Filed under: DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, Economy, federal spending, Great Depression, Income Tax, middle class, MSNBC, new zealand, obama, obama taxes, Paul Volcker, Senate, slavery, Taxpayers, tea party, US Economy, White House | Tags: The Other 95%
The Other 95% Thanks Obama For All The Taxes!
“The Other 95%” Group Crashes Tea Party
Networks Fail to Report on VAT Tax Since Volcker Call for Tax Increases
Business & Media Institute
April 15, 2010
As procrastinators rush to beat the April 15 tax deadline and thousands rally at Tea Parties to oppose out of control government spending, politicians and the national news media are mulling the possibility of a new European-style national sales tax.
On April 6, former Federal Reserve chairman and current White House economic adviser Paul Volcker revealed the Obama administration’s possible strategy to tame massive deficits with a value-added tax (VAT).
“Volcker, answering a question from the audience at a New York Historical Society event, said the value-added tax ‘was not as toxic an idea’ as it has been in the past and also said a carbon or other energy-related tax may become necessary,” Reuters reported.
“If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes,” Volcker added that day. In Europe, VAT taxes range from about 16 percent to 25 percent with an average of roughly 20 percent, according to Olivier Garret of Casey Research. Garrett, who grew up in France, called the VAT “a license to steal without people knowing it.”
A VAT is a consumption tax “levied along stages of production,” according to the Wall Street Journal. In contrast to Garret, Fortune called it an “extremely efficient, virtually fraud-free way to collect money.” But it is also a regressive tax that hits the poor and middle-class and would contradict Obama’s pledge to protect taxpayers.
Despite the huge news that the White House was leaving the door open to additional taxes that would hit the poor and middle class especially hard, the three broadcast networks haven’t mentioned a VAT tax at all since Volcker’s speech. In the previous three months, only NBC’s “The Chris Matthews Show” has even brought up the issue.
In contrast to the networks’ silence, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network have brought up the VAT in more than a dozen programs since Volcker’s speech. But some print and online news media, including Reuter’s columnist Christopher Swann and Fortune’s Shawn Tully, actually promoted the idea of a VAT.
On Feb. 10, Tully wrote, “America is hurtling towards a fiscal trap that is forcing us into the only option we’ll have to restore budgetary sanity: A Value-Added Tax.”
CNN.com also supported VAT on April 13 suggesting the U.S. “can learn from New Zealand when it comes to taxes.” The article cited New Zealand as the “best” example of a VAT.
“So who does it best? Tax experts and economists point to New Zealand, where a 12.5 percent goods and services tax applies uniformly to nearly everything with very limited exceptions – only rent paid for a private home, charitable contributions and interest earned are exempted. (The government offers clear details, too, on its website.),” wrote CNN’s Dody Tsiantar.
But according to Dan Mitchell, a CATO Institute senior fellow and Business & Media Institute adviser, a value-added tax would be “an economy-killer.”
“Don’t get me wrong: The VAT – on top of all the other taxes Washington imposes – is a terrible idea. Imposing it would pretty well finish the transformation of our country into a European-style slow-growth nation. The right way to close Uncle Sam’s gaping deficits is to reverse the continued explosion of federal spending,” Mitchell wrote in a New York Post op-ed.
Mitchell explained that a VAT has the “virtues” of simplicity and less economic distortion, but ONLY if it were to replace the Internal Revenue code. That, however, is not what Volcker or Sen. Kent Conrad and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have suggested.
In Mitchell’s opinion, the end result would be a huge expansion of government, rather than deficit reduction.
Liberals Predict, Promote VAT Tax
Especially after Volcker’s comments, the mainstream media should have been examining value-added taxes, talking to tax experts and publicizing the fact that this sort of a tax would be yet another violation of Obama’s pledge to protect the middle-class from tax increases. But they weren’t.
In the past three months, a value-added tax has only been mentioned on one network program: NBC’s weekend talk show “The Chris Matthews Show.”
Matthews casually mentioned the options for reducing deficits on his April 4 program, saying, “You know, cutting deficits comes down to two decisions: you’ve got to raise taxes somewhere with a value-added tax or something, or you’re going to cut benefits. Neither one are pleasant for politicians.”
Guest David Ignatius of The Washington Post joined the discussion predicting that Obama would “build a case for a value-added tax, which gets us out of the – out of this mess.”
The tax was mentioned on CNN during a special called “I.O.U.S.A. Solutions” April 11. That special hosted by Christine Romans aired video clips from the documentary and then discussed the proposals with several panelists.
Panelist Maya MacGuineas, who was in the documentary, told viewers that even with necessary spending cuts there is no way to fix the deficit without raising taxes.
Robert D. Reischauer, former director of CBO and President of the Urban Institute, claimed in the video: “We’re going to have to look at consumption taxes like a value added tax or some form of national sales tax as a mechanism for maintaining some of the benefits that we are promised through our entitlement programs.”
But in the panel discussion that followed no one pointed out the flaws of VAT or mentioned any of the harm it could do to the American economy.
On April 8, the overwhelmingly liberal cable network MSNBC mentioned the problem liberals have with a VAT.
“There is a problem. A value-added tax tends to be regressive. There are ways to deal with that – one way is to provide an income tax credit to offset the regressivity at the bottom. That might sound like a radical liberal proposal, but it’s basically the same thing the national retail sales tax or FairTax people have been proposing,” Leonard Burman of Syracuse University told Ed Schultz.
Burman was correct about the regressive nature of a value-added tax, but not about its similarity to the FairTax.
FairTax proponents would like to see the entire federal taxation system replaced with a progressive national retail sales tax. It would include a “prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level.” The recent calls for a VAT have been for additional taxation, not reforming the confusing current system.
I Wanna Be Like Europe (or New Zealand)
Proponents of a VAT often lament that the U.S. is only developed nation that doesn’t have one.
That was Alice Rivlin’s argument for a VAT in the film I.O.U.S.A. Solutions. Rivlin, senior fellow for the liberal Brookings Institution, said “all the industrialized countries have a national sales tax of some sort.”
CNBC guest co-host Mark Olson, Corporate Risk Advisors co-chairman, praised the success of value-added taxes in Europe.
“A VAT makes a little bit more sense … But the value-added tax, I don’t think there’s a chance that’s gonna happen this year. But it’s gonna be something – it seems to work well in Europe.” Olson said on “Squawk Box” April 12.
In response, “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen groaned that “We’re turning into, we’re turning into” Europe.
Reuters economic columnist Christopher Swann supported the creation of a VAT tax. He called it a “money machine,” and said “America is alone among rich nations in not charging a VAT, and its continued unwillingness to do so will make it harder to cope with the fiscal challenges ahead.”
Instead of suggesting we emulate Europe, CNN.com highlighted New Zealand’s example calling it the “best.”
“In New Zealand, it [VAT] contributes about 25 percent to the government’s bottom line, and the Tax Policy Center in December projected that a 5 percent VAT tax here would generate over $3 trillion in revenue by 2019. That’s not enough to cover America’s huge debt obligations, of course, but it’s a start,” CNN said.
But conservative and libertarian tax experts like Dan Mitchell oppose following in the footsteps of Europe or New Zealand and warn that such a taxation plan will lead to bigger government, more spending and make it easier to raise taxes in the future.
Mitchell explained that “real-world evidence shows that VATs are strongly linked with both higher overall tax burdens and more government spending. In 1965, before the VAT swept across Europe, the average tax burden for advanced European economies (the EU-15) was 27.7 percent of economic output, versus 24.7 percent of GDP in the United States.”
Then Europe instituted VATs (and the European Union requires its member to impose VATs of at least 15 percent) and the tax burden of EU-15 nations rose to nearly 40 percent, compared to 28 percent in the U.S. According to Mitchell, government spending rose in Europe along with the VATs: from 30.1 percent of GDP to 47.1 percent of GDP.
Another CATO expert, Chris Edwards opposes adding to the tax burden and would prefer spending cuts. “I think America has prospered because the general level of taxation has been lower than Europe,” Edwards told CBSNews.com.
But even tax experts who “loathe” the idea of a VAT think the U.S. will head in that direction. Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at Americans for Tax Reform, told CBSNews.com “I think it’s coming, in the next five to 10 years certainly.”
Filed under: Al Gore, carbon dioxide, climate change, climate science, climategate, Co2, corruption, CRU, Dictatorship, eco-nazis, Empire, Fascism, federal crimes, Global Warming, global warming hoax, gore, green nazis, Hoax, man made global warming, new zealand, NIWA, scandal | Tags: Anthropogenic Global Warming, Carbon Trust, Climate Research Unit, East Anglia University, fake climate charts
New Zealand’s NIWA accused of CRU-style temperature faking
James Delingpole
London Telegraph
November 26, 2009
Wow! The scandal just gets juicier and juicier. Now it seems that the Kiwis may have been at it too – tinkering with raw data to make “Global Warming” look scarier than it really is. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That; Ian Wishart)
The alleged villains this time are the climate scientists at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NiWA) – New Zealand’s answer to Britain’s Climate Research Unit. And to judge by this news alert by the Climate Science Coalition of NZ, both institutions share a similarly laissez-faire attitude to scientific accuracy.
Compare and contrast these two graphs and you’ll see .
This is the graph from NiWA’s website, showing mean annual temperature over New Zealand from 1853. Note the dotted straight line showing the upward trend. Worrying, isn’t it? Almost enough to make you fall in love your flickery, yellowy new eco-light bulbs, recycle your kids and commit yourself to a binding agreement at Copenhagen.
