Surplus - Terrorized into Being Consumers (1 of 10) In Spanish with English subtitles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AEiwOM4fAY

 

"Surplus - Terrorized Into Being Consumer" (for download .avi / 700 Mo )

http://www.theyliewedie.org/ressources/videos/videos-en.php#surplus

Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers is a 2003 Swedish documentary film on consumerism and globalization, created by director Erik Gandini and editor Johan Söderberg. It's form is highly original: SURPLUS is an intense visual odyssey filmed for over three years in eight different countries. A must see.

 

The Cleveland Airport Mystery (Did Flight 93 Land in Cleveland?)

http://911review.org/inn.globalfreepress/Cleveland_Airport_Mystery.html

200 passengers got lost on 9/11

 

Super Size My Aspartame - Click on "More info" to read the lyrics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eep3PJ--Cz

Aspartame is a poison in many of our daily foods. There is a great global awareness of it and its dangerous side affects, but it is still permitted in your food. WE need to lobby to BAN aspartame in our country! DON'T EAT IT! -- Read also Sickly Sweet and Government Says Aspartame Is Good For You

 

What is the volume of Earth's atmosphere? http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_volume_of_earth's_atmosphere

About 51,006,560,000,000 cubic metres (m^3) - Found using the surface area of the earth and multiplied by 100km (the karman line).

 

Lots of fascinating meditation videos!

 

Check also these Peace Portal News such as...

 

Enhancing Solar Cells With Nanoparticle (Dec. 26, 2008)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081223172705.htm

Deriving plentiful electricity from sunlight at a modest cost is a challenge with immense implications for energy, technology, and climate policy. Scientists are developing a relatively new approach to solar cells: lacing them with nanoscopic metal particles. As the authors describe in a new article, this approach has the potential to greatly improve the ability of solar cells to harvest light efficiently.

 

ManyOne Portal Service

http://www.manyone.net/about/

I stumbled on this site offering useful tools for various projects... Worth exploring!

 

The Gold Ring: Game of Enlightenment & Abundance - AMAZING GAME!

http://goldring.wetpaint.com/

It is a continuing process of Role Playing into Becoming an Ascended Master, Teacher, Wayshower and Follower of the Higher Path. This Game involves using the Mind to Overcome Reaction and move into Creation. Each Player is Moving from a Limited Reactive Third Dimensional Body with a Fourth Dimensional Drama to a Fifth-Dimensional Spirit Engaged in a Multi-Dimensional Reality. You begin the game where you are and the Game of Enlightenment never ends as it is joy, expansion, health, wealth, wisdom and love all rolled into one exciting and powerful creative life. (See below an example of the videos they offer...)

 

GoldRing Game: Truth, History & Economics, Planetary Changes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h81oooaHUQ0

As Wayshowers you are here to enlighten the masses with the Truth each is ready to hear. Each one on the path must be treated kindly and given the right words which will awaken them from the nightmare that the negative economic system has become. The change is about bringing forth the Truth that this is an expanding universe, that resources are abundant and we can have clean, clear and wonderful lives.

 

More such GoldRing videos through this LINK

 

Ubuntu (video) A wonderful concept... and reality!

http://www.globalonenessproject.org/videos/ubuntu

Ubuntu, a traditional African philosophy, recognizes how we are inextricably bound in each other's humanity. Translated as, "I am because you are," Ubuntu describes a sense of unity between people through which we each discover our own strengths and virtues. Featuring healer Credo Mutwa, GreenHouse Project director Dorah Lebelo, and former Deputy Minister of Health Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, this glimpse of South Africa shows compassion as a way of life. MANY more such inspiring videos through this LINK such as ...

 

Interview with Don Alverto Taxo (video) In Spanish with English subtitles

http://www.globalonenessproject.org/videos/donalvertotaxocomplete

Don Alverto Taxo, a Quichua elder and Iachak (community leader/healer), shares his indigenous Andean perspective on the crises and potential of the current pachacuti (thousand-year cycle). Recalling the ancient prophecy of the eagle and the condor, Don Alverto outlines a vision of a new society based on harmony, the honoring of diversity, and a shared evolution toward wisdom and the "subtleness of life." He also describes Pacha Mama, Her relationship to God, the earth and humanity, as well as the serious consequences of disrupting Her natural equilibrium.

 

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Fireworks as world welcomes 2009 (1 January 2009)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7806219.stm

Celebrations are taking place around the world to mark the end of 2008 and usher in the new year.From Sydney to New York and Auckland to London, revellers greeted 2009 with pyrotechnic shows and street parties. Some 400,000 people braved freezing temperatures in London for a fireworks display beside the Thames. In New York, meanwhile, thousands packed a frigid Times Square as the famous Waterford crystal ball descended to cheers at midnight. Former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, soon to become the new US secretary of state, helped New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lower the ball for the midnight countdown. A number of Arab nations - including Egypt, Jordan and Syria - cancelled their planned celebrations in solidarity with Palestinians in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip after a fifth day of Israeli air-strikes on the coastal enclave. CLIP

 

Mid-Tunnel Glimmerings (30 December 2008)

http://www.truthout.org/123108F

What a year! Wherever one turns: vertigo. Financial massacre, destruction of value unprecedented in human history, the unanticipated become an everyday occurrence, the most learned predictions trampled by phenomena deemed unthinkable just twelve months ago ... If the essential purpose of crises is to incite us to think from scratch, this one should, by virtue of its scale, soon deliver a totally new world. But for the moment, it's the absence of visibility that strikes the mind. A brutal, but short, fever, or durable chaos, soon to be matched by more serious disorders? We are en route to the unknown. No alternative is ready to replace the foundations of capitalism. No theory has appeared to clothe the disillusions provoked by the all-powerful market's turmoil with Utopias. (...) There's another reason to be gladdened in the short term. For this debacle will have at least defeated one fraud: that of a cupidity that had become insane, erecting its obscene fatuousness as a universal totem. We'll never be altogether done with it, of course, but will do at least two retakes before making it a cardinal value. In the tunnel we have entered, that's a glimmer at least as strong as the promises of concerted action on our common destiny. So let us bet on the light: Happy New Year!

 

David Ignatius: In Bailout Nation, denial is lifestyle (January 2, 2009)

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/jan/02/david-ignatius-in-bailout-nation-denial-is/

We'll likely need a new recovery program from the Obama administration, and it should talk of shared sacrifice, not rescue -- The Great Depression seared some life lessons into my parents' generation. My father hasn't had a mortgage in decades, even though his children keep telling him about the tax advantages. He buys store-label brands, clips the "sale" coupons out of the newspaper, and wears well-mended suits he bought 50 years ago. Frugality is a lifestyle for his generation. Their pleasure isn't consuming, but in creating and saving, and their abiding conviction is that you have to take care of yourself, because no one else is going to bail you out. What lessons, I wonder, will the great downturn of 2008 teach our children? Obviously, the answer depends on how bad things get. This is a global cataclysm that is more vivid in the headlines than in most people's pocketbooks. Unemployment remains below 7 percent, and gas prices and mortgage rates are down. The crisis is still more like a dark thundercloud than a pelting hurricane. CLIP

 

The Global Shipping Halt: Is The Great Unwind Disrupting The Freight Market? (2 Dec 2008) http://www.searates.com/news/1289/

Freight shipping prices for transporting dry raw materials have collapsed in November 2008. The Great Unwind is like a Tsunami that is engulfing and halting the shipping world at an accelerating rate. The Baltic Dry Index sounds like a weather report, but what it really does is track the price of shipping bulk cargo - such as coal, iron ore, cotton and grain. Recently, the Baltic Dry Index has fallen through the floor. It has slumped by nearly 95% over the past five months. In real dollar terms, at the peak of the market in June, a 170,000-tonne Capesize bulk carrier cost USD 233,988 to rent. Recently, it was available for USD 4,793 - that is a crash of 98% and is below the cost of paying for crew, insurance, maintenance and lubricants. Why?1. Of the USD 13.6 trillion of goods and materials traded worldwide per annum, 90% rely on letters of credit or related forms of financing and guarantees such as trade credit insurance. International shipping works on "letters of credit." These financial guarantees are issued to buyers of bulk cargo by their banks. This system has greased the wheels of global trade for the last 400 years by transferring payments internationally from buyer to seller once shipments have been delivered. With the collapse of the credit market - and banks now sitting on their hands, refusing to lend - the fast-moving wheels of global shipping have come close to halt.

2. There is a collapsing demand for credit driven expensive product purchases like cars and as a consequence, the transport of associated raw materials and sub-assemblies. Auto sales are falling in double digit percentages across most of the G7, ie, the US, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy and Canada. The pace of car sales growth is slowing down across most of the remaining G20 nations as well, including China and India.This is a massive disruption in the freight market with asymmetric consequences for world trade, which poses systemic risk for many nation states. Liquidity has to return because if there is insufficient money to provide standard finance, world trade is being sharply cut back and economic growth is not only stalling but likely to implode. If cargo trade stops, a whole lot of supply chain disruptions start. For example, if the iron ore does not go to the refinery, there is no plate steel. If the plate steel does not get shipped, there is nothing to fabricate into components. If there are no components, there is nothing to assemble in the factory. If the factory closes the assembly line, there are no finished goods. If there are no finished goods, there is nothing to restock the shelves of the shops. If there is nothing in the shops, the consumers cannot buy. If the consumers cannot buy, there can be no sales!

On a more sobering note, if bulk shippers cannot buy cargoes, then a lot of US and world grain could end up rotting in warehouses while big portions of the world go hungry. For example, the Saudis are the biggest importers of food in the Middle East. They probably have the money to pay cash for their food shipments and may not therefore need letters of credit. But for the approximately 2.7 billion people in the world who spend 80% of their income on food, a disruption in the global shipping trade could mean the difference between quiet poverty and going hungry day-in, day-out. That will not last for long before there is social disorder on a massive scale. CLIP

 

Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret (December 22, 2008) A BAILOUT TO NOWHERE!

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081222/meltdown_secrets.html?.v=8

Where'd the bailout money go? $350 billion later, banks won't say how they're spending it -- WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where's the money going?But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it. "We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,'" said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest? None of the banks provided specific answers. (...) Most banks wouldn't say why they were keeping the details secret. (...) Warren, the congressional watchdog appointed by Democrats, said her oversight panel will try to force the banks to say where they've spent the money. "It would take a lot of nerve not to give answers," she said. But Warren said she's surprised she even has to ask. "If the appropriate restrictions were put on the money to begin with, if the appropriate transparency was in place, then we wouldn't be in a position where you're trying to call every recipient and get the basic information that should already be in public documents," she said. Garrett, the New Jersey congressman, said the nation might never get a clear answer on where hundreds of billions of dollars went. "A year or two ago, when we talked about spending $100 million for a bridge to nowhere, that was considered a scandal," he said.

 

The Size of Derivatives Bubble = $190K Per Person on Planet (October 16, 2008) A REMINDER...

http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2008/10/the_size_of_der.php

According to various distinguished sources including the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland -- the central bankers' bank -- the amount of outstanding derivatives worldwide as of December 2007 crossed USD 1.144 Quadrillion, ie, USD 1,144 Trillion.  (...) Unless there is government action in concert, this could ignite a chain-reaction which would swiftly purge trillions and trillions of dollars in over-leveraged risky bets. Within the context of over-leverage, the biggest problem of all is to do with "Derivatives", of which CDSs are a minor subset. Warren Buffett has said the derivatives neutron bomb has the potential to destroy the entire world economy, and is a "disaster waiting to happen." He has also referred to derivatives as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Counting one dollar per second, it would take 32 million years to count to one Quadrillion. The numbers we are dealing with are absolutely astronomical and from the realms of super computing we have stepped into global economics. There is a sense of no sustainability and lack of longevity in the "Invisible One Quadrillion Dollar Equation" of the derivatives market especially with attendant Black Swan variables causing multiple implosions amongst financial institutions and counterparties! The only way out, albeit painful, is via discretionary case-by-case government intervention on an unprecedented scale. Securing the savings and assets of ordinary citizens ought to be the number one concern in directing such policy.

