"The world needs a treaty to prevent cyber attacks becoming an all-out war, the head of the main UN communications and technology agency warned Saturday. International Telcommunications Union secretary general Hamadoun Toure gave his warning at a World Economic Forum debate where experts said nations must now consider when a cyber attack becomes a declaration of war. With attacks on Google from China a major talking point in Davos, Toure said the risk of a cyber conflict between two nations grows every year." "He also called for a "driver's license" for internet users. "If you want to drive a car you have to have a license to say that you are capable of driving a car, the car has to pass a test to say it is fit to drive and you have to have insurance." And this tidbit is as bogus as the website:
"Britain is facing a new Al Qaeda terror threat from suicide ‘body bombers’ with explosives surgically inserted inside them. Until now, terrorists have attacked airlines, Underground trains and buses by secreting bombs in bags, shoes or underwear to avoid detection. But an operation by MI5 has uncovered evidence that Al Qaeda is planning a new stage in its terror campaign by inserting ‘surgical bombs’ inside people for the first time.
Security services believe the move has been prompted by the recent introduction at airports of body scanners, which are designed to catch terrorists before they board flights. It is understood MI5 became aware of the threat after observing increasingly vocal internet ‘chatter’ on Arab websites this year. The warning comes in the wake of the failed attempt by London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up an airliner approaching Detroit on Christmas Day. One security source said: ‘If the terrorists are talking about this, we need to be ready and do all we can to counter the threat.’"
"The world's first Swiss Army knife' has been revealed - made 1,800 years before its modern counterpart. An intricately designed Roman implement, which dates back to 200AD, it is made from silver but has an iron blade. It features a spoon, fork as well as a retractable spike, spatula and small tooth-pick. Experts believe the spike may have been used by the Romans to extract meat from snails. It is thought the spatula would have offered a means of poking cooking sauce out of narrow-necked bottles. The 3in x 6in (8cm x 15cm) knife was excavated from the Mediterranean area more than 20 years ago and was obtained by the museum in 1991. The unique item is among dozens of artefacts exhibited in a newly refurbished Greek and Roman antiquities gallery at the Fitzwilliam Museum, in Cambridge. Experts believe it may have been carried by a wealthy traveller, who will have had the item custom made. A spokesman said: 'This was probably made between AD 200 and AD 300, when the Roman empire was a great imperial power. 'We know almost nothing about the person who owned this ingenious knife, but perhaps he was one of those who profited from the vast expansion of Rome - he would have been wealthy to have such a real luxury item. 'Perhaps he was a traveller, who required a practical compound utensil like this on his journeys.' The spokesman added: 'While many less elaborate folding knives survive in bronze, this one's complexity and the fact that it is made of silver suggest it is a luxury item."
"Dollar stores have proliferated like algae on a pool of stagflation. The 50-year-old Family Dollar chain marked the opening of its 500th store in 1982. By 2004 there were 5,000 Family Dollar outlets throughout America. In a statement for an article published that year in the Baltimore Daily Record, Retail Forward called dollar stores the "hottest and highest growth sectors of retailing." Currently nearly 20,000 dollar stores of every variety dot the landscape. Just last week, the Family Dollar (which has grown by 1,665 outlets in the past six years) reported a 13 percent increase in its stock.
You can find almost any common household item in dollar stores: flimsy but colorful wrapping paper and Christmas decorations, novelty cosmetics and overstock cleaning agents, exotic knick-knacks and discontinued toys. Shoppers from all walks of life are drawn to these places: some to relax, some to stumble upon a bargain, others to cut a few strategic corners that will enable them to splash out on luxuries elsewhere. But a growing number of people shop at dollar stores because they can't afford to shop anywhere else -- and one of the things they really can't afford is food.
Food prices aren't uniformly cheaper in dollar stores; often the same items can be found elsewhere on sale for less. The quiddity of the dollar store is its promise of a single, low price. Psychologically, customers seem willing to accept that they will be overcharged occasionally in exchange for never being overcharged very much while at the same time snagging mostly bargains. Accessing these bargains doesn't require buying in bulk, waiting for a sale or, in some cases, traveling to the outskirts of the city or to suburbs where major supermarkets are often located.