Now have a look at this analysis of the raw data taken from exactly the same temperature stations.
Can you see the difference? I can – and I know as little about science as Al Gore.
Filed under: Al Gore, Antarctic, Arctic, Australia, Britain, Canada, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, China, Co2, environmental taxation, Europe, european union, global tax, Global Warming, greenland, Hoax, ice age, icecaps, ipcc, Japan, london, NASA, new zealand, north pole, polar icecaps, siberia, solar science, sun, sunspots, UN, United Kingdom, weather manipulation, weather modification | Tags: David Barber, Dr. Olav Orheim, geoengineering, institute of geophysics, Matthew Penn, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, National Solar Observatory, Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat, NSIDC, sun, sunspots, Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, William Livingston
Scientist Predicts Ice Age Within 10 Years
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
August 19, 2008
As evidence builds of the earth entering a dramatic cooling trend, another scientist has gone public with his conviction that we are about to enter a new ice age, rendering warnings about global warming fraudulent and irrelevant.
Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera of the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Mexico states that “In about ten years the Earth will enter a “little ice age” which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity,” according to a report in the major Mexican newspaper Milenio Diario.
Herrera slammed the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) stance on global warming as “erroneous” because of their failure to factor in the impact of solar activity.
The models and forecasts of the IPCC “is incorrect because only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity,” said Herrera.
Herrera states that the earth is entering a natural phase of climate transition during which solar activity will diminish considerably, “so that in two years or so, there will be a small ice age that lasts from 60 to 80 years.”
Herrera cited the growth in glaciers observed at the Andes, Perito Moreno, Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, and Franz-Josef Glacier, New Zealand.
A dramatic cooling trend is being observed across the planet even as people like Al Gore continue to claim that the threat of global warming mandates the poor and middle class be hit with CO2 taxes in order to prevent climate change.
Both anecdotal evidence and hard data indicates that the planet is in the beginning stages of a significant downturn in global temperatures.
Following the end of the Sun’s most active period in over 11,000 years, the last 10 years have displayed a clear cooling trend as temperatures post-1998 leveled out and are now plummeting.
China recently experienced its coldest winter in 100 years while northeast America was hit by record snow levels and Britain suffered its coldest April in decades as late-blooming daffodils were pounded with hail and snow on an almost daily basis. The British summer has also left many yearning for global warming, with temperatures in June and July rarely struggling to get over 16 degrees and on one occasion even dropping as low as 9 degrees in the middle of the afternoon.
“Summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century’s opening decade,” reports the Chicago Tribune. “There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That’s by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.”
The reason? Sunspot activity has dwindled. There have only been a handful of days in the past two months where any sunspot activity has been observed and over 400 spotless days have been recorded in the current solar cycle.
“The sun’s surface has been fairly blank for the last couple of years, and that has some worried that it may be entering another Maunder minimum, the sun’s 50-year abstinence from sunspots, which some scientists have linked to the Little Ice Age of the 17th century,” reports one science blog.
Since the sun, and not carbon dioxide, is the principle driver of climate change, a dearth of sunspot activity would herald a repeat of the Maunder Minimum, the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots became exceedingly rare and contributed to the onset of the Little Ice Age during which Europe and North America were hit by bitterly cold winters and the Thames river in London completely froze.
Long-time man-made global warming advocates NASA assure us that significant sunspot activity will return in 2012, but a recent a paper on recent solar trends by William Livingston and Matthew Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, predicts that sunspots will all but vanish after 2015.
As we reported last week, the Armagh observatory, which has been measuring sun cycles for over 200 years. predicts that global temperatures will drop by two degrees over the next 20 years as solar activity grinds to a halt and the planet drastically cools down, potentially heralding the onset of a new ice age.
“Based on the past Armagh measurements, this suggests that over the next two decades, global temperatures may fall by about 2 degrees C — that is, to a level lower than any we have seen in the last 100 years….”Temperatures have already fallen by about 0.5 degrees C over the past 12 months and, if this is only the start of it, it would be a serious concern,” concludes David Watt.
Arctic Ice Grows 30 Per Cent In a Year
Predictions of “ice free” summer for first time in history completely debunked
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
August 19, 2008
Alarmist scientists who predicted that the North Pole could be “ice free” this summer as a result of global warming have been embarrassed after it was revealed that Arctic ice has actually grown by around 30 per cent in the year since August 2007.
Back in June, numerous prominent voices in the scientific community expressed fears of a mass melting of the polar ice caps, including David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, who told National Geographic Magazine, “We’re actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history].”
“This summer’s forecast—and unusual early melting events all around the Arctic—serve as a dire warning of how quickly the polar regions are being affected by climate change,” adds the article.
In February, Dr. Olav Orheim, head of the Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat, told Xinhua, “If Norway’s average temperature this year equals that in 2007, the ice cap in the Arctic will all melt away, which is highly possible judging from current conditions.”
As per usual, the reality has failed to match the hype of the climate doomsayers.
According to collated data from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and the University of Illinois, Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007. This is a conservative estimate based on the map projection.
Blue pixels represent increased ice coverage over the North Pole in the year since August 2007.
The video below highlights the differences between those two dates,” reports The Register. “As you can see, ice has grown in nearly every direction since last summer – with a large increase in the area north of Siberia. Also note that the area around the Northwest Passage (west of Greenland) has seen a significant increase in ice. Some of the islands in the Canadian Archipelago are surrounded by more ice than they were during the summer of 1980.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKLiHWRaJU4
But what of the Antarctic down south? Figures tell us that ice coverage in the year since August 2007 has grown by nearly one million square kilometers.
As The Register article notes, “The Arctic did not experience the meltdowns forecast by NSIDC and the Norwegian Polar Year Secretariat. It didn’t even come close. Additionally, some current graphs and press releases from NSIDC seem less than conservative. There appears to be a consistent pattern of overstatement related to Arctic ice loss.”
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/06/the-sunspot-mys.html
Dearth Of Sunspot Activity To Herald New Ice Age?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/dearth-of..ty-to-herald-new-ice-age.html
Australia Urges More U.S. Climate Change Action
http://news.yahoo.com/..QH1Dzs3MDIpNiR_IxxpxieAA
Geoengineering may be tech’s answer to global warming
http://www.prisonplanet.com/geoe..o-global-warming.html
Japan to label goods’ carbon footprints: official
http://www.breitbart.com/article…xf1wcko&show_article=1
Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/
Advancing Hysteria by Editing Skeptical Views of Global Warming
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-shep..iting-skeptical-views-global-warming
Assemblyman urges repeal of NJ global warming law, warns of ‘dramatic cooling’
http://www.politickernj.com..pealing-global-warming-response-act
Spotless days: 400 and counting
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/..ss-days-400-and-counting/
This decade has had the fewest 90-degree days since 1930
http://www.chicagotribune.com/new..-explainer-13aug13,0,918946.story
Filed under: citizen's arrest, Condoleezza Rice, Dissent, Iraq, John Bolton, mugabe, nation building, neocons, new zealand, occupation, Protest, UN, War Crimes, Zimbabwe
Students Offer $5,000 For Rice’s Arrest
Scoop
July 24, 2008
Auckland students seek the arrest of a high-level United States official visiting Auckland this weekend. New Zealand’s largest students’ association has offered any Auckland University student a $5000 reward if they are able to make a successful citizen’s arrest of United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to Auckland over the weekend, for her role in overseeing the illegal invasion and continued occupation of Iraq.
“It is hard enough living as a student in Auckland these days without having a war criminal coming to town, so we thought we’d give our students a chance to make a dent in their student loans and work for global justice at the same time”, says AUSA President David Do.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq was overseen by Condoleeza Rice and other US officials in her role as National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State (equivalent to Minister of Foreign Affairs).
“Generally when US officials visit overseas they are heavily shielded from the general public, and unfortunately its not hard to see why,” adds David Do.
“Rice is the public spokesperson for an illegal and immoral occupation that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the continued oppression of the people of Iraq. We believe Rice should be arrested and detained in accordance with the law and tried fairly at the International Criminal Court for her role in these war crimes,” said AUSA International Affairs Officer Omar Hamed, who moved the motion for the reward at Monday’s AUSA Executive meeting.
Citizen’s arrests of high ranking government officials have been attempted recently:
-John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, escaped an attempted citizen’s arrest by author and activist George Monbiot at the British Hay Arts Festival in late May 2008.
-Peace activist Peter McGregor attempted a citizen’s arrest of Australia’s then Attorney-General Philip Ruddock as a war criminal at the University of New South Wales in July 2007
-Campaigner Peter Tatchell has twice attempted to make a citizen’s arrest on Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe.
Filed under: Al Gore, Australia, brazil, Britain, carbon dioxide, China, Co2, DEBT, Europe, Global Warming, new zealand, UN, United Kingdom, Vaccine, White House
Sheep Flatulance Vaccine Developed (not satire)
London Telegraph
June 5, 2008
New Zealand scientists claim to have developed a “flatulence inoculation” aimed at cutting down on the massive amount of methane produced by its sheep and cows.
Such animals are believed to be responsible for more than half of the country’s greenhouse gases, causing huge environmental problems.
But Phil Goff, New Zealand’s trade minister, told an Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in Paris yesterday that a solution was in sight.
“Our agricultural research organisation just last week was able to map the genome … that causes methane in ruminant animals and we believe we can vaccinate against” flatulent emissions, Mr Goff said.
’CO2 scrubber’ could help slow global warming
London Telegraph
June 2, 2008
A new machine designed to “suck” carbon dioxide from the air could help in the fight to save the world from climate change, according to physicists.
A group of scientists are devising a ’CO2 scrubber’ which they claim will capture one tonne of CO2 from the air every day, about the same per passenger as a flight from London to New York, reducing the warming effect of greenhouse gases produced each year.
U.N. talks halt plans for oceans absorb CO2
Madeline Chambers
Reuters
May 31, 2008
Nearly 200 countries agreed on Friday to a moratorium on projects to fight climate change by adding nutrients to the seas to spur growth of carbon-absorbing algae.
The surprise deal followed 12 days of haggling at the U.N.’s Convention on Biological Diversity conference where Australia, Brazil and China had opposed until the last minute, halting the controversial plans for “ocean fertilization”.
Opponents argue the little-tested process has unknown risks which could threaten marine life, for instance by making the oceans more acidic. Those in favor say it could be a new weapon to fight global warming.
Recent News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080606/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_iea_climate_change
Beta Testing “Carbon Consciousness” in Britain
http://www.infowars.com/?p=2473
Global warming could stop NATURALLY for ten years,’ say scientists
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/..n_page_id=1770&in_a_source=
White House: Humans “Very Likely” Causing Warming
http://blogs.wsj.com/environ..s-very-likely-causing-warming/
World Environment Day calls for end to CO2 addiction
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP221220080605
Czech President Wants To Debate Gore
http://www.earthtimes.org/article..ore-on-climate-change.html
Bishop Compares Global Warming Skeptics To Pedophile Rapist
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/060208_pedophile_rapist.htm
Painting by numbers: NASA’s peculiar thermometer
Calls for ban on ’polluting’ patio heaters
Global Warming: Facts and Factoids
Oz TV advises CO2-emitting children to die early
Poor nations demand climate funds
Media Double-Standard on Global Warming “Censorship”
Weather Warfare
Filed under: 1984, 4th amendment, ACLU, Airport Security, Australia, Big Brother, Britain, DHS, Europe, european union, Homeland Security, Japan, LA, las vegas, Miami, michael chertoff, New York, new zealand, Oppression, Police State, south korea, Surveillance, Texas, TSA, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War On Terror, washington | Tags: metal detectors
Britons visiting America will now have to register 72 hours in advance
UK Daily Mail
June 3, 2008
British visitors to the United States will have to register their trip with the American government 72 hours before they leave, it will be announced today.
The new plans – the latest in a series of measures designed to strengthen security – will see all travellers from countries which do not currently require a visa forced to register online three days before flying.
The scheme is expected to be announced today by Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, to take effect from January
It will apply to citizens of the 27 visa waiver programme countries which include most of western Europe, Australia, Brunei, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore.
The US has also signed agreements with eight other countries including the Czech Republic, Hungary and South Korea which will put them on track to join the visa waiver programme.
Last year many European countries expressed concern about the idea of registering before travel.
The initial proposal was that passengers should register 48 hours in advance and many large European companies, including several in the UK, claimed the move would prevent deal-clinching, last-minute flights for business.
Now US officials say they want people to register even further in advance- but with the concession that once a traveller has registered under the new rules for the first time, it will be valid for multiple entries over two years.
Read Full Article Here
10 airports install body scanners
Devices can peer under passengers’ clothes
Thomas Frank
USA Today
June 6, 2008
Body-scanning machines that show images of people underneath their clothing are being installed in 10 of the nation’s busiest airports in one of the biggest public uses of security devices that reveal intimate body parts.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently started using body scans on randomly chosen passengers in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Denver, Albuquerque and at New York’s Kennedy airport.
Airports in Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas and Miami will be added this month. Reagan National Airport in Washington starts using a body scanner today. A total of 38 machines will be in use within weeks.
“It’s the wave of the future,” said James Schear, the TSA security director at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where two body scanners are in use at one checkpoint.
Schear said the scanners could eventually replace metal detectors at the nation’s 2,000 airport checkpoints and the pat-downs done on passengers who need extra screening. “We’re just scratching the surface of what we can do with whole-body imaging,” Schear said.
The TSA effort could encourage scanners’ use in rail stations, arenas and office buildings, the American Civil Liberties Union said. “This may well set a precedent that others will follow,” said Barry Steinhardt, head of the ACLU technology project.
Scanners are used in a few courthouses, jails and U.S. embassies, as well as overseas border crossings, military checkpoints and some foreign airports such as Amsterdam’s Schiphol.
The scanners bounce harmless “millimeter waves” off passengers who are selected to stand inside a portal with arms raised after clearing the metal detector. A TSA screener in a nearby room views the black-and-white image and looks for objects on a screen that are shaded differently from the body. Finding a suspicious object, a screener radios a colleague at the checkpoint to search the passenger.
The TSA says it protects privacy by blurring passengers’ faces and deleting images right after viewing. Yet the images are detailed, clearly showing a person’s gender. “You can actually see the sweat on someone’s back,” Schear said.
The scanners aim to strengthen airport security by spotting plastic and ceramic weapons and explosives that evade metal detectors and are the biggest threat to aviation. Government audits have found that screeners miss a large number of weapons, bombs and bomb parts such as wires and timers that agents sneak through checkpoints.
Read Full Article Here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20080602/ap_tr_ge/..r8R1rC3fcdAXucwAaAR.UU80F
Filed under: Alan Greenspan, bear sterns, bernanke, Big Banks, Bill Clinton, catastrophic event, China, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dictatorship, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, food prices, gas prices, George Bush, global elite, gold, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, Hillary Clinton, House, housing market, imf, Inflation, interest rate cut, interest rate cuts, Japan, new zealand, Northern Rock, Oil, OPEC, peter schiff, Petrol, rate cut, real estate, robert reich, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senate, Stock Market, tax, US Economy, wheat, WW2 | Tags: Larry Elliott
The Federal Reserve Is Destroying America
Lee Rogers
Funny Money Report
March 17, 2008
It is incredible to see the rampant devaluation of the U.S. Dollar. The Federal Reserve just hours ago made a rare cut of 25 basis points during the weekend which will cause even more inflation. Gold immediately moved up $20 an ounce and the U.S. Dollar Index plunged under 71 in international trading. If this type of market activity continues the U.S. Dollar will have no value in a few months. While it is probably unlikely that we will see a hyper-inflationary collapse of the U.S. Dollar within the next few months, these policies are entirely unsustainable. If the Federal Reserve does not move to defend the value of the U.S. Dollar we will eventually see a hyper-inflationary collapse and worldwide financial turmoil. This view is also shared by other well respected financial analysts. Peter Schiff recently raised concerns about a hyper-inflationary collapse of the U.S. Dollar, Robert Reich a former Clinton cabinet member believes we are facing a depression and Alan Greenspan the man who caused this whole mess wrote in the Financial Times stating that we are facing the worst financial crisis since World War II. What’s amazing is that the Federal Reserve isn’t even trying to protect the U.S. Dollar because all they care about is saving the power of their private banking cartel. They don’t care about the U.S. Dollar nor do they care about the country itself. They are destroying this country through their actions and there needs to be an investigation into the controllers of this bank.
A Time For Caution
321 Gold
March 16, 2008
I wrote a piece 10 days ago suggesting caution on the part of my readers. Gold and silver are at bullish extremes; the dollar is at a bearish extreme. In any normal time, we would expect to see a correction, probably violent. I still believe we will have a correction shortly but we may no longer control anything. While the metals and the dollar are showing extremes of emotion, the shares of mining companies still seem to be very bullish based on my read of the XAU over gold.
My readers are smart enough to realize we are not in normal times. We are in a Domino Depression where we can expect two or three hedge funds to collapse every day, banks to go under on a regular basis. Northern Rock collapsed last fall, I for one, cannot understand how the rest of the banking system has not failed.
It’s starting again; we are in uncharted waters where no one quite understands where we are; we’ve never been here before. Bear Sterns crashed on Friday last. On Monday March 17th, President Bush meets with the infamous Plunge Protection Team. The alternatives are everything from a Bank Holiday to a nuclear attack on Iran to Bush declaring a “National Emergency” and naming himself Fuhrer.
One of the very real alternatives is Weimar style inflation. That’s what the government would like to do; it’s a question of if the rest of the world will go along with it. All it would take for a total and immediate failure would be for China or Russia or Japan or Saudi Arabia to dump the dollar.
It’s a time for caution. We SHOULD have a violent correction in gold and silver and the dollar based on emotion and government intervention but we could see $3,000 gold in a week or the start of a living nightmare brought to you by the Gang of Fools in Washington. No one knows.
I’m tempted to say the government’s ability to deceive is far greater than I ever imagined and the stupidity of Americans equally unimagined. We may well coast into Armageddon at a nice measured rate or we could see a freeze-up next week. The time will come when there is a total freeze-up in the banking system and all the banks will close. I just don’t know if it’s next week or not.
It’s a time to be cautious. We are not entering a recession; it’s a full-blown Domino Depression. It’s not a time to be in CDs or Real Estate or speculating in the stock market. You need to own real things of some real value. Our world is changing at an ever-increasing rate. Own some physical gold and pay attention to what is going on.
Leading Economic Writer: Financial Meltdown A “Gigantic Fraud”
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
March 17, 2008
A leading economic journalist has described the current financial crisis as a “gigantic fraud”, the fallout of a deliberate and preconceived profit agenda to enslave the middle classes in a debt bubble.
The economics editor of the London Guardian, Larry Elliott, has hit out at the global financial elite in a refreshing piece that marks a rare shift away from the establishment hackery we are used to from the corporate media.
In an article titled America was conned – who will pay? Elliot writes:
Indeed, it is somewhat surprising that there is not already rioting in the streets, given the gigantic fraud perpetrated by the financial elite at the expense of ordinary Americans.
[…]
Business, of course, needs consumers to carry on spending in order to make money, so a way had to be found to persuade households to do their patriotic duty. The method chosen was simple. Whip up a colossal housing bubble, convince consumers that it makes sense to borrow money against the rising value of their homes to supplement their meagre real wage growth and watch the profits roll in.
As they did – for a while. Now it’s payback time and the mood could get very ugly. Americans, to put it bluntly, have been conned. They have been duped by a bunch of serpent-tongued hucksters who packed up the wagon and made it across the county line before a lynch mob could be formed.
Elliot also states that the debate is now not about whether the US faces a recession, but is about how deep it will be and how long it will last, comparing the downturn to the South Sea Bubble crisis in 1720, and declaring that the “Ponzi securitisation scam has been exposed.”
A Ponzi scheme, named after Charles Ponzi, is one that offers abnormally high short-term returns in order to entice new investors. The high returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays require an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going, meaning it is inevitable that it will eventually collapse.
http://www.bloomberg.com..p;sid=aMVeMY2hvYUI&refer=home
Not Just Recession, Clinton Appointee Talking ‘Depression’
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080314131851.aspx
Oil plummets on economy worries
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices
Bernanke May Run Low on `Ammunition’ for Loans, Rates
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news..amp;refer=exclusive
Who Is Responsible for the World Food Shortage?
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_food_intro.html
NZ market hit by US meltdown
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=134130
House, Senate endorse tax hikes
http://www.rawstory.com/new..enate_endorse_tax_hikes_03132008.html
Dollars Tough To Sell On Amsterdam
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSL1758265520080317
Gulf States Creep Away From Plunging Dollar
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/march2008/031708_creep_away.htm
IMF, OECD hit alarm buttons for crisis-hit global financial system
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/200803..Aj6Sk0_nk7A4Wj6bi0U.nq7.ucsA
Goldman Sees $175 Oil & Explosive Commodities
http://www.bloomberg.com/app..newsarchive&sid=aUmQ3MBOkx_0
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, al-qaeda, Arizona, Australia, Biological Attack, biological warfare, Britain, canadacom, catastrophic event, Continuity of Government, DHS, Europe, False Flag, FBI, Felipe Calderon, George Bush, global government, global police force, Globalism, Homeland Security, Martial Law, Mexico, michael chertoff, Microsoft, NATO, New World Order, new zealand, North American Union, NORTHCOM, NSA, olympics, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Police State, SPP, State Sponsored Terrorism, Stephen Harper, United Kingdom, virginia, war games, War On Terror, world police force | Tags: Cisco Systems, Cyberstorm 2, Dow Chemical, McAfee, Operation Quick Resolve, TOPOFF 4, TOPOFF 5
TOPOFF 5 Announced
Vancouver 24
March 5, 2008
Could Canada’s Games be secured with help from Americans and Mexicans?
Canada, U.S. and Mexico are planning a massive joint military exercise in April 2009 “to focus on terrorist events that could affect [the] 2010 Olympics,” according to Public Safety Canada documents released to 2010 Watch via access to information.
The rehearsal, led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is code-named TOPOFF 5. Canadian troops were among the 15,000 participants involved in last October’s TOPOFF 4 in Portland, Ore., Phoenix, Ariz. and Guam.
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=965078627199672535&hl=en
“Exercises provide unique training opportunities to strengthen our ability to deal with potential emergencies,” said Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day in an e-mail statement responding to 24 hours’ interview request. “They are important tools to strengthen Canada’s ability to deal with real incidents.”
An undated Public Safety Canada report said up to $22.8 million was needed to fund emergency management, counter-terrorism, cyber security and critical infrastructure protection exercises, “leading to a trilateral full-scale exercise prior to the Vancouver Olympic Games in 2010, as outlined under the Security and Prosperity Partnership.”
SPP was founded in 2005 to promote economic growth and enhanced security in North America.
“Does it mean that if the American forces are training with Canadian forces that they are going to be positioned here in Canada during the period of the Olympic Games?” said 2010 Watch’s Chris Shaw. “And, if so, under whose command?”
Washington Prepares for Cyber War Games
Cyber Storm II begins March 11th until the 14th, US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand plan joint military exercise
Washington Post
March 7, 2008
The U.S. government will conduct a series of cyber war games throughout next week to test its ability to recover from and respond to digital attacks.
Code-named ‘Cyber Storm II,’ this is the largest-ever exercise designed to evaluate the mettle of information technology experts and incident response teams from 18 federal agencies, including the DHS, CIA, Department of Defense, FBI, and NSA, as well as officials from nine states, including Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia. In addition, more than 40 companies will be playing, including Cisco Systems, Dow Chemical, McAfee, and Microsoft.
http://www.venturacountystar.com/ne..ogy-war-game-tests-us-readiness/
NATO: Cyber Warfare Poses Great Threat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/06/hitechcrime.uksecurity
“Operation Quick Resolve”: National Guard holds surprise training drill
http://www.eyewitnessnewstv.com/G..p?S=7952938&nav=F2DO
eneral Warns Of Al-Qaeda Threat To U.S.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/terror_th..3QSUec3jGs0NUE
Bush: America Still Not Safe From Terrorism
http://www.reuters.com/artic..idUSN0624857820080306?sp=true
March Madness: Homeland Security Issues Warning on Sports Arenas
http://www.abcnews.go.com/print?id=4387469
Pentagon To Gas Crystal City Residents
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/march2008/030308_crystal_city.htm
Filed under: Bio Weapons, Canada, Child Abuse, China, Eugenics, Europe, Fascism, fluoride, health and environment, Iowa, Nazi, new zealand, Population Control, scientific american, United Kingdom
Scientific Study Finds Fluoride Horror Stories Factual
Industrial by-product consumed by millions of Americans lowers IQ, causes cancer
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
January 15, 2008
The establishment media will have to find a new tactic with which to ridicule those who oppose the fluoridation of water after a major new Scientific American report concluded that “Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift” as new evidence emerges of the poison’s link to disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland, as well as lowering IQ.
“Today almost 60 percent of the U.S. population drinks fluoridated water, including residents of 46 of the nation’s 50 largest cities,” reports Scientific American’s Dan Fagin.
Fagin is an award-wining environmental reporter and Director of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.
“Outside the U.S., fluoridation has spread to Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries. Critics of the practice have generally been dismissed as gadflies or zealots by mainstream researchers and public health agencies in those countries as well as the U.S. (In other nations, however, water fluoridation is rare and controversial.)”
Indeed, the zeitgeist for scoffing at those who spoke of the dangers of mass medicating the public against their will with fluoride was the deranged and paranoid character of General Ripper in the hit 1964 Peter Selllers movie Dr. Strangelove.
But that stereotype is quickly fading as serious scientific research uncovers proof that all the horror stories about sodium fluoride told down the decades are essentially true.
The Scientific American study “Concluded that fluoride can subtly alter endocrine function, especially in the thyroid — the gland that produces hormones regulating growth and metabolism.”
The report also notes that “a series of epidemiological studies in China have associated high fluoride exposures with lower IQ.”
“Epidemiological studies and tests on lab animals suggest that high fluoride exposure increases the risk of bone fracture, especially in vulnerable populations such as the elderly and diabetics,” writes Fagin.
Fagin interviewed Steven Levy, director of the Iowa Fluoride Study which tracked about 700 Iowa children for sixteen years. Nine-year-old “Iowa children who lived in communities where the water was fluoridated were 50 percent more likely to have mild fluorosis… than [nine-year-old] children living in nonfluoridated areas of the state,” writes Fagin.
The study adds to a growing literature of shocking scientific studies proving fluoride’s link with all manner of health defects, even as governments in the west, including recently the UK, make plans to mass medicate the population against their will with this deadly toxin.
In 2005, a study conducted at the Harvard School of Dental Health found that fluoride in tap water directly contributes to causing bone cancer in young boys.
“New American research suggests that boys exposed to fluoride between the ages of five and 10 will suffer an increased rate of osteosarcoma – bone cancer – between the ages of 10 and 19,” according to a London Observer article about the study.
Based on the findings of the study, the respected Environmental Working Group lobbied to have fluoride in tap water be added to the US government’s classified list of substances known or anticipated to cause cancer in humans.
Cancer rates in the U.S. have skyrocketed with one in three people now contracting the disease at some stage in their life.
The link to bone cancer has also been discovered by other scientists, but a controversy ensued after it emerged that Harvard Professor Chester Douglass, who downplayed the connection in his final report, was in fact editor-in-chief of The Colgate Oral Health Report, a quarterly newsletter funded by Colgate-Palmolive Co., which makes fluoridated toothpaste.
An August 2006 Chinese study found that fluoride in drinking water damages children’s liver and kidney functions.
http://noonehastodie.blogspot.com/2008/01/tools-of-eugenics-fluoride.html
noworldsystem.com 