 

Was the 'Credit Crunch' a Myth Used to Sell a Trillion-Dollar Scam? (December 29, 2008)

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/115768/was_the_%27credit_crunch%27_a_myth_used_to_sell_a_trillion-dollar_scam/

Even as the media continue to repeat the claim that credit has frozen up, evidence has emerged suggesting the entire story is wrong. -- There is something approaching a consensus that the Paulson Plan -- also known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP -- was a boondoggle of an intervention that's flailed from one approach to the next, with little oversight and less effect on the financial meltdown.But perhaps even more troubling than the ad hoc nature of its implementation is the suspicion that has recently emerged that TARP -- hundreds of billions of dollars worth so far -- was sold to Congress and the public based on a Big Lie. CLIP

 

The Economist: U.S. In Depression, Not Recession (January 2, 2008)

http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-economist-us-in-depression-not-recession.html

Publication admits that characteristics of economic slowdown resembles 1930's -- Renowned financial publication The Economist reports that, based on the characteristics of the current financial crisis, the U.S. is in a depression, not a recession. The admission marks the first time that a major international financial news outlet has acknowledged that the scale of the economic mess is unlike anything seen in recent decades. Under the headline, Diagnosing depression, the article asks, "What is the difference between a recession and a depression?"A depression is characterized by "falling asset prices, a credit crunch and deflation," according to the article, all factors that we see unfolding in the current crisis. "A depression is the result of a bursting asset and credit bubble, a contraction in credit, and a decline in the general price level," according to the article. "In the Great Depression average prices in America fell by one-quarter, and nominal GDP ended up shrinking by almost half."Fast forward to the start of 2009 and house prices have fallen by at least 17 per cent over the last two years with that number only set to plunge further over the coming 18 months. Overall, American homeowners have lost $2 trillion of equity during what has become the worst housing slump since World War II. U.S. GDP in the fourth quarter last year fell an estimated six per cent, but that number is expected to accelerate through 2009. The piece also states that assurances from economists who say that a repeat of the 1930's is impossible "because policymakers are unlikely to repeat the mistakes of the past," are coming from the same people who confidently predicted that "a nationwide fall in American house prices was impossible and that financial innovation had made the financial system more resilient." The Economist piece makes the argument that the current crisis is far closer to a depression than a recession and that the only question remaining is how deep the downturn will be.

As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

In Moscow, Igor Panarin's Forecasts Are All the Rage; America 'Disintegrates' in 2010 (...) He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia. CLIP

 

The Novel That Predicted Portland (December 14, 2008)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/fashion/14ecotopia.html

Sometimes a book, or an idea, can be obscure and widely influential at the same time. That's the case with Ecotopia, a 1970s cult novel, originally self-published by its author, Ernest Callenbach, that has seeped into the American groundwater without becoming well known. The novel, now being rediscovered, speaks to our ecological present: in the flush of a financial crisis, the Pacific Northwest secedes from the United States, and its citizens establish a sustainable economy, a cross between Scandinavian socialism and Northern California back-to-the-landism, with the custom ... to eat local. In the '70s, the book, with a blurb from Ralph Nader, was a hit, selling 400,000 or so copies in the United States, and more worldwide. Today, Ecotopia is increasingly assigned in college courses on the environment, sociology and urban planning, and its cult following has begun to reach an unlikely readership: Mr. Callenbach, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., and calls himself a "fringe, '60s person," has been finding himself invited to speak at many small religious colleges. This month, the book's publisher, Bantam, is reissuing it. "For a while it seemed sort of antique to people," said Mr. Callenbach, a balding and eerily fit man of 79. But now that you go out into America and young society, it apparently doesn't seem that weird to them at all. "It is so hard to imagine anything fundamentally different from what we have now," he said. "But without these alternate visions, we get stuck on dead center. And we'd better get ready," he added. "We need to know where we'd like to go."

 

The Madoff Double Bluff (December 24, 2008)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11488

At first sight it was extremely refreshing. A white-collar financial crook raising his hands and pleading guilty to his financial crime. This has to be almost a first. Usually financial criminals when caught in the most obvious of wrong-doing plead 'not guilty'. The criminal can be caught boarding the plane, with a suitcase containing US$100mn of someone elses cash, with his mistress holding on to his arm, he will look into the camera with his most genuine 'Tony Blair look of sincerity' and say "What we have here is a misunderstanding.... " You make up the rest of the excuse, there is a million of them. So yes, an outright confession, "It was me, I chopped down the apple tree" is so against the current socio-political culture it was almost too good to be true. Especially given the pedigree of this perp, the CEO of one of the busiest and most prominent financial exchanges in the world. (...) So why plead guilty? The answer is simple. Look on the net and you will see that because this case is being labelled a fraud, it would appear that investors are going to be able to claim their investment back under the US government's financial fraud protection scheme. A judge has already given his approval in principle for compensation, without any evidence having been presented and financial fraud being demonstrated in a court of law. And it would appear that there will never be such a demonstration in a court of law. Why? It would appear that all the funds financial records are mostly "missing" (rather like Dov Zakheim's US$1.4tn) and those few records that do survive are in a terrible mess. However, since the guy has pleaded guilty we do not need to demonstrate the fraud, because he says he is guilty. And look further on the net and you will see that these "victims" have also been told by the US tax authorities that they will probably also be entitled to claim back some taxes on these defrauded sums. Rather than saying this hedge fund has gone bust, due to its choice of investment assets and investment methologies, a scenario which is highly probable in the current financial paradigm, since all the professionals are predicting that at least 30% of all hedge funds are about to fail, more than 700 of them, the CEO chooses to fess up to fraud. If the CEO admits the fund has gone bust, then all those wealthy members of the Jewish community get nothing, but if the CEO admits to fraud they get their money back as compensation from the US tax payer, just as they are also drawing money back from the tax payers with the other hand. And, as can be seen at the Daily Mail link above, the investors in this fund only get to litigate the fund directors against Lloyds insurers in London for even more compensation. Done properly the compensation could end up paying out far more than the original fund returns (yes this is sarcasm, it was bound to creep in eventually in yet another swindle like this). Would that I could believe that Madoff were a good guy who slipped and then became repentant. But given the facts, this simply cannot be true.

 

Execs of bailed-out banks got $1.6B last year, AP finds (12/21/2008)

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2008-12-21-bank-execs-bailout_N.htm

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines. CLIP

 

Linda Bilmes: "The $10 Trillion Hangover: Paying the Price for Eight Years of Bush" (December 22, 2008)

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/22/linda_bilmes_the_10_trillion_hangover

In a new article in Harper's Magazine, Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz estimate that the cost of undoing the Bush administration's economic choices, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the collapse of the financial system, soaring debt, and new commitments to interest payments and Medicare, all add up to over $10 trillion. (...) I think that if you go back to 2001, when the President took office, you can remember there was a surplus, a budget surplus of about $150 billion and the congressional budget office at the time was projecting that that surplus would continue over the next several years. And since then, things have unraveled in every possible dimension that you can measure and certainly across every metric that economists measure. The budget deficit has disappeared. Our national debt has gone from about $5.5 trillion to between $10 and $15 trillion, depending on how much of the bailout you count. Inflation is higher. Unemployment is higher. Four million manufacturing jobs have been lost. Five million people have lost their health insurance. And the more you look into it, the more you see the very severe economic consequences that have been the result of errors and poor judgment during the past eight years. AMY GOODMAN: And you also look at just people's personal debt, the increase in credit card, automobile, mortgage and other forms of personal debt from around $8 trillion in 2000 to more than $14 trillion today, also, you write, looming behind the implosion of our financial system. LINDA BILMES: That's right. There is government debt, and there is household debt, you know, such as cars and mortgages and credit card debt, and this has also skyrocketed during the past eight years. So, the result is a kind of a mountain of debt, which has been one of the main drivers of the current economic virtual meltdown that we are experiencing. CLIP

 

More economic pain seen in 2009, but some hope too (Dec 31, 2008)

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4B70ME20081231

SINGAPORE/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Many investors said good riddance on Wednesday to one of the worst years on record and prayed that government rescue plans will pull the global economy out of its fierce tailspin later in the new year.More pain is expected in the near-term as bleak economic reports roll in, flagging more bankruptcies, bad debts and layoffs through at least early 2009, and more sleepless nights for everyone from central bankers to consumers struggling to pay off mortgages and credit card bills.The biggest financial crisis in 80 years, sparked by a U.S. mortgage meltdown, made this year one of the worst ever for investors as recession stalked the global economy."It has been a shocking year, hardly anything was spared in the market carnage," said Michael Heffernan, senior client adviser and strategist at Austock Group in Australia.The slump wiped out nearly $14 trillion in market value, according to the benchmark MSCI world index of larger companies. CLIP

 

Give Obama a Chance

http://www.truthout.org/121808R

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Truthout: "It has not taken long for the criticism, skepticism and second-guessing to begin. Barack Obama has not even been sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, and his critics on the so-called progressive left are angry that his cabinet selections suggest a shift to the center or to the right. Meanwhile, critics on the right claim that his actions in response to disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich are politically motivated."

 

Obama team plans biggest boost in history to save American economy(Dec 22, 2008)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/22/obama-white-house-us-economy

Barack Obama's administration in waiting signalled yesterday that it was preparing the biggest economic stimulus in US history to avert mass unemployment in a stuttering economy that could face the toughest recession in half a century.In a programme tinged with environmentally friendly initiatives, the US president-elect has set a new target of creating or safeguarding 3m jobs, up from a previous aim of 2.5m, by unleashing an avalanche of government spending and offering widespread tax rebates. The Obama camp indicated that the package would be worth between $675bn and $775bn, easily eclipsing other packages unveiled in China, Japan and Britain. The cash will include programmes to transmit wind and solar energy across America and to put millions of medical records into digital format. Obama's vice-president elect, Joe Biden, yesterday said the stimulus was the "single most important thing" facing the new administration and warned that action was needed to prevent the economy from "absolutely tanking". "The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in," Biden told ABC television. "We've got to begin to stem this bleeding, stop the loss of jobs and create new jobs." Some 1.9m US jobs have been lost this year and Obama's aides have briefed him that as many as 4m could be at risk, which would take the unemployment rate to 9%. Quoting transition officials, the New York Times said Obama's team feared that the downturn could eclipse anything in the last 50 years. CLIP

 

9 Steps to Peace for Obama in the New Year By Deepak Chopra -- January 1, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/environment/116640/9_steps_to_peace_for_obama_in_the_new_year/

Steps the incoming president can take to build a peace-based economy. The following is a memo to Barack Obama from Deepak Chopra - You have been elected by the first anti-war constituency since 1952, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected after promising to end the Korean War. But ending a war isn't the same as bringing peace. America has been on a war footing since the day after Pearl Harbor, 67 years ago. We spend more on our military than the next 16 countries combined. If you have a vision of change that goes to the heart of this country's deep problems, ending our dependence on war is far more important than ending our dependency on foreign oil. CLIP Check all the related comments HERE and HERE

 

The Pentagon is muscling in everywhere. It's time to stop the mission creep (December 21, 2008)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121902748.html
We no longer have a civilian-led government. The most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration is the encroachment of the Department of Defense into a striking number of aspects of civilian government. Our Constitution is at risk. President-elect Barack Obama's selections of James L. Jones, a retired four-star Marine general, to be his national security adviser and, it appears, retired Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair to be his director of national intelligence ... could complete the silent military coup d'etat that has been steadily gaining ground below the radar screen of most Americans and the media. While serving the State Department in several senior capacities over the past four years, I witnessed firsthand the quiet, de facto military takeover of much of the U.S. government. The first assault on civilian government occurred in faraway places -- Iraq and Afghanistan. As military officers sought to take over the role played by civilian development experts abroad, Pentagon bureaucrats quietly populated the National Security Council and the State Department with their own personnel ... to ensure that the Defense Department could keep an eye on its rival agencies. The encroachment within America's borders continued with the military's increased involvement in domestic surveillance and its attempts to usurp the role of the federal courts in reviewing detainee cases. The Pentagon also resisted ceding any authority over its extensive intelligence operations to the ... director of national intelligence. Now the Pentagon has drawn up plans to deploy 20,000 U.S. soldiers inside our borders by 2011.

 

Known Unknowns: Unconventional "Strategic Shocks" in Defense Strategy Development (November 2008)

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB890.pdf

Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security. Deliberate employment of weapons of mass destruction or other catastrophic capabilities, unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters are all paths to disruptive domestic shock. An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home. Already predisposed to defer to the primacy of civilian authorities in instances of domestic security and divest all but the most extreme demands in areas like civil support and consequence management, DoD might be forced by circumstances to put its broad resources at the disposal of civil authorities to contain and reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility. Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance. Note: For an analysis which deconstructs the opaque military jargon in which this revealing strategic document is written, click here. Use of military forces to maintain domestic order has been forbidden since 1878 by the Posse Comitatus Act. The Pentagon appears to be planning to abrogate this key support of civil liberties. -- As mentioned HERE "Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the U.S. military operations to liberate Iraq, said in a 2003 interview that if the U.S. is attacked with a weapon of mass destruction, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government."...

 

Cheney Throws Down Gauntlet

http://www.truthout.org/121908J

(...) Dick Cheney has publicly confessed to ordering war crimes. Asked about waterboarding in an ABC News interview, Cheney replied, 'I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared.' He also said he still believes waterboarding was an appropriate method to use on terrorism suspects. CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed that the agency waterboarded three al-Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003. US courts have long held that waterboarding, where water is poured into someone's nose and mouth until he nearly drowns, constitutes torture. Our federal War Crimes Act defines torture as a war crime punishable by life imprisonment or even the death penalty if the victim dies."

 

Justice after Bush: Prosecuting an outlaw administration (December 2008)

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/12/0082303

I. The Crimes -- Americans may wish to avoid what is necessary. We may believe that concerns about presidential lawbreaking are naive. That all presidents commit crimes. We may pretend that George W. Bush and his senior officers could not have committed crimes significantly worse than those of their predecessors. We may fear what it would mean to acknowledge such crimes, much less to punish them. But avoiding this task, simply "moving on," is not possible.This administration did more than commit crimes. It waged war against the law itself. It transformed the Justice Department into a vehicle for voter suppression, and it also summarily dismissed the U.S. attorneys who attempted to investigate its wrongdoing. It issued wartime contracts to substandard vendors with inside connections, and it also defunded efforts to police their performance. It spied on church groups and political protesters, and it also introduced a sweeping surveillance program that was so clearly illegal that virtually the entire senior echelon of the Justice Department threatened to (but did not in fact) tender their resignations over it. It waged an illegal and disastrous war, and it did so by falsely representing to Congress and to the American public nearly every piece of intelligence it had on Iraq. And through it all, as if to underscore its contempt for any authority but its own, the administration issued more than a hundred carefully crafted "signing statements" that raised pervasive doubt about whether the president would even accede to bills that he himself had signed into law.No prior administration has been so systematically or so brazenly lawless. Yet it is no simple matter to prosecute a former president or his senior officers. There is no precedent for such a prosecution, and even if there was, the very breadth and audacity of the administration's activities would make the process so complex as to defy systems of justice far less fragmented than our own. But that only means choices must be made. Indeed, in weighing the enormity of the administration's transgressions against the realistic prospect of justice, it is possible to determine not only the crime that calls most clearly for prosecution but also the crime that is most likely to be successfully prosecuted. In both cases, that crime is torture. CLIP - Long article, but highly recommended!

 

There Is No 'Al Qaeda' says Ex UK Foreign Secretary  (24 December 2008)

http://www.daily.pk/world/europe/8714-there-is-no-al-qaeda-says-ex-uk-foreign-secretary.html

"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US. "Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook

 

Rove's Threat Against Connell (Dec 24, 2008)

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6214/p

(...) In his email to Mukasey today, Arnebeck writes: "We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to 'take the fall' for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations." "This appears to be in response to our designation of Rove as the principal perpetrator in the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim with respect to which we issued document hold notices last Thursday to you and to the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform," the Ohio attorney writes, before going on to link to The BRAD BLOG's coverage of his press conference last week and requesting "protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness." The complete, short email, sent today from Arnebeck to AG Mukasey, follows in full below... CLIP

 

Republican IT Specialist Dies in Plane Crash (December 22, 2008)

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/22/republican_it_specialist_dies_in_plane

A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Michael Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. Michael Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count in Ohio and his access to Karl Rove's email files and how they went missing. (...) AMY GOODMAN: So, explain what this case is all about and exactly what Mike Connell has been doing over these last years. What does it mean to be Karl Rove's IT guru? MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, the lawyers in the case refer to him as a high-IQ Forrest Gump, by which they mean that he seems to have been present at the scene of every dubious election of the last eight years. We're talking about Florida in 2000. We're talking about Ohio in 2004. We're talking about Alabama in 2002. He seems to have been involved in the theft of Don Siegelman's re-election for governor. There's some evidence that links him with the Saxby Chambliss-Max Cleland Senate race in Georgia in 2002. To be Karl Rove's IT guru seems to have meant basically setting it up so that votes could be electronically shaved to the disadvantage of the Democrats and the advantage of Republicans. (...) AMY GOODMAN: So why did he fly in-why did he pilot his own plane when he was so afraid? MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, that's a good question. We can't ask him, unfortunately. I mean, this is kind of a grisly thought, but, I mean, I think we should be asking where the body is? We're told that a trooper on the scene immediately identified Connell. But then we read elsewhere that there was nothing left but debris and that the fireball was enormous. So maybe he wasn't on the plane. I mean, who knows, when you're dealing with people as deep as these? But the point is-I can't stress this strongly enough-we're dealing not just with a shocking accident, if that's what it was, and a convenient one. We're dealing not even just with a particular lawsuit that, you know, really requires vigorous promotion. The important point here is that this is all about our elections. That's what this is about. This is about democratic self-government. The fact that Obama won so handily has caused a lot of us to sit back and relax. There's been a lot of popping of champagne corks and people drawing the conclusion that the system must work, because our guy won. Well, this is not a sports event. This is self-government. In fact, the evidence strongly suggests-and we haven't had a chance to talk about this since Election Day-that Obama probably won by twice as many votes as we think. Probably a good seven million votes for Obama were undone through vote suppression and fraud, because the stuff was extensive and pervasive, in places where you wouldn't expect it. CLIP

 

1. Peace summit arranged in Egypt between Sharon and Abbas.

2. On the morning of February 7, a day before the summit is to start, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told Israel Army Radio that he had received intelligence warnings that some militants, including Hezbollah, may try to disrupt the summit.

3. Due to the intelligence warnings, Israel Police moved to a level III heightened alert status, one level below a state-of-emergency.

4. Like clockwork, on the afternoon of February 7, rockets rained down on the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, and were immediately described by Israeli police as Katyusha rockets fired by Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.