There also exists a parallel universe of obscure brands created especially for the dollar discount market. Thus, many staples of the American menu can be obtained for half of their grocery store prices. Just $1.49 will put a generous 24-ounce-can of Hartford House beef stew on someone's dinner table. That's a dollar less than Dinty Moore, which is sold in 15-ounce portions. Macaroni and cheese, already priced by Kraft within reach of the dollar store shopper at $1.40 a box (or 10 for $1 each), can be had in a Parade brand version for the everyday low, low price of 89 cents.
As Ellen Ruppel Shell points out in her book, Cheap: The High Price of Discount Culture, "We pay less for these products than we would for their quality counterparts, but not so much less that we are getting a really good deal." The axiom that not everything priced at a dollar constitutes a deal goes double for an essential like food.
Consumers whose circumstances require them to eat for less save money when choosing dollar store items over premium brands, but they're often eating the same food in name only. While the second ingredient in Dinty Moore stew (after water) is "beef," the primary meat used in the Hartford House brand is "diced beef patty," a substance parenthetically described as a mixture of beef, water, soy protein concentrate, salt and caramel color. Likewise the festive-sounding Parade macaroni and cheese in its Kraft-lookalike blue packaging lists flour and salt in its cheese sauce before throwing back the curtain on milk products like whey.
Perhaps the most glaring example of adulterated merchandise comes in the form of a plastic bear. "Little Honey Bear Blend" is a product marketed by the ominously named Global Brands consisting of corn syrup flavored with the "finest imported pure honey" and available for only one dollar, "considerably less than national brands." Having tasted real honey, I can state with confidence that Little Honey Bear Blend tastes exactly like corn syrup tinged with a hint of honey. A child raised on nothing else would not have that frame of reference.
A great deal of dollar store foods promise high flavor but deliver few nutrients and even lack key ingredients. Private Label's Garlic Hot Sauce contains "spice extractives" (the last ingredient, before red #40) but doesn't indicate that any of these are garlic. Likewise Lindsay Gardens' Green Tea with Chai contains "chai flavor" and also black pepper, but no cardamom. Hawaiian Punch Freezer Bars feature a flavor called "Green Berry Rush" which true to its moniker is vividly green, but contains no berries of any sort.
Distributed foods and beverages hailing from unregulated countries abound in dollar stores. Royal Dansk Danish-style butter cookies for $1.29 are made in Indonesia and distributed by a company in Melville, New York. House Mill Honey Rings are produced in Argentina and distributed by outlets in Puerto Rico, Libya and Senegal. Pickles bottled in Turkey are marketed under the Italian name Forelli and distributed by Allied International Corporation, based in Virginia.
Food is one place where it is particularly painful to have to skimp. It's one thing to suffer nicks and cuts from a shoddy shaving razor and quite another to end up obese, malnourished or sick after prolonged dependence on poor quality food. Even generic brand vitamins from major drugstore chains come certified by the United States Pharmacopeia. Not so the Nature's Benefits "Complete Multi A to Z" vitamins I purchased for $1.39. Or what about Tai Chi Flue! Tea, which comes from somewhere in China. Was more care given to the quality of its ingredients than to the spelling of the word flu?"
One of the best sites I visit often is WhatReallyHappened hosted by Michael Rivero who lives in Hawaii. Lately, over the past couple of years, he's been passionate about the climate scam our overbearing overlords have been up to. There's no doubt earth's climate is changing, actually the entire solar system is going through a metamorphasis and vibrational energy is increasing everywhere, so you could say we're going through climate chaos. But claiming that what we're seeing is due to human activity and then trying to fool us into doing their bidding is an intense issue for Mr. Rivero, as it is for me. This is his comment that he posted today after one of his links about this topic:
"Remember when this was supposed to be about science? Now it's war on the heretics! I understand why. Never before in the history of modern civilization has a conspiracy by government, academia, and media, to mislead the public on such a huge scale been so undeniably obvious to all. The global warming cultists are going to fight this down to the very last man, because what they are fighting for is not the global warming agenda, and not even for the carbon tax and global government; but for the credibility of the government/academia/media complex. Government, lacking the military resources to enslave the population by force, operates like a religion, dependent on the unquestioning faith of the masses to lure them into doing as they are told, believing as they are told, and to continue pouring offerings in the form of taxes into those collection plates. Climategate represents the first real threat to the culture of blind faith on which the government relies. The congregation is on the verge of a crisis of faith, one which is allowed to progress threatens the blind faith in all the interlinked institutions of the fraud. Without that blind faith, that willingness in the people to do as they are told, believe as they are told, and to continue pouring offerings in the form of taxes into those collection plates, the government cannot continue to function. Hence, in a desperate effort to "revive the faith", we get Osama bin Laden recruited to revive the global warming scam under the theory that if you oppose the revealed dogma of Saint Al of the Gore you must be in league with the terrorists. Now we have the US military, the only military in the world to actually USE a nuclear weapon of mass destruction on another country, announcing that they too are worried about global warming. You don;t want to tell the guys with the machine guns they are fools or liars, do you? And now Ed Miliband steps in and perhaps inadvertently reveals that the debate about Anthropocentric Global Warming is no longer about the science, indeed may never have been, but is simply a war waged on us all by dictators intent on proving they can control what the rest of the world thinks."
Jeebus but I resonate with this sentiment. The fascists simply haveto have us take on faith that everything they say and do is of unimpeachable veracity. They have been lying to us for so long that the stagnant cesspool they've created is overwhelmingly poisonous and the activities of these psychopaths have become stunningly reptilian and murderous. They absolutely have to have us dismiss what our own eyes see and what we feel and think for ourselves. They absolutely have to have us believe what they tell us instead.
The entire structure of our now terminally sick and totally unsustainable society is based on this blind faith. Take money. How is it that the paper greenback is still used as a means of transaction when it's value is less than worthless to the tune of dozens, if not hundreds of trillions of dollars? Take 9/11. Absolutely everything the scumbags have done since that transparently fraudulent stage play is based on their ability to fool us into believing their lies. The mutual compact of a sane society was defenestrated a long time ago and the entire fabric of our existence now depends on the one way street of belief in these posturing criminal liars.
Machiavellian psychos are always several moves ahead of us in this chess game because they have to be. The most iomportant thing for them, to be able to get away with their perfidy, is to keep us believing their web of deceit so they're constantly thinking ahead about how to manipulate us successfully. Public relations and facades to hide true agendas positively consume them to the exclusion of all else, because once our doubt enters into the equation it will spread like cancer and destroy their whole rotten, fascist scam.
That's why 9/11 is treated as unimpeachable mythology. That's why Pat Tillman was eliminated. That's why government and religion are now one and the same. That's why they prefer secrecy. That's why money is sacred and our lives are being destroyed. That's why climatescam is so very, very crucial to them. That's the reason fear is their most important weapon.
"The US administration is speeding up deployment of defenses against potential Iranian missile attacks in the Gulf to heed off any possible retaliation, The New York Times reported Saturday. The move involves placing specialized ships off the Iranian coast and anti-missile systems in at least four Arab countries -- Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait -- the Times said, citing administration and military officials."
Funny wording there with that typo involved. Retaliation means to respond to something. One could read two things into it - responding to sanctions or an unprovoked attack. Since Iran has been more than patient in the face of unrelenting taunts, threats, outright terrorism and economic warfare from the ziofascists, one should be concerned the empire is about to go batshit insane.
"BEIJING (AP) — A moderate earthquake jolted southwestern China on Sunday, killing one person and injuring 12 others, officials said. More than 200 houses were damaged or destroyed. The quake struck at 5:37 a.m. in Sichuan province and registered a magnitude of 5.2, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It said the quake was centered at a depth of 11.6 miles. The Sichuan provincial seismological bureau said all of the casualties occurred in the town of Moxi, near the epicenter, with a population of about 30,000 people. Three people were seriously injured, the bureau said. It said the quake toppled 120 houses and damaged another 100."
In light of the all the anomalies and the probability that the Haiti earthquake was artificially generated, and also since relations with mainland China are going south by the hour, we should keep an eye on events like this.
Were these clouds evidence of atmospheric disturbance in the same region two years ago, above a quake that killed 80,000?
"It has been more than three years since charismatic pastor Ted Haggard left his megachurch in disgrace, mired in a scandal involving drug use and a male prostitute. But the woman who stood by him says now that the experience has brought them closer together than ever. “Our relationship is better than it’s ever been. Going over this mountain together has given me the marriage that I’ve always longed for,” Gayle Haggard told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Wednesday in New York."
"In 2006, the Haggards were an evangelical version of the American Dream. They had met as students at Oral Roberts University, fallen in love and gotten married. As they were starting their family of five children, they also started a church that first met in their Colorado Springs home. With Gayle directing the women’s ministries and Ted driving the growth of the congregation, the New Life Church grew to a 14,000-member congregation, and Ted became the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. His counsel was sought by President George W. Bush. And then, in November of that year, it all came crashing down. A homosexual prostitute, Mike Jones, angry at Haggard’s opposition to same-sex marriage, alleged that Haggard had been a client for several years and had also purchased methamphetamines from him."
These are self serving scum who from the very start of their predatory career wanted fame and fortune from their shameless church ventures. The most important thing for them when his cock and drug fetishes got press was how to manage the public relations and plan a comeback.
It's a great hustle, this jeebus fraud, preying on fearful, simple minded and trusting people, telling them what they want to hear and raking in the dough. If you're living high on the hog with your "ministry" and happen to get busted for wild sex/banned substances/money fraud, no need to worry. Forgiveness is easy enough to come by, it just takes a little time and effort because come on, wasn't Jeebus all about forgiveness? Even Jim Bakker, with rape allegations and convictions for fraud and years of prison time, rose from the dead to get a new TV ministry. All it takes for these parasites is to pour their hearts out about spiritual transformation and new beginnings and forgiveness and they're back in business.
"SACRAMENTO, CA -- A Paradise man claims he discovered a miracle in the produce section of his local grocery. In a letter to News10, Mike Zachweija said he went shopping to buy bananas a few days before Christmas. He glanced at a bunch of coconuts and noticed one that looked like it had a silhouette of a face on it. Impressed with the image Zachweija bought the coconut. On Christmas Day Zachweija said he decided to take some pictures of the coconut before the image faded away. In his letter he wrote: "As the first picture I took appeared on my small digital camera, I could hardly believe what I was looking at. The silhouette face now had some color and much more detail, with added Christmas sunlight. The face looked very much like that of Jesus." Zachweija said he's not an overly religious person but believes, "Jesus sent out his own Christmas card greeting by way of a simple coconut."
"Erasing David is a British documentary on big brother and privacy concerns. The basis of this documentary is filmmaker David Bond proposes a challenge to Cerberus, a private investigator company. He challenges two of their investigators to find him in thirty days. All they had to go on is David’s name. At the same time, David has to try to do things that will keep the investigators off his trial and escape big brother. Throughout the film, David is doing research before and during his experiment into past and present, ways of surveillance. David contacts companies he had dealings with like an online book store and his cell phone company to see what data they have on him. He had a privacy expert follow him throughout the course of a day to show what will end up in a database. During this experiment, he meets some men in Germany that had encounters with the stasi and they told him how the stasi worked. He also meets with a woman that was trying to get a job and during a background check and she was prevented from getting the job because someone with the same name as her had a criminal record. While David was traveling to meet with these people, the investigators from Cerberus were on his trial. They looked through his garbage, social networking page, and watching his cell phone usage. They used the website http://whereisdavid.co.uk/ to show their process and as a way to try to track David. They even followed and gathered information on David’s family. At one point in the documentary, David was having concerns in signing up his daughter in daycare. He went to a school where they used fingerprints to buy their lunches and even for computer use to log in to their lessons. He felt concerned what the data obtained might be used for in the future. How David was tracked down was a simple trick. After the experiment, David was invited to the investigator’s office and he was stunned at what he saw. On the wall was every piece of information that the investigators have dug up on him. The movie ends when his wife has given birth to a son. The baby’s information is being put in a database for his birth certificate. This is a must see documentary. It really opens your eyes on how you can be tracked and traced. It also shows that it is old methods such has looking through trash and getting information from others still works in the present."
"A long-awaited Department of Justice watchdog report that probed whether John Yoo and his former boss Jay Bybee violated professional standards when they provided the Bush White House with legal advice on torture has cleared both men of misconduct, according to Newsweek, citing unnamed sources who have seen the document."
"Even if inherited from the Bush administration, the Afghan night raids, the accompanying killings are now after a year in office, Obama's official policy."
"Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for "oral sex". Merriam Webster's 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the "sexually graphic" entry is "just not age appropriate", according to the area's local paper. The dictionary's online definition of the term is "oral stimulation of the genitals". "It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper."
I thought Clinton had shattered the stigma of the words penis and oral sex. Or was that blow job. No, maybe it was hummer. Knob slobber? Smart move, getting rid of dictionaries. After all, as George Carlin said "You can say prick your finger but not finger your prick."
"The trailer industry and lawmakers are pressing the government to send Haiti thousands of potentially formaldehyde-laced trailers left over from Hurricane Katrina — an idea denounced by some as a crass and self-serving attempt to dump inferior American products on the poor. “Just go ahead and sign their death certificate,” said Paul Nelson of Coden, Ala., who contends his mother died because of formaldehyde fumes in a FEMA trailer. The 100,000 trailers became a symbol of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s bungled response to Katrina. The government had bought the trailers to house victims of the 2005 storm, but after people began falling ill, high levels of formaldehyde, a chemical that is used in building materials and can cause breathing problems and perhaps cancer, were found inside. Many of the trailers have sat idle for years, and many are damaged." "The U.S. Agency for International Development, which is coordinating American assistance in Haiti, has expressed no interest in sending the trailers to the earthquake-stricken country. FEMA spokesman Clark Stevens declined to comment on the idea. Haitian Culture and Communications Minister Marie Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said Thursday she had not heard of the proposal but added: “I don’t think we would use them. I don’t think we would accept them.” For the recreational-vehicle and trailer industry, which lost thousands of jobs during the recession, the push to send the units to Haiti is motivated by more than charity. Bidding is under way in an online government-run auction to sell the trailers in large lots at bargain-basement prices — something the RV industry fears will reduce demand for new products. Some of the bids received so far work out to less than $500 for a trailer that would sell for about $20,000."
That's the old entrepreneurial spirit - dump death trailers on the earthquake victims to get them out of the country to protect your bottom line.
"Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday."
"The new audio tape from “Osama bin Laden” taking responsibility for the idiotic and childish incident in Detroit where moronic Nigerian armed with a useless “bomb” is simply too much. Now using audio tapes because, supposedly, nobody in Al Qaeda got a flash drive video recorder for Christmas is even more of a joke."
Answers a direct question about Palestinian human rights by gushing about US/Israeli ties. How's this for a statement: "The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries."
"PORTLAND, Ore. -- A police officer accidentally used pepper spray instead of a fire extinguisher on a man who set himself on fire Wednesday in downtown Portland, police said. The officer happened to be nearby when she saw the man go up in flames near Southwest 12th Avenue and Yamhill Street. She scrambled out of her patrol car and grabbed what she believed to be the extinguisher, according to Police Chief Rosie Sizer. It wasn't until after the incident that the officer realized she grabbed a large pepper spray canister used for crowd control, Sizer said."
If ever there was a facepalm moment. How are these people trained, anyway? The cops are claiming the pepper spray she used was is water based, but as the stories below tell it, it's possible this idiot might as well have squirted charcoal starter.
"Using a forensics dummy wearing a t-shirt and jeans, the CRT Consulting test team applied a 10 second cycle from a M26 TASER, while spraying the manequin with a 2-3 second burst of O.C. Of the 48 formulations tested, 12 were marked as “non flammable,” or “EDW Tested and Safe.” Of those 12, eight resulted in flames and ignition of the clothing, including the can marked “EDW Tested and Safe.”
"Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips likely assumed that scoring a dinner speech by the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate would guarantee a huge turnout for his National Tea Party Convention, scheduled to start Feb. 4 at Nashville's Gaylord Opryland Hotel. But according to Tea Party insiders, the tickets for the Palin banquet aren't selling—and some conservative activists who have already paid to attend are now demanding refunds. With the controversial event shaping up to be a potential flop, some Tea Partiers are urging Palin to cancel her speech to avoid a humiliating public relations disaster.
The problems began after news broke that Phillips intended to profit from the convention—which costs $549 a person for access to both the conference and Palin’s banquet, or $349 for a ticket to the dinner alone. With one prominent conservative blogger charging that the event seemed "scammy," several key sponsors yanked their support, including the National Precinct Alliance, the American Liberty Alliance, American Majority, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. As the rash of bad press continued, this week Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), announced that she’s considering pulling out as a convention speaker. And some Tea Party activists think Palin should join her. According to internal convention planning documents obtained by Mother Jones, Palin will be paid $115,000 to address the attendees—as they dine on steak or lobster. To some Tea Partiers, this lavish affair sounds suspiciously like an exclusive GOP fundraiser and a betrayal of their grassroots movement."
"She says that Phillips has been urged to give away remaining tickets to Palin’s speech to head off the embarrassment of having the former vice presidential candidate speaking to a half-empty room."
"According to NPR, “In 2003, a survey of female veterans found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans who were seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving. And a 1995 study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, found that 90 percent had been sexually harassed.” The BBC recently reported on The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq by Helen Benedict. This book examines the extreme difficulties female soldiers have in serving abroad. Benedict interviewed several women in the military to get a deeper understanding of the issue, and some of their stories were real eye openers. Army specialist Chantelle Henneberry spoke of some of her experiences in Iraq, “Everybody’s supposed to have a battle buddy in the army, and females are supposed to have one to go to the latrines with, or to the showers – that’s so you don’t get raped by one of the men on your own side.But because I was the only female there, I didn’t have a battle buddy. My battle buddy was my gun and my knife.” Another study concluded that 90% of all women serving are sexually harassed. Another one estimates that 90% of all the rapes do not get reported, despite supposedly easier ways to report the crime with confidentiality since 2005. Either way, this appears to be an epidemic that needs to be dealt with."
Now that the US backed coup in Honduras is complete, the empire scored two new outposts that will be used in the future against ALBA, or the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America. The other, of course, being the occupation of Haiti. You can also lump in the Southern Command's FOLs (Forward Operating Locations) on the Dutch islands off the Venezuelan coast into the mix and it's been a pretty good stretch for the fascists, and you just know they're not done yet.
Empire disdains the old way of doing things, so twentieth century. The new way is filled with PR as a giant fig leaf to cover their real intentions. In Honduras rich, right wing rancher Porfirio Lobo was sworn in as the replacement for Manuel Zelaya who was removed from office last summer, after a phony election in November which saw two thirds of registered voters boycotting the scam. Zelaya had hinted at straying from following Washington's dictates, so out he went. Immediately the coup plotters went quietly about the business of returning Honduras to the empire's preferred status of dictator-run-banana-republic, with death squads and state terror. With their boy Lobo in power, the fascists' drug operations out of the Palmerola air base are secure once again, because ousted Zelaya had threatened to turn the base into a civilian airport with, gasp, Venezuelan money.
By any logical definition the immediate takeover of Haiti by the US military is an invasion and occupation, but it's called a "humanitarian relief operation". Isn't it a strikingly odd coincidence that empire always picks the most impoverished nations take over? No, I take that back, it's not odd at all. It's sort of like cops that are out fishing on the highway always stopping blacks and latinos and old beaters - easier marks and less trouble. The two poorest countries in the western hemisphere? Haiti is number one and Honduras is number two.
The earthquake's damage is the justification for sending in the marines, but have you ever seen such a massive military response to a disaster? Up to this point 20,000 military personnel. The whole thing reeks, actually. Too many important questions not to think the quake was a conveniently manufactured event as cover for the takeover. Why wasn't an earthquake this strong felt over a wider area? Not a tremor in the Dominican Republic - the other half of the island. Why no tsunami? And how convenient was it that SOUtHCOM just happened to be holding an exercise in Miami at the same time~ about a disaster in Haiti ~ and just decided to go live with it? Deputy Southern Command General PK Keen was even in Haiti when the quake struck, what timing!
"Drug companies manipulated the World Health Organisation into downgrading its definition of a pandemic so they could cash in on a swine flu outbreak, it is claimed. An inquiry heard yesterday that the WHO allegedly softened its criteria for declaring a H1N1 flu pandemic last spring - just weeks before announcing there was a worldwide outbreak. Critics said the decision was driven by pharmaceutical companies desperate to recoup the billions of pounds they had invested in researching and developing pandemic vaccines after the bird flu scares in 2006 and 2007. As a result, millions of people have been vaccinated against a mild illness, and money that could have been used to prevent and treat major killers such as heart disease has been squandered." "Following the organisation's declaration of a pandemic, the Department of Health warned of 65,000 deaths, set up a special advice line and website, and suspended normal rules so anti-flu drugs could be given without prescription. But with just 250 or so deaths in Britain and 14,000 worldwide, the WHO is being asked to account for its actions."
"Pakistan's beleaguered President Asif Ali Zardari, who is facing fresh challenges since the Supreme Court scrapped a graft amnesty that benefited him, has sacrificed hundreds of black goats to ward off the "evil eye" since he moved into the presidency in 2008. A black goat is slaughtered almost daily to ward off the "evil eye" and protect Zardari from "black magic", the Dawn newspaper reported on Wednesday. The President also reportedly uses only camel and goat milk due to superstitions, the report said. However, presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar brushed aside suggestions that Zardari is a superstitious man." "The Dawn reported that hundreds of black goats had been sacrificed since Zardari moved into the presidency in September 2008. Zardari's trusted personal servant, Bai Khan, buys the goats from Saidpur, a village in the heart of Islamabad. The animal is touched by Zardari before it is sent to his private house in Sector F-8/2 in the city to be sacrificed. When Zardari moved into the presidency in September 2008, he was shown on state-run TV touching several black goats before they were led away by a member of his staff. There are also reports that when Zardari moved into the President's House, a flock of black partridges were introduced there for their supposedly magical effects. However, the whole flock was electrocuted when a live wire fell on its cage."
"Of each U.S. taxpayer dollar, 40 cents is going to the U.S. military, paying for security, search and rescue teams, and the Navy's hospital ship USNS Comfort. Another 36 cents funds US AID's disaster assistance - everything from $5,000 generators to $35 hygiene kits with soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste for a family of five.Just over a dime has already been spent on food: 122 million pounds of pinto beans, black beans, rice, corn soy blend and vegetable oil. When purchased in bulk, the actual food prices are relatively low. Pinto beans, for example, cost the U.S. government 40 cents a pound when purchased in 5 million-pound batches last week.Getting the food to Haitians - paying for freighters, trucks and distribution centers, and the people to staff them, took another 10.5 cents from each dollar." "One penny of each dollar is going straight to the shattered Haitian government."
About five years ago the US was flooded by imports of a sixty year old communist block pistol called the CZ 52, or vz 52. In the early 1950s somewhere around 200,000 of them were manufactured for the Czechoslovakian military to replace an underpowered pistol that proved unsatisfactory for them. For some reason, for a time, the CZ 52 was imported by the tens of thousands and was being sold all over the internet.
Foreign military surplus weapons find a welcome home in the states with shooters and collectors. Generally they're inexpensive and sort of looked down on by "serious" shooters and thought of as inferior, ancient technology, not even close to modern whiz bang, and much more expensive, Glocks and Berettas and Kimbers. Milsurps, as gun culture calls military surplus, wind up as curios at gun shows and sit in gun safes to be taken out every now and then to be shot or maybe inspected and cleaned. Certainly, as it's been said, you'd be nuts to carry an old reject as a concealed weapon. