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Thursday, June 30, 2011

F.B.I. Seizes Web Servers, Knocking Unrelated Sites Offline

VERNE G. KOPYTOFF

The F.B.I. seized Web servers in a raid on a data center early Tuesday, causing several Web sites, including those run by the New York publisher Curbed Network, to go offline.

The raid happened at 1:15 a.m. at a hosting facility in Reston, Va., used by DigitalOne, which is based in Switzerland, the company said. The F.B.I. did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the raid.

In an e-mail to one of its clients on Tuesday afternoon,? DigitalOne?s chief executive, Sergej Ostroumow, said: "This problem is caused by the F.B.I., not our company. In the night F.B.I. has taken 3 enclosures with equipment plugged into them, possibly including your server ? we cannot check it.?

Mr. Ostroumow said that the F.B.I. was only interested in one of the company?s clients but had taken servers used by ?tens of clients.?

He wrote: ?After F.B.I.?s unprofessional ?work? we can not restart our own servers, that's why our Web site is offline and support doesn?t work.? The company?s staff had been working to solve the problem for the previous 15 hours, he said.

Mr. Ostroumow said in response to e-mailed questions that it was not clear if the issues would be resolved by Wednesday.

A government official who declined to be named said earlier in the day that the F.B.I. was actively investigating the Lulz Security group and any affiliated hackers. The official said the F.B.I. had teamed up with other agencies in this effort, including the Central Intelligence Agency and cybercrime bureaus in Europe.

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Latest Big Brother/Orwellian
- Cancer Surges In Body Scanner Operators; TSA Launches Cover-Up
- Orwell, eat your heart out: 'TSA denies having required a 95-year-old woman to remove diaper'
- Patriot Act Debate: Is the FBI Collecting Your Phone Data?
- 95-yr-old woman dying of leukemia asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search
- TSA stands by officers after pat-down of elderly woman in Florida
- U.S. Using 'Mystery Shoppers' to Check on Access to Doctors
- Senator Leahy Praises US Gov't Censorship Of Websites As ICE Takes Another Victory Lap
- MPAA, RIAA, Major ISPs Preparing 'Graduated Response' To Piracy

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (found at the U.S. Copyright Office) and other applicable intellectual property laws. It is our policy to remove material from public view that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our members or users.
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"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill


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Geithner: Taxes on 'Small Business' Must Rise So Government Doesn't 'Shrink'

By Terence P. Jeffrey

(CNSNews.com) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday that the Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to ?shrink the overall size of government programs.?

The administration?s plan to raise the tax rate on small businesses is part of its plan to raise taxes on all Americans who make more than $250,000 per year?including businesses that file taxes the same way individuals and families do.

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Latest Politics/Corruption
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- NYT's Love Affair With Fascism Continues
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Thats right! We have to tax those small businesses so our benevolent government can continue to metastasize, er, uh, I mean GROW! "Our Government" meaning Exxon, Walmart, GE, Raytheon, Monsanto, Dupont, Goldman Sachs, Google, Apple etc....................

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (found at the U.S. Copyright Office) and other applicable intellectual property laws. It is our policy to remove material from public view that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our members or users.
About Us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill


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Patriot Act Debate: Is the FBI Collecting Your Phone Data?

By Mark Benjamin Friday

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is weighing fresh concerns about the sweeping nature of domestic spying using one controversial section of the Patriot Act. This particular part of that law is notable because it has been divisive for years ? and because during those years President Obama has quietly moved from being a Senator skeptical of the provisions to being an enthusiastic spy chief whose Administration embraces them.

Last Tuesday the committee met to consider the worries of some members, mostly Democrats, who say the Justice Department has drafted a breathtakingly broad interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

That section allows the FBI to seize without a warrant "any tangible things," like documents, so long as they are part of an effort to protect the country against international terrorism. The FBI can order a private company to turn over data as long as the bureau can convince a special national-security court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, that the information is "relevant" to antiterrorism work.

Obama Administration officials emphasize that this review by the intelligence court is an important step in protecting privacy. Privacy advocates, however, consider it little more than a rubber stamp. " 'Relevant' means some noncrazy reason for asking for it," said the Cato Institute's Julian Sanchez, who believes the government is using that authority to sweep up huge amounts of communications data.

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Latest Big Brother/Orwellian
- Cancer Surges In Body Scanner Operators; TSA Launches Cover-Up
- Orwell, eat your heart out: 'TSA denies having required a 95-year-old woman to remove diaper'
- 95-yr-old woman dying of leukemia asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search
- TSA stands by officers after pat-down of elderly woman in Florida
- U.S. Using 'Mystery Shoppers' to Check on Access to Doctors
- Senator Leahy Praises US Gov't Censorship Of Websites As ICE Takes Another Victory Lap
- MPAA, RIAA, Major ISPs Preparing 'Graduated Response' To Piracy
- Leaked: UK copyright lobby holds closed-door meetings with gov't to discuss national Web-censorship regime

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (found at the U.S. Copyright Office) and other applicable intellectual property laws. It is our policy to remove material from public view that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our members or users.
About Us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill


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NASA Issues Agency Wide Preparedness Alert

Click to expand conspiracy quotes from this video Give me just a few minutes to talk to all of you in our NASA family about emergency preparedness. NASA recently participated in a FEMA exercise called Eagle Horizon that was a part of a continuity of operations and government exercise that we do annually. And, I became aware of some things that concern me about our family preparedness and I wanted to talk to you very briefly. you know we at NASA we’re an incredibly unique organization. We’re the only agency in the federal government that’s responsible for the safety and well being of people, not only here on Earth, but off this planet. So my experience in the astronaut office, my experience as an active duty marine, always talked about the importance of family preparedness and to make sure we had a viable family support program. And I have concerns that ours right now is not as good as it ought to be.

So, what I’m asking all of you in the NASA family, whether you’re out on the West coast, here on the east coast, along the Gulf Coast, up on the Great Lakes, think about the natural disasters that could occur in your area. Think about attacks that could come like 9/11, from outside forces, and talk to your family about your work and what they need to do to prepare for the unforeseen.

NASA Issues Agency Wide Preparedness Alert Related conspiracies: NASA

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The Big Brother State and Global Surveillance

Click to expand conspiracy quotes from this video If you ask a politician assigned to security matters today what he or she thinks about the surveillance techniques used to prevent crime, there’s a good chance that you’d be told about the benefits of closed circuit camera systems. You’d here convincing arguments about the additional safety in their vicinity because they act as a crime deterrent, Or you might here about the virtue of being able to track terrorists, by filing information about airline passengers, or by enforcing the use of biometric passports. Maybe you’d find out how trusted computing protects you from malicious software and viruses. Or how scanning emails and eavesdropping on phone calls helps the police find potential criminals of all kinds. It would probably all sound great, because the idea is that you should start thinking of these techniques as being the cream of the crop. But let’s face the not quite so obvious but nevertheless omnipresent downside of this. While public cameras may actually help these defined criminals, modern CCTV systems like the ones used in London, are even today able to lock onto any person the operators wish to track using automatic facial identification, thus enabling the police to create a detailed database of say all of your movements. The keeping of records about airline passengers flying to the U.S. and in addition the obligation for everyone to submit biometric passports, are supposed to help fight terrorism. But this also allows the secret services to gather explicit information about the nationality of every traveler. Explicit information such as your fingerprints, the color of your eyes, and a high resolution picture of your face. Information you would usually expect to be taken from suspected criminals.

Trusted computing promises to enhance security on your PC, by only allowing certain trustworthy software to run on your machine. What you’re not told is that the person who decides which software you can trust, and are therefore allowed to install on your PC, will certainly not be you. On the one hand, scanning emails and wiretapping emails for ominous keywords, could convict a few small time criminals, but on the other it allows all sorts of people involved in this monitoring process to retrieve all sorts of private information. Information you just might not want to share with the staff of your local police station.

These symptoms can all be taken as evidence of the slow but steady conversion of our western societies into police states. Our western societies, claiming to be liberal democracies, but our leaders try to enforce more and more pressive laws and instrumentalize public fear of terror to justify them.

Stop the big brother state.

Conspiracy of Global Surveillance - The Big Brother State Related conspiracies: big brother, global surveillance, police state, trusted computing, wiretapping

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Government Gets Direct Link To Your Mobile – Cannot Opt Out of President’s Text Alerts

Click to expand conspiracy quotes from this video The country that created EYEphones, has more than 300 million wireless users. And in the name of national security the U.S. Government will soon have a direct link to each and every hand held device.

Gathered at the scene of the September 11 terrorist attacks, federal and New York City officials joined the CEOs of the 4 largest wireless carriers, to announce the nations new tech tool. An alert system, enabling the president and government agencies to blast every American with text messages warning of terrorist threats, weather disasters, and kidnappings.

