacking of Rome by the very armies they had employed.
- Military overexpansion and spending resulted in resources
being diverted from technological advancement, maintenance of the civil
infrastructure, and worthwhile investments to support economic growth.
- Excessive welfare spending, oppressive taxation and
currency debasement widened the gap between rich and poor, resulting in
discontent, mistrust and rebellion.
- The emergence of an all-powerful centralized authoritarian
government ruling by mandate, racked by corruption, and kept in power by
bribing its subjects with promises of bread and circuses.
- Emperors and Senators became oligarchs and their
conspicuous consumption provided proof of their corruption and decadence.
The widespread corruption and incompetence of its leadership led to a
waning in civic pride among the citizens.
- The decline in productive commercial and agricultural
industries due to high taxes on producers, used to support the military
empire, contributed to the circumstances that allowed barbarian invasions
to succeed.
- The moral decay of the people was caused by the influx of
slave labor from conquered territories, resulting in a decline in middle
class work ethic, and the subsequent rise in the level of citizens on the
dole. An economy based upon slave labor precluded a middle class with
buying power.
In Part Two of this tale of two empires, I’ll document the
parallels between mistakes made, eternal human foibles, military misfortunes,
financial misconduct, and moral decay, that denote the decline of the Roman and
American Empires.
10
George Orwell Quotes That Predicted Life In 2014 America
George
Orwell ranks among the most profound social critics of the modern era. Some of
his quotations, more than a half a century old, show the depth of
understanding an enlightened mind can have about the future.
Submitted by Justin King (of The Anti-Media)
via The Burning Platform blog,
George
Orwell ranks among the most profound social critics of the modern era. Some of
his quotations, more than a half a century old, show the depth of understanding
an enlightened mind can have about the future.
1) “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping
out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a
mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
Though
many in the modern age have the will to bury their head in the sand when it
comes to political matters, nobody can only concern themselves with the
proverbial pebble in their shoe. If one is successful in avoiding politics, at
some point the effects of the political decisions they abstained from
participating in will reach their front door. More often than not, by that time
the person has already whatever whisper of a voice the
government has allowed them.
2) “All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and
lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
Examining
the nightly news in the run up to almost any military intervention will find
scores of talking heads crying for blood to flow in the streets of some city
the name of which they just learned to pronounce. Once the bullets start
flying, those that clamored for war will still be safely on set bringing you
up-to-the-minute coverage of the carnage while their stock in Raytheon climbs.
3) “War against a foreign country only happens
when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”
It’s
pretty self-explanatory and while it may be hard to swallow, it’s certainly
true. All it takes is a quick look at who benefited from
the recent wars waged by the United States to see Orwell’s quip take life.
4) “The very concept of objective truth is fading
out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”
My
most prized books are a collection of history books from around the world. I
have an Iraqi book that recounts the glory of Saddam Hussein’s victory over the
United States in 1991. I have books from three different nations claiming that
one of their citizens was the first to fly. As some of the most powerful
nations in the world agree to let certain facts be “forgotten,”
the trend will only get worse. History is written by the victor, and the victor
will never be asked if he told the truth.
5) “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a
revolutionary act.”
Even
without commentary, the reader is probably picturing Edward Snowden or Chelsea
Manning. The revolutions of the future will not be fought with bullets and
explosives, but with little bits of data traveling around the world destroying
the false narratives with which governments shackle their citizens.
6) “Journalism is printing what someone else does
not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
Make
no mistake about it; if an article does not anger someone, it is nothing more
than a piece. Most of what passes for news today is little more than an
official sounding advertisement for a product, service, or belief.
7) “In real life it is always the anvil that
breaks the hammer…”
In
every conflict, it is not the side that can inflict the most damage, but the
side that can sustain the most damage that ultimately prevails. History is full
of situations in which a military “won the battles but lost the war.”
8) “The nationalist not only does not disapprove
of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for
not even hearing about them.”
Haditha.
Panjwai. Maywand District. Mahmudiyah. These names probably don’t ring a bell,
but it is almost a certainty that the reader is aware of the brutality that
occurred in Benghazi. The main difference is that in the first four incidents,
those committing the acts of brutality were wearing an American flag on their
shoulder.
9) “Threats to freedom of speech, writing and
action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and,
unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”
Everyday
there is a new form of censorship or a new method of forcing people into
self-censorship, and the people shrug it off because it only relates to a small
minority. By the time the people realize their ability to express disapproval
has been completely restricted, it may be too late. That brings us to Orwell’s
most haunting quote.
10) “If you want a picture of the future, imagine
a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Once
the people are indoctrinated with nationalistic beliefs, and the infrastructure
to protect them from some constantly-changing and ever-expanding definition of an
enemy is in place, there is no ability for the people to regain liberty. By the
time all of the pieces are in place, not only is opportunity to regain freedom,
but the will to achieve freedom has also evaporated. The reader will truly love
Big Brother.
10
CONSPIRACY THEORIES THAT CAME TRUE
When questioning the official narrative proved crucial
Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons
Despite
the fact that the term “conspiracy theory” has been weaponized by the establishment
as a perjorative slur against anyone who questions the official narrative of
any government pronouncement, there are innumerable examples throughout history
of conspiracies that were proven to be true.
Let’s
take a look at ten examples;
1) Operation AJAX and false flag terror
The
notion that governments and intelligence agencies carry out acts of false flag
terrorism has long been derided by the establishment media as a conspiracy
theory, despite there being a plethora of historically documented instances.
After
decades of denial, in August 2013 the CIA finally admitted its role in
staging the coup in Iran which led to the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh in
1953 under the umbrella of Operation AJAX.
Under
AJAX, the CIA oversaw covert operations which included acts of false flag
terror which claimed
the lives of some 300 people.
2) Gulf of Tonkin
On
August 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson went on national television and told
the nation that North Vietnam had attacked U.S. ships.
“Repeated
acts of violence against the armed forces of the United States must be met not
only with alert defense, but with a positive reply. That reply is being given
as I speak tonight,” Johnson declared.
Congress
soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which provided Johnson with
pre-approved authority to conduct military operations against North Vietnam. By
1969, over 500,000 troops were fighting in Southeast Asia.
Johnson
and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, had bamboozled Congress and the
American people. In fact, North Vietnam had not attacked the USS Maddox, as the
Pentagon claimed, and the “unequivocal proof” of an “unprovoked” second attack
against the U.S. warship was a ruse.
3) Operation Gladio: State Sponsored Terror Blamed on the Left
Following
the Second World War, the CIA and Britain’s MI6 collaborated through NATO on Operation
Gladio, an effort to create a “stay behind army” to fight communism in the event of a
Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
Gladio
quickly transcended its original mission and became a covert terror network
consisting of right wing militias, organized crime elements, agent provocateurs
and secret military units. The so-called stay behind armies were active in France,
Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, Germany, and Switzerland.
Gladio’s
“Strategy of Tension” was designed to portray leftist
political groups in Europe as terrorists and frighten the populace into voting
for authoritarian governments. In order to carry out this goal, Gladio
operatives conducted a number of deadly terrorist attacks that were blamed on
leftists and Marxists.
In
August of 1980, Gladio operatives bombed a
train station in Bologna, killing 85 people. Initially blamed on the Red Brigades,
it was later discovered that fascist elements within the Italian secret police
and Licio Gelli, the head of the P2 Masonic Lodge, were
responsible for the terror attack. Other fascist groups, including Avanguardia
Nazionale and Ordine Nuovo, were mobilized and engaged in terror.
Operation
Gladio ultimately claimed the lives of hundreds of people across Europe.
According
to Vincenzo
Vinciguerra, a Gladio terrorist serving a life-sentence for murdering
policemen, the reason for Gladio was simple. It was designed to force these
people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security.
This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings
which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare
itself responsible for what happened.
4) Operation Northwoods
In
the covert war against the communist regime in Cuba under the CIA’s Operation
Mongoose, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously proposed state-sponsored
acts of terrorism in side the United States.
The
plan included shooting
down hijacked American airplanes, the sinking of U.S. ships, and the
shooting of Americans on the streets of Washington, D.C. The outrageous plan
even included a staged NASA disaster that would claim the life of astronaut John Glenn.
Reeling
under the embarrassing failure of the CIA’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion of
Cuba, president Kennedy rejected the plan in March of 1962. A few months later,
Kennedy denied the plan’s author, General Lyman Lemnitzer, a second term as the
nation’s highest ranking military officer.
In
November of 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
5) The Gleiwitz Incident
The
Gleiwitz incident refers to a false flag operation carried out by the Nazis on
31 August 1939 during which SS troops staged an attack on a German radio
station and then blamed Polish troops.
German
operatives dressed in Polish military garb seized the radio station, located
near the Polish border, before broadcasting a short propaganda message in
Polish. They then killed concentration camp victims who were also dressed in
Polish uniforms and left them at the scene, making the incident look like an
act of Polish aggression. The very next day Germany invaded Poland, with Hitler
citing the incident as one of the pretexts.
Nine
days before the incident, Hitler had told his generals, “I will provide a
propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn’t matter. The victor will not
be asked whether he told the truth.”
6) Tobacco companies deliberately added addictive chemicals to
cigarettes
Conspiracies
are not always of a governmental nature, they can also be targeted at
consumers. As the BBC reported,
tobacco companies in the United States were caught deliberately engineering
cigarettes for addiction by including chemicals that artificially increased the
addictive kick of the product and made it taste better.
Clive
Bates, director of ASH, said the discovery exposed a “scandal in which tobacco
companies deliberately use additives to make their bad products even worse”.
7) Operation Fast and Furious
Operation
Fast and Furious, under which the Obama administration smuggled weapons to
Mexican drug lords in an apparent effort to trace the guns and bust the drug
gangs, was in fact part of a conspiracy to demonize the second amendment.
Documents
obtained by CBS News in December 2011 prove that ATF agents discussed how
they could tie guns involved in Mexican violence to gun dealers based in the
U.S with a view to passing stricter gun control regulations.
One
law enforcement source told CBS News that the emails suggested the ATF created
the problem itself as part of a political ploy.
“It’s
like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it
and pat themselves on the back. It’s a circular way of thinking,” the source
said.
8) NSA spying & mass surveillance
In
the 1990′s, when anti-surveillance activists and media personalities were
warning about the NSA’s huge domestic spying operation, they were treated as
paranoid conspiracy theorists.
Well
over a decade before the Snowden revelations, the NSA was busy intercepting and
recording all electronic communications across the entire world under the
Echelon program.
In
1999, the Australian
government admitted that they were part of an NSA-led global intercept and
surveillance program called Echelon in alliance with the US and Britain that
could listen to “every international telephone call, fax, e-mail, or radio
transmission,” on the planet.
In
addition, a 2001 European
Parliament report stated that “within Europe all e-mail, telephone and fax
communications are routinely intercepted” by the NSA.
9) CIA Drug Trafficking
The
Central Intelligence Agency has been implicated in drug trafficking operations
all over the world as well as domestically, most notably during the Iran-Contra
affair, under which Contra personnel smuggled cocaine into the U.S. with the
blessing of the CIA which was then distributed as crack cocaine in Los Angeles,
with the profits being funneled back to the Contras.
Former
Los Angeles Police Department officer Michael Ruppert also testified that he
had witnessed CIA drug trafficking.
Top
Mexican drug lords like Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla have also
gone public to assert that they were hired by the U.S. government for drug
trafficking operations. There is a voluminous body of
evidence that confirms the CIA and U.S. banking giants are the top players
in a global drug trade worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year,
information made public by the likes of Gary
Webb.
10) The CIA’s heart attack gun
During
Senate testimony in 1975 into illegal activities by the CIA, it was revealed
that the agency had developed a dart gun capable of causing a heart attack. “At
the first televised hearing, staged in the Senate Caucus Room, Chairman Church
dramatically displayed a CIA poison dart gun to highlight the committee’s
discovery that the CIA directly violated a presidential order by maintaining
stocks of shellfish toxin sufficient to kill thousands,” a Senate
web page explains.
“The
lethal poison then rapidly enters the bloodstream causing a heart attack. Once
the damage is done, the poison denatures quickly, so that an autopsy is very
unlikely to detect that the heart attack resulted from anything other than
natural causes. Sounds like the perfect James Bond weapon, doesn’t it? Yet this
is all verifiable in Congressional testimony,” writes Fred
Burks.
“The
dart from this secret CIA weapon can penetrate clothing and leave nothing but a
tiny red dot on the skin. On penetration of the deadly dart, the individual
targeted for assassination may feel as if bitten by a mosquito, or they may not
feel anything at all. The poisonous dart completely disintegrates upon entering
the target.”
Burks
suggests that Mark
Pittman, a reporter who predicted the financial crisis and exposed Federal
Reserve misdoings which led to a Bloomberg lawsuit against the bankster cartel,
may have been assassinated with the CIA weapon.
Low
Inflation? The Price Of Ground Beef Has Risen 17 Percent Over The Past Year
Thanks
to the Federal Reserve, the middle class is slowly being suffocated by rising
food prices. Every single dollar in your wallet is constantly becoming
less valuable because of the inflation the Fed systematically creates. {
Inflation much higher than reported,
for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which are politics/election...,
cost-of-living adjustments to minimize payouts – ie., social security, etc. }
And if you try to build wealth by saving money and earning interest on it, you
still lose because thanks to the Federal Reserve's near zero interest rate
policies banks pay next to nothing on savings accounts. The Federal
Reserve wants you to either spend your money or to put it in the giant casino
that we call the stock market. But when Americans spend their paychecks
they are finding that they don't stretch as far as they once did. The
cost of living continues to rise at a much faster pace than wages are rising,
and this is especially true when it comes to the price of food. (Read More....)
Putin
accuses US of undermining global stability
In an emotional speech before international
political experts, Putin unleashed scathing criticism of the United States for
what he called its disregard of international law ….. { Or, non-international law … See,
ie., http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
http://albertpeia.com/fbimartinezcongallard.htm . }
TRUMP
TO ROMNEY: DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT... { Who is a
mobster/bribester/fraud like trump to be taken at all seriously much less be
more credible than mafia/organized crime, etc.. t_rump has been a significant
part of american decline … he’s total b***s***/fraud! … and, he’s a great
reason to vote DEMOCRAT! Remember, if it’s good for trump, it’s bad for the
nation! }
POPE:
SATAN SEDUCES BY DISGUISING EVIL AS GOOD...
by Elise
Harris
.- On Monday’s feast of the archangels Pope Francis spoke of
the ongoing battle between the devil and mankind, encouraging attendees to pray
to the angels, who have been charged to defend us.
“He presents things as if they were good, but his intention is destruction. And
the angels defend us,” the Roman Pontiff told those gathered for his Sept. 29
Mass in the Vatican’s Saint Martha residence chapel.
The Bishop of Rome began by pointing to the day’s readings taken from Daniel 7
in which the prophet has a vision of God the Father on a throne of fire giving
Christ dominion over the world, and Revelation 12, which recounts the battle in
which Satan, as a large dragon, is cast out of heaven by St. Michael.
Noting how these are strong images portraying “the great dragon, the ancient
serpent” who “seduces all of inhabited earth,” the Pope also drew attention to
Christ's words to Nathanael in the day’s Gospel from John when he tells him
“You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon
the Son of man.”
All of these readings, he said, speak of “the struggle between God and the
devil” which “takes place after Satan tries to destroy the woman who is about
to give birth to a son.”
“Satan always tries to destroy man: the man that Daniel saw there, in glory,
and whom Jesus told Nathaniel would come in glory,” the Roman Pontiff observed,
explaining that “from the beginning the Bible speaks to us of this: Satan's
(use of) seduction to destroy.”
…… (part omitted)
{
This is a lovely thought; but, the reality is that the Christ was with malice
aforethought, viz., intent, as would be so if here again today, and many times
over, viciously crucified even as He begged with luciferian shadow of inflicted
pain they be forgiven for their dastardly act … The further reality is that
even if the murder of Christ is a thing forgotten, though not, in the vast
scheme of things eternal, mankind has long since consumed that indulgence; and
quite simply, Pope Francis, though well meaning, should while praying for their
souls, realize mankind as universally insignificant … As regards the
destruction of man, I’d reasonably say man’s already done quite a good job of
it, to themselves, with a little help from the satan himself, though never
taking too much prodding toward that end and inherently needing no real help at
all … Psalm 8? Devil’s motive? Sounds like a classic case of jewish/hebrew
rationalization/sophistry, invariably in no short supply, ie., the denial of
Christ the Messiah they ultimately wanted/made dead, etc. … Man superior to
Angels? Man’s not even superior to, ie., a feral cat … As for beelzebub, the basest of creatures,
and the so-called battle with GOD, if the universe likened to a universal
court, the animal/satan would be constrained to throw himself on the mercy of
the court while pleading no contest; though mercy will not be forthcoming
…}
“They … defend
the God-man, the superior man, Jesus Christ who is the perfection of humanity,
the most perfect."
“This is why the Church honors the angels, because they are the ones who will
be in the glory of God – they are in the glory of God – because they defend the
great hidden mystery of God – namely, that the Word was made flesh.”
It is therefore the responsibility of the People of God “to safeguard man, the
man Jesus,” the Pope went on, because “he is the man who gives life to all
men.”
However this is not easy because Satan has invented “humanistic explanations
that go against man, against humanity and against God” in order to destroy us.
“This struggle is a daily reality in Christian life, in our hearts, in our
lives, in our families, in our people, in our churches,” the Pope went on,
adding that “if we do not struggle, we will be defeated.”
“But the Lord gave this task primarily to the angels: to do battle and win,” he
said, drawing attention to the final song of Revelation which reads "now
have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the power of his
Anointed. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who accuses them before
our God day and night.”
Pope Francis concluded his homily by encouraging those present to pray to the
Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, and to recite the prayer to Saint
Michael often.
We should do this “so he may continue to do battle and defend the greatest
mystery of mankind: that the Word was made Man, died and rose again. This is
our treasure. That he may battle on to safeguard it.”
{ Wow! I wish I could say for the sake of
scottish people everywhere that I was surprised at the outcome … I was not …
After all, William Wallace (Braveheart), drawn and quartered was dying
testament to the inherent venality and cowardice of the scots who always seem
to have a price, regardless what ( trump, half-scot is a notorious bribester /
mobster / fraud … ‘…Shallow
sean's latest 'crusade' (beyond the same note/key obvious debacle of
wobamacare) was defense of the indefensible mobster but friend of sean's,
donald trump (trump should be in jail). In defense of t_rump, he offers up the
itsy-bitsy, teeny weeny wohlman skating rink project as evidence of t_rump's
contribution to NYC (too small for high new york priority given the magnitude
of New York substantial problems, some largely the result of trumpish tastes,
ie., solid gold trump tower fixtures, etc., that trump's 'pre-packaged
bankrupcies' seem to fail to touch, and which extravagance must be paid for by
someone, but not him). Shallow sean's excoriation of new york city never seems
to link the obviousness of t_rump's grandstanding responsibility for same.
After all, someone ultimately has to pay for trump's disproportionate
non-value-added livin' large. No talk of trump's ingratiating bribe strategy
for protection ( ie., 'retainers' to law firms linked to state attorney
generals, viz., {kimmelman} wolf and sampson, chris droney's brother, his
sister's protection/corruption and quid pro quo from the federal bench, etc.,
and as well, protection of drug-money laundering through his now nominal only
casinos … See, ie.,
RICO
Summary to FBI Under Penalty of Perjury
Trump's a fraud! …’ }
I truly had no ‘dog in
this fight’, although it’s now clear from whence those tiny terriers called
scotties got their name (like all dogs they eat their own s**t, also known as a
trait) … From an evolutionary perspective one cannot fail to notice the
backbone deterioration / weakness inherent to scottish people … yet, we now can
understand why scottish men wear skirts / dresses (they call them kilts) … From
a psychological perspective, this predictable outcome could additionally be
explained by a syndrome that falls somewhere between ‘battered wife’ and
‘stockholm’ with the consequent realization that the psychological damage is
quite permanent with historical implications for a brow-beaten people, all for
the sake of a few quid/pounds and prosecutions here and there foregone … I
personally really don’t care; but scots really should since this is an
unequivocal day of shame for them … a day that for them is forever and will
live in infamy … How totally pathetic! }
GBP
Spikes As YouGov Poll Shows 52% "No" To Scottish Independence
{
Difficult to believe (quite pathetic) …
but, given what happened to William Wallace
(Braveheart), one really must wonder about scots, in general, from an evolutionary
perspective (backbone deterioration/weakness. As in that scenario, the
bribes/self-interested cowardice is presently in no short supply … great scot …
NOT! }
PALIN FAMILY ALLEGEDLY INVOLVED IN A
BRAWL
A majority of the Palin family —
Sarah, Todd, Bristol, and Track — was allegedly involved in a booze-filled
brawl over the weekend in which the former vice presidential candidate
reportedly screamed, “Don’t you know who I am?”
According to reports from local
bloggers, the Palin crew showed up at a party in Wasilla following a day at the
Iron Dog snowmobile race.
According
to local blogger Amanda Coyne, witnesses at the scene said Palin’s
eldest son, Track, showed up to the party in a stretch Hummer. He then
confronted a man who had previously dated one of his sisters, according to
Coyne and another blog called Immoral Minority.
“That led to some pushing and
shoving, which escalated somehow to the family being asked to leave the
premises,” Immoral
Minority, reported.
“Word is that Bristol has a
particularly strong right hook, which she employed repeatedly, and it’s
something to hear when Sarah screams, “Don’t you know who I am!” Coyne
reported.
“This isn’t some damned
Hillbilly reality show!” a party-goer allegedly yelled, making a possible
reference to “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” a failed reality series that ran for nine
episodes between Nov. 2010 and Jan. 2011.
“As people were leaving in a
cab, Track was seen on the street, shirtless, flipping people off, with Sarah
right behind him, and Todd somewhere in the foreground, tending to his bloody
nose,” a witness told Coyne.
Anchorage police declined to
provide details told Immoral Minority that none of the parties involved wanted
to press charges. No arrests were made.
Anchorage police did not
immediately respond to The Daily Caller’s request for a police report.
School
assigns 6th grade students essay -- comparing Bush to Hitler! {
Interesting … Well, the similarity is they were both crazy; but, the big
difference is that bush would be a diagnosed schizophrenic ( with positive
symptoms – those conversations with GOD … GOD wastes no time with burnt-out war
criminals ) … both psychopaths … indeed!
10 countries spending the most on their military { Yes … america’s number 1 in crime, debt,
and military spending (for war crimes and destructive military
actions/provocations, etc. ), by far and away! }
1.
United States
Military expenditure: $618.7
billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 3.8% (14th highest)
1-yr. spending change: -7.8% (12th lowest)
Total arms imports: $759 million (8th highest)
Total arms exports: $6.2 billion (2nd highest)
The $619 billion military
expenditure in the U.S. nearly outpaced the combined spending of every other
country on this list in 2013. At the start of 2013, the U.S. had nearly 8,000
nuclear warheads in reserve. Since 2001, U.S. military spending has risen from
$287 billion to $530 billion. In recent years, however, U.S. military outlays
fell from 4.8% of GDP in 2009 to 3.8% in 2013. Reduction in military
expenditures was due to a greater emphasis on fiscal austerity and the winding
down of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, military expenditure
fell nearly 6% in 2012, followed by a 7.8% reduction in 2013. Despite efforts
to curtail the size of the military, the U.S. supplied nearly $6.2 billion in
arms to foreign allies, a figure second only to Russia. The U.S. was also a
large arms importer, bringing in $759 million worth of arms, among the higher
rates world-wide.
UPDATE:
Israel Claims Nearly 1,000 Acres of West Bank Land...
'Largest
appropriation in 30 years'...
MAG:
Nuns are endangered species...
72% decline...
The Great Nunquisition: Why the
Vatican Is Cracking Down on Sisters
Aug. 31, 2014
FILIPPO
MONTEFORTE—AFP/Getty Images
Today's generation of nuns are
progressive women, two things the Church isn't used to
Nuns are an
endangered species. They are dying and not being replaced.
If you think the news is bad now,
a world without nuns would be a far worse place. The nuns that I know are much
too humble to tout their achievements and all of the good they contribute to
society, but make no mistake, they are an integral part of the fabric that
holds our civilization together.
In 2014 there were just 49,883
religious Catholic sisters in the United States, down 13% percent from 2010 according to figures from the Center for Applied Research
in the Apostolate. To put it in greater perspective, that is a 72% decline
since 1965.
Because nuns don’t brag about
all of the good that they do or hashtag how awesome they are on Facebook, many
people have no idea about the things they accomplish on a daily basis.
You probably haven’t heard about
Sister Joan Dawber. Sister Joan, a Sister of Charity of Halifax, runs a safe
house in Queens for victims of human trafficking—former sex and labor slaves.
She takes these women in when they have no one else to protect them and risks
her life to help them rebuild theirs.
About 20 minutes away by car
from Sister Joan’s safe house, Sister Tesa Fitzgerald works tirelessly to raise
the children of mothers who are incarcerated. When those women get out of
prison Sister Tesa helps them get clothes, jobs and an apartment. Those women
credit Tesa with nothing less than saving their lives.
Most people don’t know about
Sister Nora Nash, a Franciscan Sister who lives just outside of Philadelphia.
As her order’s Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, Sister Nora wakes
up every single morning determined to make corporations more responsible to the
human race. Sister Nora and her assistant director, Tom McCaney have taken to
task the grocery store chain Kroger over the rights of farm workers, Hershey’s
chocolate company over child labor, McDonald’s over childhood obesity, Walmart
on raising their minimum wage and Wells Fargo over predatory lending practices.
Nash wakes up every single morning determined to make corporations more
responsible to the human race. Then she follows through on it.
For more than four decades
Sister Jeannine Gramick has been tireless in her fight for gay rights through
her organization New Ways, despite coming under intense scrutiny from the
Vatican.
Sister Dianna Ortiz made
headlines in 1989 when she abducted, tortured and raped while working as a
teacher in Guatemala. After living through that horror, instead of allowing
herself to sink into a terrible depression, she headed up an organization to
help thousands of torture survivors around the globe find the will to keep
living.
It’s a problem that you haven’t
heard about these women. You would think that, during a time when the Church
has suffered from great criticism and weathered very public scandals, it would
be celebrating these incredible achievements. Think again.
The Vatican doesn’t celebrate
these women. In fact, it has done the very opposite. Attacks on American nuns
have been happening since 2008, when the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes
of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life initiated an “Apostolic
Visitation,” a euphemism for investigation, of the nuns.
To put it in perspective,
previous “visitations” conducted by the Church were designed to investigate
things like the priest sex abuse scandal.
The nuns nicknamed it the Great
Nunquisition and in the past eight years they’ve come under scrutiny from the
church patriarchy.
A 2012 Vatican document
highlighted the Church’s problem with the Leadership Council of Women
Religious, the largest group of nuns in the United States. The document claimed
that the LCWR was “silent on the right to life from conception to natural
death” and that Roman Catholic views on the family and human sexuality “are not
part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes church teachings.”