Now we have a system of mandatory and inescapable alerts through every cell phone in the land, in the event that the government decides something’s happening that we ought to know about. Now, just as the introduction of the Patriot Act came right after 9/11, so this new kind of technological invasion comes to us without any public discussion, right after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. The use of fear for any kind of government that craves more control over peoples lives and thoughts, is that it makes people malleable; it makes them obedient. I mean you go to any airport today and you can see this in action, that people are meekly taking off their shoes, submitting to getting groped…

In December, the Department of Homeland Security began encouraging Americans to report suspicious activity to the country’s largest food retailer. Wal-Mart’s partnership with Washington has been accused of perpetrating a climate of panic, and subsequent need for more surveillance

Following the assassination of enemy #1, an American lawmaker called for increase in rail safety funding , and the creation of a no-ride list. As U.S. officials warn of more terror threats following Bin Laden’s death, many Americans remain concerned, while others are left wondering about the dangers of forsaking too much liberty for security.

Government Gets Direct Link To Your Mobile – Cannot Opt Out of President’s Text Alerts Related conspiracies: big brother, corporations, global surveillance

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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

JFK Assassination and Executive Order 11110 – Also Willie Nelson Discusses New World Order

Click to expand conspiracy quotes from this video John was the most charismatic of the presidents and had great support from the American people. And he felt he could defy the international bankers and get away with it. He wasn’t just killed because he was favoring some rights for black people. The president has power to just, with an executive order, make a law. Executive order 11110, signed into law early 1963. Where with the stroke of his pen he took away the power of the Federal Reserve to print the money. He put 4 billion dollars into circulation in 2 dollar and 5 dollar denominations, but all 4 billion was backed by silver. Six months later, like it was with Lincoln, he was shot down in Dealey Plaza. you see, the international bankers must not be defied, because they run presidents and kings.
JFK Assassination and Executive Order 11110 - Also Willie Nelson Discusses New World Order Related conspiracies: Executive Order 11110, Federal Reserve, JFK conspiracy

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The Age of Transitions – Eugenics and Transhumanism – Your Future Has Been Planned

It’s important to realize that this report clearly states that cybernetic enhancement of human performance is inevitable. With Newt Gingrich proclaiming “those countries that ignore these patterns of change will fall further behind and find themselves weaker, poorer, and more vulnerable than their wiser, more change-oriented neighbors”. Mr Gingrich conservatively calls for a tripling of the National Science Foundation budget. He also mentions George Bush’s approval of a $604 million dollar increase towards the nano budget. Convergence is the priority of importance in implementing the promise of a new day for the 21st century.

One group stands above all others for applauding this convergence. They are known as transhumanists. Most prominent among which are professors, philosophers, scientists and celebrities. The transhumanists see a world of problems just begging to be solved with converging technology.

What most people don’t realize is that this concept is not new. It is in fact a repackaging of what was once called eugenics. The term eugenics means good genes, or good origin. It was coined in 1883, by British scientist Sir Francis Galton. He defined eugenics as “A moral philosophy to improve humanity by encouraging the best and brightest to breed”. Galton was the half-cousin of Sir Charles Darwin, the famous originator of the theory of evolution, which also would come to be known as Darwinism.

Galton actually used the theory of evolution to substantiate his new science of eugenics. In his book, Studies on Hereditary Genius, he attempted to prove that the aristocratic families of the British empire were in fact a superior race. The fact that in the struggle for life, they had made it to the very top of society proved that they were the best that humanity had to offer. It is important to note that Darwin’s famous The Origin of Species is subtitled Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Not surprisingly, the Royal Society, a scientific institution dedicated to the improvement of natural knowledge, picked up on these new ideas and promoted Darwin heavily. Being a creation of the British monarchy, the Royal Society was obviously in favor of promoting the idea of the genetic superiority of the royal family. Science itself was being positioned to replace the old religious appeal, with the divine right of Kings to rule over the inferior masses.

Darwin himself stated “Elite status is prima facie evidence of evolutionary superiority”. Through scientism, science as religion, Darwinism could in fact bring about social change. Social Darwinism would manifest itself as eugenics. To eugenicists, the masses were cattle, with Galton calling eugenics ‘the science of improving the stock’. The rise of scientism began the widespread proliferation of eugenics as it reached American shores at the turn of the century. The Eugenics Record Office in Cold Springs Harbor New York went to work amassing hundreds of thousands of family pedigrees for genetic research. They also lobbied for state sterilization acts and other eugenic legislation. In 1899, Henry Clay Sharp, a prison physician, began sterilizing degenerate prisoners, and later in 1907 he was a key advocate for a law in Indiana that was passed, mandating the compulsory sterilization of degenerates throughout the state.

In 1921, the American Eugenics Society was formed and began propaganda campaigns which included the promotion of eugenics in churches, schools, and state fair exhibitions. Funding for American eugenics came from the Carnegie, Harriman, and Rockefeller families among others. Eugenics was being accepted as a genuine form of science. Social Darwinism made strong advances toward a world in which scientism would fulfill Galton’s dream of having eugenics be the religion of the future.

But a major setback occurred at the end of World War II. It was discovered that American eugenics had been a major influence on Hitler’s Final Solution. In 1934, Rudolf Hess had stated that “national socialism is nothing but applied biology”. Hitler had only wanted to preserve the best German stocks and elevate them to a dominate position in society. It was at this point in eugenics history that a crucial move had to be made in order to hide eugenics from the now aware masses of humanity.

Prominent eugenicist Sir Julian Huxley stepped up and offered a solution. He simply invented a new word to replace eugenics. That term being, TRANSHUMANISM, which he defined as the need for mankind to realize the importance of steering the direction of its own evolution. Yes, eugenics was one of the original aspects of transhumanism. And it is no surprise as Julian was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, who had been a president of the Royal Society, and one of the most well known advocates of Darwinism in its early days.

Julian, being properly raised, was educated at Oxford. His specialty being evolutionary biology. He went on to many high level positions, which included the titles of Vice President and President of the British Eugenics Society, which of course had the task of removing undesirable variants from the human gene pool. Julian Huxley had said the following of eugenics “The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore… they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; Long unemployment should be a ground for sterilization”.

At this point it’s important to understand the legal definition of the word terrorist. Since 9/11, a mountain of legislation has been passed, including the Patriot Act, the Military Commission Act, the John Warner Defense Act and countless others. All of which have, through their legislative cunning, rendered the term terrorist so ambiguous that you can be deemed a terrorist for any reason at all. You can be taken to a secret prison without charges, without Habeas Corpus, and with no rights whatsoever.
These laws were not written on a whim. They were specifically designed to give the government carte blanche authority over the people during the chaos and confusion of the Age of Transitions.

And so, this transition is perhaps the most important transition of all time. Some people don’t want it. They fear this transition because this transition is to a planetary civilization tolerant of many cultures. These are the terrists. In their gut, they fear this, because they know they are witnessing the birth plans of a beginning of a new planetary civilization and the terrists want nothing to do with it. -Michio Kaku
(terrist as in terra firma, the Earth, etc. Sounds a bit like another word though, doesn’t it?)

The British Ministry of Defence has published its “Strategic Trends” report. The report has attempted to predict what will happen from 2007 until 2035. It predicts global chaos. It states that as global interdependence increases, every aspect of human life will change. Climate change, competition for resources, shortages of food and water, and the constant threat of pandemics, will keep people in a world wide state of shock.
During the next 30 years, every aspect of human life will change…
As the middle class in the west declines, extremist politics will be embraced by some out of desperation. Flash mobs will threaten military forces which admittedly will be working alongside police. As America and Europe decline in power, China and India are expected to gain prominence on the global stage. The population of the west will decrease due to declining fertility.

The report mentions this declining fertility on three separate occasions, but interestingly never explains the cause of this problem. Amid all this crisis, technological breakthroughs will develop at an unprecedented rate. Human computer interfaces will stimulate cultural change.

By 2035, an implantable information chip could be developed and wired directly to the user’s brain… synthetic sensory perception beamed directly to the user’s senses. It is likely that the majority of the global population will find it difficult to ‘turn the outside world off’. ICT is likely to be so pervasive that people are permanently connected to a network or two-way data stream with inherent challenges to civil liberties; being disconnected could be considered suspicious.

A small super-rich elite and a substantial underclass of slum and subsistence dwellers…

A more permissive R&D environment could accelerate the decline of ethical constraints and restraints. The speed of technological and cultural change could overwhelm society’s ability to absorb the ethical implications… The nearest approximation to an ethical framework could become a form of secular utilitarianism, in an otherwise amoral scientific culture. Declining youth populations in Western societies could become increasingly dissatisfied with their economically burdensome ‘baby boomer elders’… This could lead to a civic renaissance, with strict penalties for those failing to fulfill their social obligations. It might also open the way to policies which permit euthanasia as a means to reduce the burden of care for the elderly.

The problem is that we are living in a virtual reality. We’re living in a totally controlled environment. An environment that has been created by mass media. Now, many people, especially young people, accept unquestioningly the reality that is presented by the media. Popular culture, movies, television, music–carry messages about how society works and how people should behave, and so entertainment is not value free. It has ideological content it presents itself. It presents a world view that influences the people who watch the programming. There is a reason why television networks and the music industry, the various companies, they have programming departments. The programming that we are constantly assaulted by throughout our life, conditions us. It programs a particular world view.


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State Officials Privates Left Sore by TSA for Opting Out: “You Are Punishing Me?” – TSA Says “Yes We Are”

Click to expand conspiracy quotes from this video State officials are speaking out tonight about their uncomfortable experience at the airport recently. Some are claiming TSA agents went as far as leaving them sore in private areas.

Remember the bill that would limit TSA’s searches at the airport? Well it’s been reincarnated in special session and we’ve all seen these videos right here on Youtube of people claiming that TSA agents have inappropriately touched them. Well now top Texas officials are claiming they’ve been left humiliated, and even left sore.

“Let me put this delicately. I was still feeling the effects of the pat down as I sat in my seat, from New Orleans to Houston, then Houston to Austin.”
Barry Smitherman, chairman of the utility commission of Texas was heading back home to Austin from New Orleans when he said he was ushered to the body scanner. He told the TSA agents he’d rather go through the metal detector.
“She said ‘well you don’t have that choice’. I said, ok I am opting out. Those are the key words, right? So the TSA agent goes ‘OPT OUT, OPT OUT, WE GOT AN OPT OUT’, you know, calling everyone’s attention to me.”
Smitherman says it took roughly forty minutes for the TSA agents to search through his carry on bag, piece by piece, and to give him a thorough pat down that he says was completely inappropriate.
“And finally I said you’re punishing me for opting out, aren’t you?”. And to her credit she said ‘Yes we are’.

State Officials Privates Left Sore by TSA for Opting Out You Are Punishing Me - TSA Says Yes We Are Related conspiracies: police state, TSA

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Geneticists Reveal E. Coli Super Bug O104 Was Engineered

Click to expand conspiracy quotes from this video It’s classic problem reaction solution. They’re using it in every area, but especially in agriculture. Every time they want to pass more food regulations, they engineer another diaster and they create a fear campaign. And, there’s so many agendas they can then pursue with this fear. It’s not just to enable them to enact new food regulations and tyrannical legislation ans crack down on small farms, raid the Amish at gun point and things like that. It’s also the fact that they can retaliate against Spain. Remember because Spain stood up against the GMO agenda. Spain said we don’t want GMOs in our country, even as, and this came out of wikileaks by the way, even as the U.S. was working on a plan to force European nations to accept GMOs, this is now retaliation. In a matter of less than a week they have destroyed much of Spain’s agricultural economy, at least those involved in fresh vegetable farming. So this is an act of economic warfare, on that front, it’s an act of biological warfare against the innocent victims who are now being harmed by this bacteria strain which has clearly been bioengineered.

We’re watching a circus of fearmongering. They screamed cucumbers, and everybody stopped buying cucumbers. Then they screamed tomatoes, then they screamed lettuce–it’s like we’re watching a circus of health regulator lunatics who are running around destroying food industries, destroying the economics of farmers one by one. It’s like a Godzilla marching through the city stomping on farmers tents at the farmers markets. They’re just destroying this industry, with no credibility. And today Wall Street Journal broke this article, which we wrote about also, that said it’s not the sprouts. Just until this morning they were blaming the organic sprouts from Northern Germany.Well they ran tests on that and the tests all came up negative, so it’s not the sprouts, even though the media in the UK was printing reports from people based on this fear saying I’m never eating organic again. Well that’s the reaction they want you to have. Because they want you to be afraid of vegetables. They want you to be afraid of small farms. They want you to be afraid of fresh food, because then you’ll buy processed dead foods that keep you sick, and keep you a customer of the pharmaceutical industry.

There’s something called the genetic analysis of the E. coli strain. And genetic analysis is actually quite advanced from a technical point of view. You can determine what the strain was exposed to and its history to create the current strain. And when you look at this, and that was done by the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, their scientists broke down the genetics of this E. coli strain it’s call O104, and if you look at it you can read the history, and the history doesn’t lie. This strain was exposed repeatedly to all the 8 major classes of antibiotics that are sold by the drug companies today. This practically guarantees that this is going to cause acute kidney failure. It’s going to cause fatalities in the hospitals. In fact this particular strain was engineered with a couple of extra genes that give it even more power. It’s like a super powerful deadly superbug, and the fact is this could not be created randomly in nature with some kind of random mutation. Impossible. It had to have been engineered and then introduced into the food supply in some way.

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http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ecoli_bioengineering.html

Geneticists Reveal E. Coli Super Bug O104 Was Engineered Related conspiracies: big pharma, biowarfare, corporations, dairy industry, E. coli, environmental warfare, FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, GMO, nutrition, organic food

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UK regime and big corporations covertly introducing a semi-criminal money-laundering economy

To us, it's an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it's the heist of the century

In David Cameron we have a leader whose job is to quietly legitimise a semi-criminal, money-laundering economy

'I would love to see tax reductions," David Cameron told the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, "but when you're borrowing 11% of your GDP, it's not possible to make significant net tax cuts. It just isn't." Oh no? Then how come he's planning the biggest and crudest corporate tax cut in living memory?

If you've heard nothing of it, you're in good company. The obscure adjustments the government is planning to the tax acts of 1988 and 2009 have been missed by almost everyone ? and are, anyway, almost impossible to understand without expert help. But as soon as you grasp the implications, you realise that a kind of corporate coup d'etat is taking place.

Continued...

SOURCE

The Guardian, "To us, it's an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it's the heist of the century", 7 February 2011.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/tax-city-heist-of-century

"The Insider" mailing list article, 08 February 2011.


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90,000 secret US military documents leaked on web, documenting NATO war crimes in Afghanistan and other classified information

Wikileaks publishes 90000 documents on Afghan war

Is this fresh-faced U.S. soldier behind the biggest leak of military secrets of all time that puts our Afghan troops at risk?

The analyst has already been charged over a separate leak of a classified helicopter cockpit video earlier this month.

It showed U.S. soldiers laughing as they gunned down Afghan civilians and two journalists in a firefight in Baghdad in 2007. He was picked up in Iraq, where he was working.

Manning is said to be locked up in a military prison after being shipped across the border to Kuwait. He faces trial by court martial and, if found guilty, a heavy jail sentence.

Lamo believes Manning did not work alone, saying he did not have ?the technological expertise? to carry out the gathering and leaking of the documents.

'I believe somebody would have had to have been of assistance to him,? he said.

Continued in source web page...

SOURCE

Daily Mail, "Wikileaks publishes 90000 documents on Afghan war", 27 July 2010.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297644/Wikileaks-Afghan-files-Is-US-soldier-leak-military-secrets.html

"The Insider" mailing list article, 27 July 2010.


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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

US/UK war-crimes in Iraq: a few more examples

The blackest hearts: War crimes in Iraq?

On 12 March 2006, Abu Muhammad heard a knock on his door. He lived in a village just outside Yusufiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, and warily he headed towards the window ? since the invasion, you never knew who it might be. It was a neighbour of his cousin and her husband, who lived in a nearby hamlet. "You must come," the man said. "Something has happened at your cousin's house, something terrible."

Pulling into the driveway, Abu Muhammad saw his cousin's 11- and nine-year-old boys wailing. They had just returned home from school. Smoke was billowing from one of the windows.

Abu Muhammad circled the house, looking in the windows. His cousin Fakhriah, her husband Qassim and their six-year-old daughter Hadeel had all been shot. Their daughter Abeer, 14, was naked from the waist down. Her body was still smoking; her entire upper torso had been scorched, much of it burnt down to ash. Her chest and face were gone.

"Come," Abu Muhammad said to the boys. "Come with me." He dropped them with his wife and drove to a nearby traffic control point, TCP1.

Staff Sergeant Chaz Allen was in charge of TCP1 that day. He sent Sergeant Tony Yribe to check it out. At just 22, Yribe looked like an action hero and was on his second tour in Iraq. As usual, he noted, there were not enough men to mount a proper patrol. Ideally, they shouldn't be manoeuvring with less than a squad, nine or 10 men. But that almost never happened. Here in the so-called Triangle of Death, three-, four- and five-man patrols were standard. Allen told him to pick up two men on his way, from TCP2. "And be sure to bring a camera. Battalion is going to want pictures."

It was late afternoon. 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, and all of 1st Battalion of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, had been in theatre for nearly six months. The same to go. It felt like an eternity ? with an eternity yet to come.

Yribe arrived at TCP2. Specialist Paul Cortez and Private First Class Jesse Spielman were ready to go. At 23, Cortez was acting squad leader, a job many thought beyond him. He had a reputation as an immature loudmouth with a nasty streak, and he was in charge of a motley group of six soldiers down at TCP2, some of whom had been on their own at this spartan, unfortified outpost for 12 days straight. They were pretty ragged and strung out.

Specialist James Barker, 23, was next in seniority, a soldier renowned for being a smart aleck and mischief-maker. Spielman, 21, was quiet and unassuming; Private First Class Steven Green, also 21, never stopped talking.

Some Iraqi army soldiers were already at the house. It was grisly. Yribe started taking pictures and directed the other soldiers to look for evidence, but Cortez started dry heaving. He looked green and pale, and was drenched with sweat.

"Jesus, just go outside," Yribe told Cortez. Spielman was cool and efficient, but the burnt girl's remains were so disgusting they just left her where she was. As the men moved a mattress, something small and green skittered across the ground. It was a spent shotgun shell. That's odd, Yribe thought, Iraqis don't really use shotguns.

In mid-2006, three years after the toppling of Saddam's regime, the 330 square mile region south of Baghdad that encompassed the Triangle of Death had become one of the deadliest locales in the country. It was a battleground of the incipient civil war between Sunnis and Shias, and a way station for terrorists of every allegiance, ferrying men, weapons and money into the capital.

Just two years later, the region had been effectively pacified, patrolled by 30,000 men (including Iraqi forces) who experienced about two attacks a week. Back then, however, it was occupied by just 1,000 US soldiers, who coped with more than 100 attacks each week against them and Iraqi civilians. With far fewer troops and resources than they needed, the 1-502nd Infantry Regiment ? a light battalion of around 700 men ? was flung out there with orders, essentially, to save the day. During their year-long deployment, 21 men were killed, with scores more wounded badly enough to be evacuated home. Seven of those who died came from the same group of around 35 men: 1st Platoon.

In December 2005, Staff Sergeant Travis Nelson and Sergeant Kenith Casica of 1st Platoon were shot dead at TCP2 by a lone Iraqi who had given them information in the past. "That's when things started to turn," says Staff Sergeant Chris Payne, leader of 1st Platoon's 2nd Squad. A few days later, two more men of 1st Platoon were killed by an IED (improvised explosive device).

The feeling that death was certain was becoming pervasive in 1st Platoon, and spreading like a panic. More and more men started to believe they simply weren't going home. Some say drinking was becoming fairly common. There were plenty of interpreters who were happy to procure bottles of whiskey or gin, or even pills or hash, for any soldier who wanted them.

Green was reacting particularly badly. He had always been a loudmouth, racist and misogynist. An evaluation form filled out by the Combat Stress team around that time is a horror show of ailments and dysfunctions. Green told them he was a victim of mental and physical childhood abuse by his mother and brother, he was an adolescent drug and alcohol abuser, and had been arrested several times. Now, he said, he was having suicidal and homicidal thoughts. One entry states, "Interests: None other than killing Iraqis."

By this point, extreme hatred of Iraqis had become common in the platoon and was openly discussed. They became more aggressive: suspects were beaten, house searches got more violent, drinking became more open and was not limited to the ranks. The men were at a far lower ebb than even those meant to monitor them realised.

During patrols, Green often volunteered to kill. "I was always saying, 'Any time you all are ready, you all are the ones in charge of me. Any time you all say the word, 'Go', it's on," he recalled.

Just after 4pm on 5 March, 21-year-old Specialist Ethan Biggers was shot in the head. He had been the entire company's little brother; he and his fiancee were expecting their first child.

On 12 March, Green was pulling pre-dawn guard in the gun truck at TCP2. He'd been up for 18 hours. "When I'm on guard next time," he told Cortez and Barker, "I'm going to waste a bunch of dudes in a car. And we'll just say they were running the TCP."

"Don't do that!" Cortez said. "Don't do it while I'm here. I'm supposed to be running this shit."

Barker agreed. "I've got a better idea," he said. "We've all killed Hadjis, but I've been here twice and I still never fucked one of these bitches."

Cortez's interest was piqued. They talked about it semi-seriously, as they did other things throughout the rest of the morning.

Barker had already picked the target. There was a house, not far away, where there was only one male and three females during the day ? a husband, wife and two daughters. One was young, but the other was pretty hot, at least for a Hadji chick. Witnesses were a problem, though; they knew they couldn't leave anyone alive. Barker asked Green if he was willing to take care of that, even if women and kids were involved. "Absolutely," Green said. "It don't make any difference to me."

They refined their plan and, over several hours, went back and forth on whether or not to do it. Barker was pushing hard, and Green was game, but finally Cortez said, "No, fuck it, this is crazy. Fuck this. There is no way we are doing this shit."

At around noon, with a new wave of boredom taking hold, the three of them, with Spielman, sat down outside to play Uno and drink whiskey. The men got drunker and drunker, and eventually Cortez declared, "Fuck it, we are going to do this." He outlined the mission and divvied up the duty assignments just like a legitimate patrol. He and Barker would take the girl, Green would kill the rest of the family, Spielman would pull guard and 18-year-old Private First Class Bryan Howard, a recent arrival, would stay back and man the radio.

Spielman, who had not heard of the plan until then, did not bat an eye. "I'd be down with that."

Cortez went out to the truck to check on Private Seth Scheller, who was the only one on guard. Scheller was also new.

Cortez briefed Howard. He said they knew of an Iraqi girl who lived nearby, and they were going to go and fuck her. To Howard, it was the most insane thing he'd ever heard. He didn't believe it, nor that they were leaving him and Scheller alone. Cortez gave him the radio and told him to call if any patrols or Humvees came through. The men, armed and disguised, headed out the back of the TCP.

Qassim Hamzah Rashid al-Janabi was not from the Yusufiyah area. After the 1991 Gulf war, when UN sanctions made life even tougher, he and his wife Fakhriah had moved to be closer to her family and to look for work. A daughter, Abeer, was born in August 1991; soon after came two sons, Muhammad and Ahmed, and another daughter, Hadeel.

When the US invaded, local people were hopeful, but soon the area began to fall apart from neglect and violence. The locals felt persecuted. The US patrols were brutish. Qassim's brother-in-law was gunned down in cold blood by the Americans in Iskandariyah in early 2005, said his sister. Other family members got hauled off to jail for no reason, with no indication of when they'd come home.

Fakhriah was particularly worried about Abeer. Now 14, her fragile beauty was attracting a lot of unwanted attention. Soldiers would give her the thumbs up and say, "Very good, very nice." By early March, the harassment was getting so bad that Abu Muhammad told the family to leave Abeer with him; there were more people at his house and it was less secluded. But Abeer stayed there only one night, on 9 or 10 March. With his protection, Qassim assured Abu Muhammad, they'd be fine.

Sneaking up on the house, the soldiers corralled the whole family into the bedroom. After they had recovered the family's AK-47 and Green had confirmed it was locked and loaded, Barker and Cortez left, yanking Abeer behind them. Spielman set up guard in the doorway between the foyer and living room, while Cortez shoved Abeer into the living room, pushed her down, and Barker pinned her outstretched arms down with his knees.

In the bedroom, Green was losing control of his prisoners. The woman made a run for the door. Green shot her once in the back and she fell to the floor. The man became unhinged. Green turned his own AK on him and pulled the trigger. It jammed. Panicking, as the man advanced on him, Green switched to his shotgun. The first shot blasted the top of the man's head off. Then Green turned to the little girl, who was running for a corner. This time the AK worked. He raised the rifle and shot Hadeel in the back of the head. She fell to the ground.

Spielman came in, saw the carnage and was furious. Green explained the AK had jammed and Spielman began searching for shotgun casings.

As Green was executing the family, Cortez finished raping Abeer and switched positions with Barker. Green came out of the bedroom and announced to Barker and Cortez, "They're all dead. I killed them all." Cortez held Abeer down and Green raped her. Then Cortez pushed a pillow over her face, still pinning her arms with his knees. Green grabbed the AK, pointed the gun at the pillow, and fired one shot, killing Abeer.

The men were becoming extremely frenzied and agitated now. Barker brought a kerosene lamp he had found in the kitchen and dumped the contents on Abeer. Spielman handed a lighter to either Barker or Cortez, who lit the flame. Spielman went to the bedroom and found some blankets to throw on the body to stoke the fire.

The four men ran back the way they had come. When they arrived at the TCP, they were out of breath, manic, animated. They began talking rapid-fire about how great that was, how well done. They all agreed that was awesome, that was cool.

Several hours later, Yribe was still mulling over what he had seen. You don't see a lot of girls that little murdered in Iraq, he thought to himself. And the burning of the other girl's body ? that was strange, too: burning was a huge desecration. Then there was the shotgun shell. The shotgun is almost exclusively an American weapon.

As Yribe approached TCP2 to drop off Spielman and Cortez, Green was waiting in the street. He pulled Yribe aside. "I did that shit," he said.

"What?" Yribe said.

"I killed them," Green repeated. Barker was standing next to Green, but didn't say a word.

Caught off guard, Yribe dismissed it as more of Green's crazy talk. It was insane. How could a scrawny guy slip away from a TCP by himself in the middle of the day and rape and murder a family? But Green kept insisting. Yribe told him to shut up, he didn't have time for his bullshit right now.

The next day, Cortez went to Yribe in tears. He said he was so shaken up by what he had seen in the house, he needed to go to Combat Stress.

While Yribe covered for Cortez, he found Green. He'd been thinking over what Green had told him the day before and it was bothering him. "Now," he demanded, "tell me everything, every detail."

Green started to talk. Again, Barker was there and, again, he did not say a word. The thing that really convinced Yribe was not what Green was saying but how he was saying it. Ordinarily, Green was manic and boastful. Right now, however, Green was serious, sober, matter-of-fact.

When Green was finished, Yribe told him, "I am done with you. You are dead to me. You get yourself out of this army, or I will get you out myself."

Yribe decided not to say anything and, as there were no witnesses, the bodies had been removed so quickly and so many soldiers had tramped over the house, there was no usable physical evidence beyond a few AK-47 shell casings. Without conclusive evidence, it was instantly a cold case, like tens of thousands of murders in Iraq that year.

On 20 March, Green went to Combat Stress and, over a few days, was diagnosed with a pre-existing antisocial personality disorder, a condition marked by indifference to the suffering of others, habitual lying and disregard for the safety of self or others. The diagnosis carried immediate expulsion from the army. Back in the US, on 16 May, he was honourably discharged and returned to society.

On 16 June, three more of 1st Platoon's men ? Private First Class Thomas Tucker, Specialist David Babineau and Private First Class Kristian Menchaca were attacked on guard. Babineau was killed, the others captured. Three days later they were found, murdered, burnt and mutilated. When Yribe heard, he lost it. "It drives me crazy," he said to Private First Class Justin Watt, "that all the good men die and the shitbag murderers like Green are home eating hamburgers."

"Murderers?" Watt asked.

Yribe told Watt about the day at the checkpoint and how Green had confessed to him. Watt couldn't believe what he was hearing, and didn't believe Green could have acted alone. "Just forget I said anything," Yribe said. But Watt couldn't forget. He began obsessively mulling it over.

Around lunchtime on 19 June, Watt ran into Howard and Private First Class Justin Cross. As they were talking, Watt remembered both guys had been a part of the group at TCP2 that day back in March. They discussed all the messed-up stuff they had seen, and Watt brought up the girl who got burnt. Convinced Watt knew the whole story, Howard filled in many of the missing pieces.

That night, Watt recounted it all to Yribe, but again he said he didn't see what good was going to come from digging it up. For a while, Watt did try to forget. But he kept coming back to the father. He imagined the powerlessness, the impotence, of having armed men break into your house and there being nothing you could do to protect your family. Watt ran it over in his mind again and again. He resolved that he couldn't just let this pass.

On 23 June, Watt spoke to his immediate superiors. Over the next two days, the matter reached the highest levels. The soldiers involved were interviewed and, with varying degrees of vehemence and evasiveness, each claimed to have no knowledge of the crime. But over the next five days, and over multiple interrogation sessions, Barker, Cortez and Spielman all broke down and confessed, corroborating Howard's narrative, though each resisted fully implicating himself.

The US army paid the Janabi family $30,000 for the murders of Qassim, Fakhriah, Abeer and Hadeel. Nine months into a year-long deployment, 1st Platoon's war was effectively over.

Back in the US, Green was arrested by the FBI. The crime was making news, and al-Qaida was exploiting the outrage for maximum propaganda. On 10 July, the Mujahideen Shura Council issued a five-minute video showing the mutilated corpses of Tucker and Menchaca. Its audio includes clips of Osama bin Laden's and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's speeches, as well as the message that the video was being presented as "revenge for our sister who was dishonoured by a soldier of the same brigade".

Although there was virtually no usable forensic evidence, the army's cases against Barker and Cortez were particularly strong, based on their confessions, and both offered to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit rape and murder and other charges if the army agreed not to pursue the death penalty. The army accepted, and sentenced Barker and Cortez to 90 years and 100 years at the military's maximum security prison. They will be eligible for parole in 20 and 10 years respectively.

In March 2007, Howard pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice and being an accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison, and was released on parole after 17.

Spielman's lawyers claimed he did not know where the rogue patrol was going on 12 March and, once at the house, was too surprised and scared to do anything about it. A military panel did not believe these claims of innocence, found him guilty of all charges and sentenced him to life in prison. His sentence was later reduced to 90 years; he, too, will be eligible for parole after 10 years.

Because Green had been discharged, his case proved to be much more complicated. The Justice Department announced it was pursuing the death penalty, making him the first former service member ever to face the possibility of execution in a civilian court for his conduct during war. His defence team twice offered to have him plead guilty if the government would take the death penalty off the table; twice the Justice Department declined. To this day, his defence attorney maintains that this was a politically motivated appeasement to the Iraqi government and public opinion. His attorneys also tried several times to have Green reinducted into the army and tried by court martial. The army declined the offers.

After ruling out an insanity defence, Green's attorneys decided their best hope was to focus on the horrible conditions under which Bravo worked, Green's abysmal upbringing, the leadership failures that plagued every level of the 1-502nd and the warning signs of his murderous obsessions that his superiors routinely ignored. During several dramatic weeks of testimony, the defence ran a trial within a trial against the army's negligence in allowing the atrocity to happen, while prosecutors emphasised the heinousness of Green's behaviour.

The jury of nine women and three men found Green guilty of all counts of conspiracy, rape and murder, but hung, six against six, on the issue of whether to sentence him to death, triggering an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.

Relatives of the murdered family, including Abu Muhammad, had testified during the trial, and afterwards were allowed to address the court. Abu Muhammad spoke last, praising his slain family members and criticising the jury's reluctance to execute Green. He concluded by turning to Green and saying, "Abeer will follow you and chase you in your nightmares. May God damn you."

Then Green was given the opportunity to make his first public statement. He addressed the family, saying, "I am truly sorry for what I did in Iraq and for the pain my actions, and the actions of my co-defendants, have caused you and your family? I helped to destroy a family and end the lives of four fellow human beings, and I wish that I could take that back, but I cannot? I know if I live one more year or 50 more years that they will be years that Fakhriah, Qassim, Abeer and Hadeel won't have. And even though I did not learn their names until long after their deaths, they are never far from my mind? I know I have done evil, and I fear the wrath of the Lord will come upon me. But I hope you and your family at least can find some comfort in God's justice."

Green is currently serving five consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole

SOURCE

The Guardian, "The blackest hearts: War crimes in Iraq", 24 July 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/24/war-crimes-us-soldiers-iraq

"The Insider" mailing list article, 26 July 2010.


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British Prime Minister admits Israel uses Palestine as 'a prison camp'

*** Gaza: Israel's concentration-camp ***

David Cameron: Gaza 'must not remain a prison camp'

Gaza is a 'prison camp', according to David Cameron, who made the comment as he pledged to support Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

He appealed to Israel to allow the free flow of humanitarian goods and people in and out of the Palestinian territory.

The prime minister spoke during a visit to Turkey, where relations with Israel have been strained since May when troops stormed a flotilla of ships carrying supplies to Gaza. Eight Turks and one Turkish-American were killed.

Speaking in Ankara, Mr Cameron denounced it as ?completely unacceptable? and restated his call for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a ?swift, transparent and rigorous? inquiry.

Israel?s blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has severely limited the movement of people and goods since 2007, has sparked outrage in Islamic Turkey.

?The situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions,? Mr Cameron said. ?Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.?

Mr Cameron also said Turkey?s support for action in Afghanistan would help earn it a place in the EU.

?When I think about what Turkey has done to defend Europe as a Nato ally, and what Turkey is doing today in Afghanistan, it makes me angry that your progress towards EU membership can be frustrated in the way it has been,? he added.

Pointing to economic growth of 11 per cent this year and a population of 72 million, he said allowing Turkey into the EU would be great for British trade.

But several countries remain strongly opposed to Turkey?s membership.

Turkey?s treatment of its Kurdish minority, its involvement in the Cyprus dispute and its refusal to open its ports to Greek Cypriot goods have delayed negotiations on membership.

SOURCE

The Insider, "David Cameron: Gaza 'must not remain a prison camp'", .28 July 2010.
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/836342-david-cameron-gaza-must-not-remain-a-prison-camp

"The Insider" mailing list article, 28 July 2010.


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Medical and legal experts launch new call for an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly

*** Amid new calls for an inquest into the death of WMD expert Dr Kelly, certain sections of the media are promoting suggestions that Iraqi agents could have been responsible, citing an official source at a UN agency with known links to US/UK intelligence agencies. However, an operation by Iraqi agents is extremely unlikely, and would not explain why it was made to look like suicide. If Iraqi agents were responsible, this also does not explain why the spurious suicide conclusion was reached by the Hutton inquiry, or why the UK authorities actively concealed evidence and staged a cover-up. ***

New call for Dr David Kelly inquest

A group of experts have renewed calls for a formal inquest into the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly.

They say the official cause of death - a haemorrhage - was "extremely unlikely" in the light of new evidence.

The claim comes in a letter from eight senior figures, including a coroner, published in the Times newspaper.

Dr Kelly's body was found in 2003 near his Oxfordshire home after he was exposed as the source of a BBC story on the grounds for going to war in Iraq.

Instead of a coroner's inquest, then Prime Minister Tony Blair asked Lord Hutton to conduct an investigation, which found Dr Kelly committed suicide.

Lord Hutton's inquiry found the 59-year-old died from blood loss after slashing his wrist with a blunt gardening knife.

The letter's signatories include a former coroner, Michael Powers, a former deputy coroner, Margaret Bloom, and Julian Bion, a professor of intensive care medicine.

They say Lord Hutton's conclusion is unsafe. They argue that a severed ulnar artery, the wound found to Dr Kelly's wrist, was unlikely to be life-threatening unless an individual had a blood-clotting deficiency.

"Insufficient blood would have been lost to threaten life," they write.

"Absent a quantitative assessment of the blood lost and of the blood remaining in the great vessels, the conclusion that death occurred as a consequence of haemorrhage is unsafe."

SOURCE

BBC News, "New call for Dr David Kelly inquest", 13 August 2010.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10961016

"The Insider" mailing list article, 14 August 2010.


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Russian intelligence officer says Dr Kelly was assassinated

KGB man: MI5 agent told me that David Kelly had been "exterminated"?

The mystery over the death of David Kelly took a further twist last night after a former KGB officer said he had evidence that the scientist did not commit suicide.

Boris Karpichkov, who worked as a Russian spy for 15 years before fleeing to Britain, has sent a dossier to Attorney General Dominic Grieve in which he claims to relay information from an ?MI5 agent? that Dr Kelly had been ?exterminated?.

His move comes amid increasing calls from within the Coalition Government for a full, independent investigation into Dr Kelly?s death.

Mr Grieve has indicated that he is ?concerned? by the growing scepticism among experts about the official version of events.

Dr Kelly was found dead in woods near his Oxfordshire home in July 2003, after the Government exposed him as the source of a BBC report questioning Tony Blair?s case for war in Iraq.

There was no full coroner?s inquest ? instead, Lord Hutton chaired a public inquiry which concluded Dr Kelly died from loss of blood after slashing his left wrist with a blunt garden pruning knife.

A number of doctors have since come forward to say that the incision could not have caused his death.

Mr Karpichkov, who sought political asylum in the UK in 1998 and now has British nationality, says he met the ?agent?, Peter Everett, on dozens of occasions while carrying out work for Mr Everett?s company Group Global Intelligence Services, which hiredex-MI5 operatives for corporate detective work and infiltration.

In the document sent to Mr Grieve, Mr Karpichkov says that during one of their meetings, two days after

Dr Kelly?s body was found, Mr Everett told him that Dr Kelly had been ?exterminated? for his ?reckless behaviour?.

Mr Karpichkov, who says that Mr Everett indicated that he was an ?active field operative? for MI5, writes: ?He told me that it was extremely uncomfortable, inconsistent and unusual for Dr Kelly to slash his arm in the way he did. He would have lost some blood, but it would not have been fatal.

?He also claimed that it was not a coincidence that Special Branch officers were the ones who first appeared on the scene ? they moved Dr Kelly?s body to another location, changed the original position of his corpse and took away incriminating evidence.

?He added that the scene where Dr Kelly?s body was found was carefully arranged and completely ?washed out?, including the destruction of all fingerprints. When I asked who was behind his death, he [Mr Everett] answered indirectly, saying the ?competing firm?, which I took to mean MI6.?

Last night, Mr Everett ? who is believed to be in his late 50s and whose former company was registered to his home address in Dulwich, South-East London ? admitted meeting Mr Karpichkov on a number of occasions, and recalled discussing the manner of Dr Kelly?s death.

He said: ?We had a general conver?sation about the David Kelly case, in which I said that it was very unusual for him to have slashed his wrist in that way.

'That is all I said. I do not have any particular inside knowledge on it.?

Asked whether he was a current, or former, MI5 operative, he said: ?I am not commenting on that.?

Asked if he had carried out work on behalf of the agency, he said: ?I have spent a number of years working in the world of intelligence.?

Associates indicated that his work on behalf of security agencies was indirect, rather than as a paid operative.

Mr Karpichkov?s testimony reflects the continuing debate in the intelligence community and associated agencies over Dr Kelly?s death.

He fled to Britain from Latvia with his wife and two sons after being accused of stealing ?310,000 from a failed bank, although he claims that he was framed by the Russian mafia.

According to Latvian newspaper reports, he was recruited by the regional KGB in 1981, trained at the Secret Services School and served as a special forces operative during the war in Afghanistan.

After the Cold War, he was assigned to undercover work in Latvia.

Mr Everett?s former company, Group Global Intelligence Services, which was dissolved in 2006, normally operated in the shadows.

But in 2004, it was accused of placing six members of its staff at Manchester United?s Annual General Meeting as ?plants? to ask embarrassing questions about manager Sir Alex Ferguson?s transfer dealings.

At the time, Sir Alex?s business rival John Magnier was known to be hiring private eyes to investigate the United manager.

When confronted by journalists, Mr Everett said: ?I was nothing to do with that side of the alleged operation.?

Ministers increasingly believe that the continuing speculation about Dr Kelly?s death ? fanned by the fact that he emailed a friend on the morning he died to warn that there were ?many dark actors playing games? ? will not end until a proper inquest is held.

Earlier this month, one of Dr Kelly?s close female colleagues, Mai Pedersen, wrote to Mr Grieve reiterating what she had first revealed in an interview in The Mail on Sunday in August 2008, saying that Dr Kelly had been too weak to cut his own wrist ? because a hand and arm injury meant he even had trouble ?cutting his own steak?, and he would have to have been a ?contortionist? to have killed himself.

She demanded a ?formal, independent and complete? review of the case.

Her claims are backed by 13 specialist doctors, who have compiled a dossier rejecting the Hutton conclusion on the grounds that the cut to the ulnar artery could not have caused death.

In addition, it was recently disclosed that Dr Kelly?s death certificate was not properly completed.

It was not signed by a doctor or coroner and does not state a place of death, leaving open the possibility he died somewhere other than where his body was found.

Furthermore, the pruning knife has been revealed to have had no fingerprints on it.

Campaigners are aggrieved by a mysterious decision to classify all evidence relating to the post-mortem for 70 years.

But they are encouraged by the fact that one of their most vocal supporters, Lib Dem MP Norman Baker, who has written a book questioning the Hutton verdict, is now a member of the Coalition as a Transport Minister.

A spokeswoman for Dominic Grieve said last night: ?Mr Grieve expressed concerns about this issue when in opposition and has, since taking office as Attorney General, been exploring with ministerial colleagues any actions that may be taken.

?No decisions have been made.?

SOURCE

Daily Mail, "KGB man: MI5 agent told me that David Kelly had been 'exterminated'", 25 July 2010.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297444/MI5-agent-told-Kelly-exterminated.html

"The Insider" mailing list article, 25 July 2010.


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Former chief UN weapons inspector: US regime was 'high for war' in Iraq and 'thought they could get away with it'

John Higginson - 28th July, 2010 Share| .Hans Blix tells Iraq inquiry US was on 'high for war'

The US was 'high on military' action before it invaded Iraq, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has claimed.

Its leaders didn?t feel they needed ?a permission slip? from the security council, added Dr Blix, who headed the team sent to search for weapons of mass destruction before the invasion in March 2003.

?The US in 2002...I think they were high on military at the time. They said ??we can do it??,? he told the Iraq inquiry.

?They thought they could get away with it so they decided to do it.?

Dr Blix also privately told then prime minister Tony Blair, in the autumn of 2002, that he believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq despite not finding evidence of them.

?I, like most people at the time, felt that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction,? he said. ?I did not say so publicly. I said it perhaps to Mr Blair in September 2002 privately, but not publicly.?

He later warned Mr Blair that Britain could end up attacking and find nothing.

.When his survey teams found nothing at 500 sites he warned the US and Britain to ?reconsider their sources?.

Dr Blix said he first became suspicious about the WMD claims when he saw reports about uranium being imported from Niger.

It took the IAEA one day in March 2003 to work out they were forgeries, he added. ?I think that was the most scandalous part of the whole thing.?

Asked if Iraq was given a ?realistic possibility of meeting the requirements of the resolution? Dr Blix replied: ?Yes, except that it was very hard for them to declare any weapons when they didn?t have any.?

Dr Blix said he believed a second UN resolution was needed before attacks were launched on Iraq but none was made.

SOURCE

Metro, "John Higginson - 28th July, 2010 Share| .Hans Blix tells Iraq inquiry US was on 'high for war'", .28 July 2010
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/836346-hans-blix-tells-iraq-inquiry-us-was-on-high-for-war

"The Insider" mailing list article, 28 July 2010.


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Iraq war inquiry: UN expert exposes UK government cover-up

Iraq war inquiry: former UN expert accuses Whitehall of cover-up?

A key witness to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war has accused Whitehall of trying to silence embarrassing testimony undermining the case for the invasion.

In today's Observer, Carne Ross, the UK's Iraq expert at the UN between 1997 and 2002, writes that the inquiry is being prevented by "deep state" forces from establishing the government's true motivation for invading Iraq.

Ross, who appeared before the inquiry this month, says he was not provided with key documents relevant to his testimony and was warned by officials not to refer to an internal Foreign Office memo that contradicted the government's public case for war.

Before his appearance, large files were sent to him to read in confidence at the UK mission to the UN in New York, but "most of the key documents I had asked for were not there". In the hours before his appearance, Ross visited the Foreign Office, where he says "an official repeatedly sought to persuade me to delete references to certain documents in my testimony".

Ross claims he was told his evidence must not refer to a memo from a senior Foreign Office official. The memo, to the special adviser to the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, expressed concern that a briefing paper for the parliamentary Labour party had "dramatically" altered the assessment of Iraq's nuclear threat. Ross says the "paper claimed that if Iraq's programmes remained unchecked, it could develop a workable nuclear device within five years. The official's memo pointed out that this was not in fact the UK assessment, which was more or less the opposite: that the UK believed that Iraq's nuclear programme had been effectively checked by sanctions."

Despite the official's concern, the paper was used to brief the cabinet. Ross writes: "This paper was pure overstated propaganda, filled with almost ludicrous statements like 'one teaspoon of anthrax can kill a million people'."

He expressed incredulity that the Foreign Office wanted references to the briefing removed from his testimony, as it related to a public document. "It is very worrying that the government machine is still trying to withhold key documents, and silence those of us with detailed knowledge of the policy history. I have been told too... that members of the [inquiry] panel have been refused documents they have specifically requested."

Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said: "The Chilcot inquiry will not be credible if relevant documents that do not now threaten national security are kept from the inquiry and the public."

Ross said he had wanted to use his appearance to highlight how ministers failed to consider alternatives to military action. "I had asked for specific records relating to the UK's failure to deal with the so-called Syrian pipeline, through which Iraq illegally exported oil, sustaining the Saddam [Hussein] regime. I was told that specific documents, such as the records of prime minister [Tony] Blair's visit to Syria, could not be found. This is simply not plausible." He also asked for joint intelligence committee assessments on Iraq, some of which he helped prepare and all of which he had seen. "Only three were provided ? 40 minutes before I was due before the Chilcot panel."

The claims come at the end of a week in which the former head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, cast grave doubts on the case for invading Iraq and the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, described the invasion as "illegal".

A Cabinet Office spokesman said the inquiry was committed to being fair to all witnesses. "The inquiry wrote to Mr Ross four weeks prior to his appearance, highlighting that if he wished to refer to any specific documents he should notify the Iraq inquiry secretariat in advance so they could seek any necessary declassification. As Sir John Chilcot highlighted, Mr Ross did not ask in advance for any documents to be declassified."

SOURCE

The Guardian, "Iraq war inquiry: former UN expert accuses Whitehall of cover-up?", 25 July 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/25/chilcot-inquiry-iraq-cover-up-claim

"The Insider" mailing list article, 26 July 2010.


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Monday, June 27, 2011

Cleveland Cops Caught On Tape Brutally Beating Suspect

by Asraa Mustufa

A jail video in Cleveland has surfaced disputing official police statements on a booking incident from last January, where the arrestee claimed police brutality.

Jalil Anderson was arrested on suspicion of driving under suspension. At the station, police say that Anderson violently struck officer Martin Lentz with his belt, hitting Lentz in the face, at which point police forcefully subdued him, and Anderson was charged with assaulting a police officer. During the pretrial, County prosecutors subpoenaed the surveillance tape but were not told that it did not exist. The assault charge was dropped in April, and Anderson pled guilty to resisting arrest. But after an inquiry by the newspaper The Plain Dealer, police released the video last week.

The video shows Anderson removing his jewelry and belt, as is customary during booking, and throwing the belt on the table. It grazes officer Lentz who then cuffs Anderson. Anderson resists and then several officers begin forcefully restraining him - a much different sequence than what Lentz filed in the police report.

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12 Things That The Mainstream Media Is Being Strangely Quiet About Right Now

The American Dream

As the mainstream media continues to be obsessed with Anthony Weiner and his bizarre adventures on Twitter, much more serious events are happening around the world that are getting very little attention.  In America today, if the mainstream media does not cover something it is almost as if it never happened.

Right now, the worst nuclear disaster in human history continues to unfold in Japan , U.S. nuclear facilities are being threatened by flood waters, the U.S. military is bombing Yemen, gigantic cracks in the earth are appearing all over the globe and the largest wildfire in Arizona history is causing immense devastation.  But Anthony Weiner, Bristol Palin and Miss USA are what the mainstream media want to tell us about and most Americans are buying it.

In times like these, it is more important than ever to think for ourselves.  The corporate-owned mainstream media is not interested in looking out for us.  Rather, they are going to tell us whatever fits with the agenda that their owners are pushing.

That is why more Americans than ever are turning to the alternative media.  Americans are hungry for the truth, and they know that the amount of truth that they get from the mainstream media continues to decline.

The following are 12 things that the mainstream media is being strangely quiet about right now….

#1 The crisis at the Fort Calhoun nuclear facility in Nebraska has received almost no attention in the national mainstream media.

Back on June 7th, there was a fire at Fort Calhoun.  The official story is that the fire was in an electrical switchgear room at the plant.  The facility lost power to a pump that cools the spent fuel pool for approximately 90 minutes.  According to the Omaha Public Power District, the fire was quickly extinguished and no radioactive material was released.

The following sequence of events is directly from the Omaha Public Power District website….

* There was no such imminent danger with the Fort Calhoun Station spent-fuel pool.
* Due to a fire in an electrical switchgear room at FCS on the morning of June 7, the plant temporarily lost power to a pump that cools the spent-fuel pool.
* The fire-suppression system in that switchgear room operated as designed, extinguishing the fire quickly.
* FCS plant operators switched the spent-fuel pool cooling system to an installed backup pump about 90 minutes after the loss of power.
* During the interruption of cooling, temperature of the pool increased a few degrees, but the pool was never in danger of boiling.
* Due to this situation, FCS declared an Alert at about 9:40 a.m. on June 7.
* An alert is the second-least-serious of four emergency classifications established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
* At about 1:15 p.m. on June 7, FCS operators declared they had taken all appropriate measures to safely return to the previously declared Notification of Unusual Event emergency classification. (See first item above.)

But the crisis at Fort Calhoun is not over.  Right now, the nuclear facility at Fort Calhoun is essentially an island. It is surrounded by rising flood waters from the Missouri River.

Officials claim that there is no danger and that they are prepared for the river to rise another ten feet.

The Cooper Nuclear Station in Brownville, Nebraska is also being threatened by rising flood waters.  A “Notification of Unusual Event” was declared at Cooper Nuclear Station this morning at 4:02.  This notification was issued because the Missouri River’s water level reached 42.5 feet.

Right now the facility is operating normally and officials don’t expect a crisis.

But considering what has been going on at Fukushima, it would be nice if we could have gotten a lot more coverage of these events by the mainstream media.

#2 Most Americans are aware that the U.S. is involved in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.  However, the truth is that the U.S. military is also regularly bombing Yemen and parts of Pakistan.  If you count the countries where the U.S. has special forces and/or covert operatives on the ground, the U.S. is probably “active” in more countries in the Middle East than it is not.  Now there are even persistent rumors that U.S. ground units are being prepared to go into Libya.  Are we watching the early stages of World War 3 unfold before our eyes in slow motion?

#3 The crisis at Fukushima continues to get worse.  Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, recently made the following statement about the Fukushima disaster….

“Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind”

TEPCO has finally admitted that this disaster has released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl did.  That makes Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster of all time, and it is far from over. Massive amounts of water is being poured into the spent fuel pools in order to keep them cool.  This is creating “hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water” that has got to go somewhere.  Inevitably much of it will get into the ground and into the sea. Arnold Gundersen says that the scope of this problem is almost unimaginable….

“TEPCO announced they had a melt through. A melt down is when the fuel collapses to the bottom of the reactor, and a melt through means it has melted through some layers. That blob is incredibly radioactive, and now you have water on top of it. The water picks up enormous amounts of radiation, so you add more water and you are generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water.” The mainstream media is not paying as much attention to Fukushima these days, but that doesn’t mean that it is not a major league nightmare.

Elevated levels of radiation are being reported by Japanese bloggers all over eastern Japan.  There are reports of sick children all over the region.  One adviser to the government of Japan says that an area approximately 17 times the size of Manhattan is probably going to be uninhabitable. Of course the mainstream media has been telling us all along that Fukushima is nothing to be too concerned about and that authorities in Japan have everything under control. If the mainstream media is not going to tell us the truth, how are they going to continue to have credibility?

#4 Members of Congress continue to mention Christians as a threat to national security.  For example, during a recent Congressional hearing U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee warned that “Christian militants” might try to “bring down the country” and that such groups need to be investigated.

#5 China’s eastern province of Zhejiang has experienced that worst flooding that it has seen in 55 years.  2 million people have already been forced to leave their homes.  China has already been having huge problems with their crops over the past few years and this is only going to make things worse.

#6 Thanks to the Dodd-Frank Act, over the counter trading of gold and silver is going to be illegal starting on July 15th.  Or at least that is what some companies apparently now believe.  The following is an excerpt from an email that Forex.com recently sent out to their customers….

Important Account Notice Re: Metals Trading

We wanted to make you aware of some upcoming changes to FOREX.com’s product offering. As a result of the Dodd-Frank Act enacted by US Congress, a new regulation prohibiting US residents from trading over the counter precious metals, including gold and silver, will go into effect on Friday, July 15, 2011. In conjunction with this new regulation, FOREX.com must discontinue metals trading for US residents on Friday, July 15, 2011 at the close of trading at 5pm ET. As a result, all open metals positions must be closed by July 15, 2011 at 5pm ET.

We encourage you to wind down your trading activity in these products over the next month in anticipation of the new rule, as any open XAU or XAG positions that remain open prior to July 15, 2011 at approximately 5:00 pm ET will be automatically liquidated. We sincerely regret any inconvenience complying with the new U.S. regulation may cause you. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact our customer service team.

Sincerely,
The Team at FOREX.com

Apparently, Section 742(a) of the Dodd-Frank Act prohibits anyone “from entering into, or offering to enter into, a transaction in any commodity with a person that is not an eligible contract participant or an eligible commercial entity, on a leveraged or margined basis.” So what impact is this going to have on the gold and silver markets?

Nobody is quite sure yet.

#7 All over the world, huge cracks are appearing for no discernible reason.  For example, a massive crack that is approximately 3 kilometers long recent appeared in southern Peru.  Also, a 500 foot long crack suddenly appeared recently in the state of Michigan.  When you also throw in all of the gigantic sinkholes that have been opening all over the world, it is easy to conclude that the planet is becoming very unstable.

#8 According to U.S. Forest Service officials, the largest wildfire in Arizona state history has now covered more than 500,000 acres.  But based on the coverage it is being given by the mainstream media you would think that it is a non-event.

#9 There are reports that North Korea has tested a “super EMP weapon” which would be capable of taking out most of the U.S. power grid in a single shot.  The North Koreans are apparently about to conduct another nuclear test and that has some Obama administration officials very concerned.

#10 All over the United States, “active shooter drills” are being conducted in our public schools.  Often, most of the students are not told that these drills are fake.  Instead, students often go through hours of terror as they think a hostage situation or a shooting spree is really taking place.

#11 NASA has just launched a “major” preparedness initiative for all NASA personnel.  The following is an excerpt about this plan from NASA’s own website….

A major initiative has been placed on Family/Personal Preparedness for all NASA personnel. The NASA Family/Personal Preparedness Program is designed to provide awareness, resources, and tools to the NASA Family (civil servants and contractors) to prepare for an emergency situation. The most important assets in the successful completion of NASA’s mission are our employees’ and their families. We are taking the steps to prepare our workforce, but it is your personal obligation to prepare yourself and your families for emergencies.

#12 Over the past week over 40 temporary “no fly zones” have been declared by the FAA.  This is very highly unusual.  Nobody seems to know exactly why this is happening.

So what do all of these things mean?

It would be nice if the mainstream media would examine some of these important issues more closely and do some honest reporting on them.

Perhaps you have an opinion on some of these issues.  Feel free to share what you think by leaving a comment below….

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/12-things-that-the-mainstream-media-is-being-strangely-quiet-about-right-now

Filed under Big Brother State, Latest Headlines, Lifestyle, Mind Control, New World Order, Open Our Eyes, Police State, Political · Tagged with BBC., break free, cnn, fox news, freedom, main stream media, mind control, new world order, news corporation, news media, police state, political, the journey, TV, world elite, world news


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Government "Waste" Is the Least of Our Problems

By Anthony Gregory, The Independent Institute

Sometimes I swear we are living in a dystopian novel whose author is courteous enough to provide us mere extras in his story with plenty of comedic relief to make the days tolerable. The USA Today headline reads: ?Obama, Biden again target government waste.? Yes. That?s in fact what it says. The administration that has given us a $3.7 trillion budget is so concerned about wasting money, you see, that its Vice President is heading up a ?Campaign to Cut Waste.? The White House brags of having trimmed $33 billion of waste in the last year. That amounts to less than 1% of the budget--a budget that is, in nominal dollar terms, approximately double what it was a decade ago. Back in 2001 I remember thinking about how small our government was, and how if only we doubled its size, and were careful to cut back about a percent of that sum that happens to be ?waste,? we?d be in great shape. Oh wait a second. That?s not what I thought at all.

Yet all this talk of waste misses the point. Perhaps there are better uses of our tax dollars than ?waste,? but I must say, I prefer so-called waste to most of what the government spends money on. Government is destructive. Most of what it does is harmful. Being an agency of violence and the threat of violence, the institution of government runs counter to economic progress as a general principle. Even worse, its coercive grip strangles the freedom out of people as a matter of course, and, far more often than Americans seem accustomed to recognizing, it kills people.

If only the regulatory state?s budget were a matter of ?waste.? If the federal government did not spend billions to hire and empower regulators who each spend hours a day sending out edicts to business, telling employers who to hire and not to hire, commanding state governments and industry on the parameters of infrastructure and architecture, imposing rules on pharmaceutical companies concerning which drugs they can produce and sell, strong-arming commercial enterprises into the advertising guidelines chosen by politicians, telling banks what interest rates ought to be, instructing telecommunications businesses on the rules of speech and the distribution of information, threatening farmers and corporations with invasive environmental regulations, imposing speech codes on workplaces, dictating what furniture and employment standards companies can utilize, forcing national standards on food manufactures, controlling the business practices of bars and restaurants, deciding which immigrants were free to enter the county to work and which ones were not, setting tariff rates for international trade, determining which education policies passed federal muster, overriding the decisions of doctors, medical professionals and patients, imposing billions of hours of ridiculous paperwork onto the private sector, spying on our communications, diverting resources from economical purposes to counterproductive ones, threatening peaceful entrepreneurs with fines and imprisonment for their consensual business activities, and otherwise obstructing the economic growth made possible by the free market, we would be so much better off it should make any thinking person angry to contemplate it. Indeed, if the government simply took the same tax dollars it spends on regulation, used it to buy up as many products as that money could buy, and dumped all those products into the ocean, the economy would rebound almost instantly and we would likely witness the greatest genuine boom in American productivity in three generations, as the money being wasted would be so much healthier for growth than the money being spent as it is now--on destroying wealth on an atrocious scale through the crippling burden of regulations. The pharmaceutical regulations alone, once unenforced, would translate into thousands of lives saved, as the FDA notoriously kills Americans in large quantities by depriving them of life-saving drugs. This would be a great and moral end in itself, but it would also be a boon for the economy.

Or what if the warfare state money were simply wasted? Pentagon waste has got to be the best thing coming from that department. When Obama decided to stop spending so much on Cold War weaponry that would never be used and divert the funds to 21st century killing machines to deploy against insurgents in Pakistan and other such places, many cheered but I did not. For a weapon that gathers dust is the best kind the military buys. One could correctly argue that the thousands of nuclear weapons, by their mere existence, pose an existential threat to humanity and should be eliminated, but the point stands that so long as they have the potential to be used, better that they not be. Nevertheless, the U.S. military establishment, at nearly a trillion dollars a year when all is carefully accounted for, makes us less safe, hinders our freedom, and, most important, actively and energetically pesters, harasses, oppresses, tortures and murders foreigners in numerous countries. Millions have been slaughtered, directly and by stealth means, by the U.S. warfare state, only in the last couple decades. If Obama wants to cut down the budget by more than $33 billion a year, he should look first to this monstrosity, probably the greatest threat to world peace currently existing, and slash away. But short of that, he should convert the entire military machine to one of ?waste? as opposed to engagement and activity. A trillion dollars spent yearly on waste, or to pay personnel to sit around and play blackjack all day, would be far better for American freedom, American wealth, and global affairs, than allowing the status quo of murderous war to continue.

Then there is the U.S. police state. If only its budget was wasted! Instead, billions are spent tracking down, trying, and locking people into cages. Many of these people--about half at the federal level--are nothing but offenders with no victim. Drug offenders, tax offenders, gun offenders and other violators of laws that don?t belong in a free society. If this money were spent on building huge modern art projects and launching them into the sun, society would prosper significantly relative to where it is thanks to how the money is actually spent. Surely, building prisons and not filling them with peaceful people is infinitely morally preferable to building prisons and housing harmless souls inside their cages. These cages, which have in many cases become torture chambers and rape rooms, are the great domestic atrocity of our time, so putting an end to them is a moral mandate in itself, even putting aside the billions that could be saved by ridding of them. And with each innocent man caged, we lose the chance of that person being out there in the private sector actually producing wealth, which we desperately need in this time of recession. And this doesn?t even account for how much federal criminal justice programs, by their very nature, foment social conflict, subsidize gang warfare through drug and gun prohibitions, and generally make us less safe, less free and less wealthy.

Then there is all the welfare--corporate and individual--which distorts the economy and poisons the social fabric. In the long term this, too, is more destructive than mere government waste, as the opportunity cost of businesses catering to politicians rather than customers is unspeakably immense, and the encouragement of people to rely on the federal government rather than on each other for support is a rot at the core of the culture?s character and the key method by which the empire and police state maintain the trust and love of the oppressed masses.

I do not want to understate the evil of government waste. A billion dollars stolen from taxpayers and sent down the drain is an injustice and a moral disgrace of national importance. But government is an organ of plunder, economic dislocation, mass imprisonment, social destruction, persecution and mass murder. Given that it steals our money--certainly a great evil in itself--we?re generally much better off the larger portion of its budget goes purely to waste.


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