Today’s nuns are simply too
progressive for the Vatican. The Vatican chooses not to celebrate nuns and it
chooses not to empower them.
Pope Francis has been hailed as
a progressive icon. Yet on the subject of women in the Church, he remains loyal
to a long-held and antiquated stance: he doesn’t think women should become
priests.
Nuns are dying out because their
population is aging and young women are not joining their ranks in the numbers
they once did.
The young women who could be the
nuns of tomorrow share a lot of the same values as the nuns of today. They are
fiercely dedicated to the concept of social justice and doing good in the
world. Seven in 10 millennials consider themselves social activists,
and 72% of them are eager to participate
in a nonprofit young professional group.
They want to be of service.
I recently spoke to a young
woman who was discerning to be a Catholic sister, but changed her mind before
she took perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
I asked her why and the answer
was very simple and yet disheartening.
“I want to work for an employer
that values what I do.”
She plans to work for an NGO.
She wanted to be of service to the world, but she also wanted to feel empowered
in her job.
Why would a generation of young
women raised to believe that they can be anything join an institution that tells
them there is something they absolutely cannot be, that there is a certain
level they will never reach? Many of the women who are nuns today joined the
vocation because it was a way to become highly educated, travel the world and
dedicate themselves to a higher good without being beholden to a husband or
children.
Young women today can do that
with a passport and a Kickstarter account.
I am constantly reminded of
something Sister Maureen Fiedler, a feminist and the host of the public radio
program Interfaith Voices told me when I interviewed her for my book: the fact
that Jesus was, and is, an “equal-opportunity employer.” He loved everyone the
same.
If Catholic nuns are to survive
in this country, something has to give. The Vatican needs to treat the nuns
with more respect. The rules will have to evolve. Women will need to be given
more power and leadership roles in the church.
Speaking at the annual LCWR
assembly earlier this month, Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio described exactly
what it means to be a nun today: “We are about drawing in the poor, the lonely,
the marginalized, all those seeking to be part of a whole,” she said. “This is
nothing more and nothing less than the most awesome vocation.
It is awesome. The nuns are awesome.
But if the Vatican doesn’t start treating them as such, there is no incentive
for more young women to aspire to join their ranks.
Jo
Piazza is the author of the new book, If Nuns Ruled the World,
which shatters the stereotypes of American Catholic nuns and profiles 10 daring
sisters. A veteran journalist whose work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times,
Slate, the Daily Beast and Yahoo, Piazza holds a masters degree in Religious
Studies from New York University.
30
Million Americans On Antidepressants And 21 Other Facts About America's Endless
Pharmaceutical Nightmare
Submitted
by Tyler Durden on 09/03/2014 - 22:35
Has there ever been a
nation more hooked on drugs than the United States? And I am not just talking about illegal
drugs – the truth is that the number of Americans addicted to legal drugs is
far greater than the number of Americans addicted to illegal drugs. As
you will read about below, more than 30 million Americans are currently on
antidepressants and doctors in the U.S. wrote more than 250 million
prescriptions for painkillers last year. Sadly, most people got hooked on
these drugs very innocently. They trusted that their doctors would never
prescribe something for them that would be harmful, and they trusted that the
federal government would never approve any drugs that were not safe. And
once the drug companies get you hooked, they often have you for life.
You see, the reality of the
matter is that some of these “legal drugs” are actually some of the most
addictive substances on the entire planet. And when they start raising
the prices on those drugs, there isn’t much that the addicts can do about
it. It is a brutally efficient business model, and the pharmaceutical
industry guards their territory fiercely. Very powerful people
will often do some really crazy things when there are hundreds of billions of
dollars at stake. The following are 22 facts about America’s endless
pharmaceutical nightmare that everyone should know…
#1 According to the New York Times, more than 30 million Americans are currently taking
antidepressants.
#2 The rate of antidepressant use among middle
aged women is far higher than for the population as a whole. At this
point, one out of every four women in
their 40s and 50s is taking an antidepressant medication.
#3 Americans account for about five percent of
the global population, but we buy more than 50 percent of the pharmaceutical drugs.
#4 Americans also consume a whopping 80
percent of all prescription painkillers.
#5 It is hard to believe, but doctors in the
United States write 259 million prescriptions for painkillers each
year. Prescription painkillers are some of the most addictive legal
drugs, and our doctors are serving as enablers for millions up0n millions of
Americans that find themselves hooked on drugs that they cannot kick.
#6 Overall, pharmaceutical drug use in America
is at an all-time high. According to a study conducted by the Mayo
Clinic, nearly 70
percent of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and
20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.
#7 According to the CDC, approximately 9
out of every 10 Americans that are at least 60 years old say that
they have taken at least one prescription drug within the last month.
#8 In 2010, the average teen in the United
States was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs.
Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and
depression.
#9 A very disturbing Government Accountability
Office report found that approximately one-third of all foster children in the
United States are on at least one psychiatric drug.
#10 An astounding 95
percent of the “experimental medicines” that the pharmaceutical
industry produces are found not to be safe and are never approved. Of the
remaining 5 percent that are approved, we often do not find out that they are
deadly to us until decades later.
#11 One study discovered that mothers that took
antidepressants during pregnancy were four times more likely to have a baby that developed
an autism spectrum disorder.
#12 It has been estimated that prescription
drugs kill approximately 200,000 people in the United States
every single year.
#13 An American dies from an unintentional
prescription drug overdose every 19 minutes. According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, accidental prescription drug
overdose is “the leading cause of acute preventable death for Americans”.
#14 In the United States today, prescription
painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined.
#15 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a
million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United
States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.
#16 The number of prescription drug overdose
deaths in the United States is five times higher than it was back in 1980.
#17 A survey conducted for the National
Institute on Drug Abuse found that more than 15
percent of all U.S. high school seniors abuse prescription
drugs.
#18 More than 26 million women over the age of
25 say that they are “using prescription medications
for unintended uses“.
#19 If all of these antidepressants are
helping, then why are more Americans killing themselves? The suicide rate
for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 increased by nearly 30 percent between 1999 and 2010. The
number of Americans that die by suicide is now greater than the number of
Americans that die as a result of car accidents every year.
#20 Antidepressant use has been linked to mass
shootings in America over and over and over again, and yet the mainstream
media is eerily quiet about this. Is it because they don’t want to threaten one
of their greatest sources of advertising revenue?
#21 The amount of money that the pharmaceutical
industry is raking in is astronomical. It has been reported that
Americans spent more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs
during 2013.
If many of these drugs were not
so addictive, the pharmaceutical companies would make a lot less money.
And pharmaceutical drug addicts often don’t fit the profile of what we think a
“drug addict” would look like. For example, CNN
shared the story of a 55-year-old grandmother named Cynthia Scudo that become
addicted to prescription painkillers…
For Scudo, her addiction
began — as they all do — innocently enough.
She sought relief from hip
pain, possibly caused by scarring from cesarean sections she had delivering
several of her children.
Her then-husband recommended
a physician.
“There was no physical
therapy offered,” she said of the doctor’s visit. “The first reaction was,
let’s give you some drugs.”
He put her on OxyContin.
By the second week, she was
physically addicted.
She was popping so much of
the painkiller and other drugs such as anti-anxiety Valium that they equated to
a dosage for three men.
There
is lots and lots of money to be made from addiction. In fact, if the U.S.
health care system was a totally separate nation it would actually be the 6th largest economy on the entire globe. We
are talking about piles of money larger than most people would ever dare to
imagine.
And with so much money floating
around, it is quite easy for the pharmaceutical industry to buy the cooperation
of our politicians and of the media.
Some time when you are
watching television in the evening, consciously take note of how often a
pharmaceutical commercial comes on.
It has gotten to the point
where we are literally being inundated with these ads.
They are already making hundreds
of billions of dollars, and they think that there is room for even more growth.
Will they ever be satisfied?
Samsung
Galaxy Note 4 vs. LG G3: Spec Showdown PC
Magazine Samsung has unveiled a new Galaxy Note
phablet, which is poised to stand against the LG G3. Both are big, nearly
6-inch smartphones with beefy processors, stabilized rear-facing cameras, and
Android 4.4 KitKat.
Stone
Cold Proof That Government Economic Numbers Are Being Highly Manipulated
How
in the world does the government expect us to trust the economic numbers that
they give us anymore? For a long time, many have suspected that they were
being manipulated, and as you will see below we now have stone cold proof that
this is indeed the case. But first, let's talk about the revised GDP
number for the first quarter of 2014 that was just released. Initially,
they told us that the U.S. economy only shrank by 0.1 percent in Q1. Then
that was revised down to a 1.0 percent contraction, and now we are being
informed that the economy actually contracted by a whopping 2.9 percent
during the first quarter. So what are we actually supposed to
believe? Sometimes I almost get the feeling that government bureaucrats
are just throwing darts at a dartboard in order to get these numbers. Of
course that is not actually true, but how do we know that we can actually trust
the numbers that they give to us? (Read More....)
Key Piece of Video “Evidence” for Russian Responsibility
for Malaysian Plane Shootdown Debunked
Washington’s
Blog | Video of Rebel Buk Launchers Headed Back to Russia? No – Images From
Ukraine-Held Territory Since May. {
Even in the absence of debunking evidence, or Russia’s proffer, given the
reality of america’s (the west’s, but america particularly) actions, not words,
and a governmental policy of prevarication and fraud (on top of bankrupt
desperation), I can’t see how anyone could possibly believe anything america
says … See, ie., http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
http://albertpeia.com/fbimartinezcongallard.htm }
MH17 Show & Tell: It’s the West’s Turn
Tony Cartalucci
| Russia has now shown its satellite pictures and radar information from the
Donetsk, Ukraine region during the July 17, 2014 Malaysia Airlines flight MH17
crash.
http://albertpeia.com/fortknoxfairytale.htm { I’ve previously said that america’s ‘fort
knox gold’, etc., has been looted for quite some time; note, the germans still
can’t get their ‘long since looted’ gold out of america; another more blatant
examples of american fraud was the 360 tons of $100 bills ($13 billion) flown
into Iraq and which literally ‘disappeared without a trace’/stolen, in yet
another affront to the beleaguered u.s. taxpayer. } Typical americona … See,
ie., http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
http://albertpeia.com/fbimartinezcongallard.htm .
Palestinian teen burned alive, autopsy shows Jerusalem (CNN) -- Mohammed Abu Khedair, a Palestinian teenager
who was abducted and killed in Jerusalem this week, died from being burned alive
and hit with a blunt object to the head, according to Palestinian General
Prosecutor Mohammed ...
America
Is the Only Country with a Favorable View of Israel
Washington’s Blog | The U.S. Is the Only Country Which
Supports Israel No Matter What It Does. { Yet, america pays a big, unaffordable price
for same since america’s signature is perceived as upon every israeli missile,
bomb, bullet and consequential death thereby … There are some who wonder how
hitler could have happened; yet, it’s
Christ-killing
israeli actions that made such hitlerian policies so globally popular …
insanity breeding insanity … evolution of ‘life’ on planet earth … watch the
change in israeli attitude as they run low on americon supplied iron-dome among
other missiles/weaponry … Ultimately, it’s america that pays the price in every
way for israeli intransigence … just more of the same for an america in
decline; viz., bad policy, bad results … }
If
Americans Knew What Was Happening In Israel …
Posted by: George Washington
Post date: 07/26/2014 - 00:33
… If my fellow Americans understood the history
of Israel and Palestine, their views would change overnight … and they would
demand that Israel no longer be given unconditional support and blank checks to
do whatever they want:
Postscript: Former Israeli Minister: Calling
people who criticize Israeli policy “anti-semitic. It’s a trick … we always use
it”.
Intl.
teams find ‘no violations’ by Russia along Ukrainian border by
Accusations
of Russia breaking 1987 arms control treaty an element of U.S. ... Russia
Beyond the Headlines The U.S.
authorities' claims accusing Russia of breaking the 1987 Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty are groundless and act as an element of
Washington's information warfare, the senior vice-president of Russia's Center
for Political Studies . { Based upon my cursory review of such matters
(I’ll not waste my time with in depth research regarding same), this seems a
logical and adaptive response by Russia to the deployment at the behest of the
u.s. (military industrial complex) of shields (low flying cruise missiles can
negate their purported ‘effectiveness’). }
Economist
Warns Civil Unrest Rising Everywhere...
'This Won't End Pretty'...
Violent
Night In NYC: 13 Shot Across 5 Boroughs...
VIDEO:
Group of women beat 15-year-old girl while onlookers egg on...
Ebola
outbreak most deadly ever in West Africa...
in 10 Deaths Among Adults Tied to Alcohol: CDC
THURSDAY, June 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- One in 10 deaths among U.S. adults
is linked to excessive alcohol consumption, federal officials reported
Thursday.
Could
5% Unemployment Soon Be a Reality? The May jobs report showed unemployment
standing at 6.3%. But could a 5% rate be in the offing? Jeffrey Stibel, Dun
& Bradstreet Credibility Corp. CEO, joins the News Hub. { Oh, absolutely …
the entire u.s. workforce will be a total of 100 with 5 of same out of a job …
then 4 of the 5 will drop out of the work force/stop looking bringing the ue
rate to 1% … then a newborn baby will enter the u.s. work force and will be
employed as a rattle-tester bringing the ue rate to 0% after the 5th
of the previous 5 drops out of the work force … Quite obviously, things are
really humming in the u.s. economy … }
The
Size Of The Derivatives Bubble Hanging Over The Global Economy Hits A Record
High
The
global derivatives bubble is now 20 percent bigger than it was just before the
last great financial crisis struck in 2008. It is a financial bubble far
larger than anything the world has ever seen, and when it finally bursts it is
going to be a complete and utter nightmare for the financial system of the
planet. According to the Bank for
International Settlements, the total notional value of derivatives
contracts around the world has ballooned to an astounding 710 trillion dollars
($710,000,000,000,000). Other estimates put the grand total well over a
quadrillion dollars. If that sounds like a lot of money, that is because
it is. For example, U.S. GDP is projected to be in the neighborhood of
around 17 trillion dollars for 2014. So 710 trillion dollars is an amount
of money that is almost incomprehensible. Instead of actually doing
something about the insanely reckless behavior of the big banks, our leaders
have allowed the derivatives bubble and these banks to get larger than ever.
In fact, as I have written about previously,
the big Wall Street banks are collectively 37 percent larger than they were
just prior to the last recession. "Too big to fail" is a far
more massive problem than it was the last time around, and at some point this
derivatives bubble is going to burst and start taking those banks down.
When that day arrives, we are going to be facing a crisis that is going to make
2008 look like a Sunday picnic. (Read More....)
http://www.coasttocoastam.com Wed 05-21-14 First Half: Investigative reporter Russ Baker will address how
our domestic war on terror is eroding our right to due process and fair trials.
Posted by : GoldCore
Post date: 05/25/2014 - 14:44
China
and Russia signed an historic agreement in Shanghai this week - the
ramifications of which have yet to be appreciated ... Reserve currency status
does not last forever. Empires rise and fall....
Could
5% Unemployment Soon Be a Reality? The May jobs report showed unemployment
standing at 6.3%. But could a 5% rate be in the offing? Jeffrey Stibel, Dun
& Bradstreet Credibility Corp. CEO, joins the News Hub. { Oh, absolutely …
the entire u.s. workforce will be a total of 100 with 5 of same out of a job …
then 4 of the 5 will drop out of the work force/stop looking bringing the ue
rate to 1% … then a newborn baby will enter the u.s. work force and will be
employed as a rattle-tester bringing the ue rate to 0% after the 5th
of the previous 5 drops out of the work force … Quite obviously, things are
really humming in the u.s. economy … }
Posted by: williambanzai7
Post date: 05/26/2014 - 09:46
And
War is a racket...
Michael Sincere
Bear
market is on the way
One big red flag is happening in the stock market now that signals a coming
downturn.
•
7 signs of a market top
Cat gets medieval on dog, saves kid, becomes Internet sensation
Our People Massacre Civilians in Odessa, and Politico
Blames Putin { It’s really
quite amazing … the reality is that the west and america particularly is
bankrupt financially, economically, politically, geo-politically, and morally.
When one realistically looks at the hard facts/truth of the west’s and
america’s particularly violent incursions and fomenting of unrest abroad beyond
the propaganda, cover-ups, and outright lies, only fools living in fools’
paradises buy into their complete and utter b***s*** which has been devastating
domestically and globally! }
Eric Zuesse |
Why are Americans puzzled that foreigners consider the U.S. to be the nation
that’s the biggest threat to world peace?
“Is The U.S. A Capitalist Democracy Or Oligarchy?” Janet
Yellen Doesn’t Know
Liberty
Blitzkrieg blog | During this week’s Senate hearings, Janet Yellen was asked by
Senator Bernie Sanders if the U.S. was a capitalist democracy or has morphed
into an oligarchy.
17 Facts To Show To Anyone That
Believes That The U.S. Economy Is Just Fine
By
Michael Snyder, on April 29th, 2014
No,
the economy is most definitely not "recovering". Despite what
you may hear from the politicians and from the mainstream media, the truth is
that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than it was prior to the last
recession. In fact, we are still pretty much where we were at when the
last recession finally ended. When the financial crisis of 2008 struck,
it took us down to a much lower level economically. Thankfully, things
have at least stabilized at this much lower level. For example, the
percentage of working age Americans that are employed has stayed remarkably flat for the past
four years. We should be grateful that things have not continued to
get even worse. It is almost as if someone has hit the "pause
button" on the U.S. economy. But things are definitely not getting
better, and there are a whole host of signs that this bubble of false stability
will soon come to an end and that our economic decline will accelerate once
again. The following are 17 facts to show to anyone that believes that
the U.S. economy is just fine...
#1
The homeownership rate in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in 19 years.
#2
Consumer spending for durable goods has dropped by 3.23 percent since
November. This is a clear sign that an economic slowdown is ahead.
#3
Major retailers are closing stores at the fastest pace that we have seen since the
collapse of Lehman Brothers.
#4
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of all families in the United
States do not have a single member that is employed. That means that one
out of every five families in the entire country is completely unemployed.
#5
There are 1.3 million fewer jobs in
the U.S. economy than when the last recession began in December 2007.
Meanwhile, our population has continued to grow steadily since that time.
#6
According to a
new report from the National Employment Law Project, the quality of the
jobs that have been "created" since the end of the last recession
does not match the quality of the jobs lost during the last recession...
- Lower-wage industries constituted 22 percent of recession
losses, but 44 percent of recovery growth.
- Mid-wage industries constituted 37 percent of recession
losses, but only 26 percent of recovery growth.
- Higher-wage industries constituted 41 percent of recession
losses, and 30 percent of recovery growth.
#7
After adjusting for inflation, men who work full-time in America today make less money than men who worked
full-time in America 40 years ago.
#8
It is hard to believe, but 62 percent of all Americans make $20 or
less an hour at this point.
#9 Nine of the top ten
occupations in the U.S. pay an average wage of less than $35,000 a year.
#10
The middle class in Canada now makes more money than the middle class in the
United States does.
#11
According to one recent study, 40 percent of all
Americans could not come up with $2000 right now even if there was a major
emergency.
#12
Less than one out of every four Americans has enough money put away to cover six months of
expenses if there was a job loss or major emergency.
#13
An astounding 56 percent of all Americans have
subprime credit in 2014.
#14
As I wrote about the other day, there are now 49 million Americans that are
dealing with food insecurity.
#15
Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had jobs outnumbered the
number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin.
But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of
women that have jobs.
#16
69 percent of the federal budget is
spent either on entitlements or on welfare programs.
#17
The number of Americans receiving benefits from the federal government each
month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million.
Taken
individually, those numbers are quite remarkable.
Taken
collectively, they are absolutely breathtaking.
Yes,
things have been improving for the wealthy for the last several years.
The stock market has soared to new record highs and real estate prices in the
Hamptons have skyrocketed to unprecedented heights.
But
that is not the real economy. In the real economy, the middle class is
being squeezed out of existence. The quality of our jobs is declining and
prices just keep rising. This reality was reflected quite well in a
comment that one of my readers left on one of my recent articles...
It
is getting worse each passing month. The food bank I help out, has barely
squeaked by the last 3 months. Donors are having to pull back, to take care of
their own families. Wages down, prices up, simple math tells you we can not
hold out much longer. Things are going up so fast, you have to adopt a new way
of thinking. Example I just had to put new tires on my truck. Normally I would
have tried to get by to next winter. But with the way prices are moving, I
decide to get them while I could still afford them. It is the same way with
food. I see nothing that will stop the upward trend for quite a while. So if
you have a little money, and the space, buy it while you can afford it. And
never forget, there will be some people worse off than you. Help them if you
can.
And
the false stock bubble that the wealthy are enjoying right now will not last
that much longer. It is an artificial bubble that has been pumped up by
unprecedented money printing by the Federal Reserve, and like all bubbles that
the Fed creates, it will eventually burst.
None
of the long-term trends that are systematically destroying our economy have
been addressed, and none of our major economic problems have been fixed.
In fact, as I showed in this recent article, we are actually in far
worse shape than we were just prior to the last major financial crisis.
Let
us hope that this current bubble of false stability lasts for as long as
possible.
That
is what I am hoping for.
But
let us not be deceived into thinking that it is permanent.
It
will soon burst, and then the real pain will begin.
US Economy Is A House Of Cards
Paul
Craig Roberts | The US economy is a house of cards. Every aspect of it is
fraudulent, and the illusion of recovery is created with fraudulent statistics.
{ Totally fraudulent! This is absolutely true! )
Supreme Court Refuses to Uphold the Constitution: Allows
Indefinite Detention
Washington’s
Blog | “We Are No Longer a Nation Ruled By Laws”. { I warned everyone of this
truth from my direct experience and observation:
CIA AGENT EXPOSING HIGH-LEVEL
ILLEGAL DRUG SMUGGLING LINKS ( BUSH, BARR, CLINTON ET ALS )
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/FBIAgentAffidavit.jpg
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
http://albertpeia.com/fbimartinezcongallard.htm }
Jesse Jackson Enters Sterling Fray, Orders Sale of Team
Kurt Nimmo
| Political correctness reigns supreme as hypocrite rallies on basketball
court. { Problem is, it’s not correct,
politically or otherwise! }
Ode to Don Sterling
Don Sterling and Rod Serling
Truly an unlikely pair
Sterling talked reality
Now barely can come up for air
Yes Don, ‘tis true as you say
spics drink (do drugs) and hang out
While niggers smell, do the same, and carrying
vermin flout
The norms of civilized behavior
The sanctity of peaceful living Sterling is
savior
america in decline is appalled
The truth out, Sterling gets mauled
How long will lost angles america last
As all are aghast
That fallen america’s still standing
Unfold and embrace Sterling’s tome
Reality and truth his tool
He’s certainly no fool
Sterling’s now entered Serling’s
american twilight zone
{
I must honestly say, from direct experience over a considerable amount of time
and in a wide variety of circumstances and geographic locations including LA
particularly as relevant here, the uncivilized niggers are so deleterious to
whatever locations they inhabit, occupy, or are present; that they are so,
euphemistically speaking, unpleasant and inherently criminal, lazy,
unproductive, and mentally challenged if not clearly mentally ill, it should be
said in defense of Sterling who no doubt with LA in mind merely expounded upon
the truth of the foregoing reality in a very innocuous way, however politically
incorrect in this period of american decline. They’re just typical bulls***
niggers! }
Shock Video: Long Beach Cops Execute Unarmed, Fleeing
Suspect, Claim They Felt Threatened { In defense of the police, let me say
that I spent some time in Long Beach and, daylight hours, literally had bullets
whizzing past my head … one of the niggers involved ditched the gun in a trash
bin while calmly walking away … the police did get him … }
Globalist
Tool Glenn Beck Sells Out Humanity
{ I’m surprised people even listen to him … among the limited stations
for which there’s reception here, I sampled him … and will never listen to him
again … the guy’s a flake and a dry drunk like dumbya bush with all the
psychotic baggage that entails … } Prison Planet.com | Glenn Beck refers to
himself as the only source for truth news. That is, if you like getting your
news straight from the White House, CIA and Council on Foreign Relations.
Michelle
Obama’s one-night stay in Chinese hotel costs US taxpayers $220,000 BizPac Review | American taxpayers forked
out almost a quarter of a million dollars for Michelle Obama’s one-night stay
in a luxury hotel during her recent trip to China.
Obama’s
2014 Golf Outings Cost Taxpayers Nearly $3M CNS News | President Obama’s golf outings in 2014 cost taxpayers
nearly $3 million.
Media
Refuses To Identify Party Affiliation Of New Jersey Democrat Caught In Racist
Rant Daily Caller | New Jersey city council chairman and mayoral candidate
Marie Strumolo Burke was caught on tape lamenting her city’s descent into a
“fucking nigger town”.{ She should be elected for talking reality! }
Holder’s Latest Scandal: DOJ Now Pressuring Banks to Refuse
Service to Gun Stores
CHINA
TO SURPASS AMERICA AS WORLD'S LARGEST ECONOMY...
Snowden:
NSA Spies More on Americans Than Russians...
'Every
citizen has a duty to resist'...
SHOCK
VIDEO: Black Teens Beat White Student on School Bus... { Typical
niggers! }
Obama-Biden
vacation tab reaches $40 million...
$2.9 million for two golf outings...
House
panel subpoenas VA Secretary Shinseki for Phoenix hospital documents { It is absolutely preposterous to blame the
VA for the predictable consequence of
misguided war/war crimes/military industrial complex welfare programs;
viz., ‘long tail’ medical/disability/rehabilitation costs. These are
costs/services that are incurred well beyond the ‘short money gains’ of
misguided, illegal, unnecessary conflicts based upon lies, fraud, etc.. Let
those who instigated, benefited from said conflict pay/disgorge gains/pay
penalties/damages to fund these tragic consequences; viz., bushes, cheneys,
neocons, un-yellow-cake-token nigger powell, et als; including those who voted
for these nation-destroyin/draining debacles. Essentially, treat them as
world/national torts for those fearing appropriate application of criminal laws
to such horrendous acts/behavior. }
Fox News | Secretary faces calls for his
resignation.
Posted by: George Washington
Post date: 05/29/2014
- 14:22
... Obama Has
Committed War Crimes As Well
Americans
live on a statistical reservation {
Indeed! Outrageous! Real rates are from 20-50% from direct observation and
experience. }
Max Keiser | Misstating food inflation numbers helps
the top 1 percent.
UK
Government Ignores Scotland’s Opposition to GM Crops { Well, absent Scotland’s long overdue
independence move, I’d then be constrained to say they deserve that and worse.
} Sustainable Pulse | UK environment secretary breaches
agreement.
Feds
give $20 million loan to company owned by Biden 'friend' and donor...
YELLEN:
I 'DON'T KNOW WHAT TO CALL OUR SYSTEM'...
Fed
Chair: 'Deficits Will Rise to Unsustainable Levels'...
Faber: Worried about
crisis bigger than '08...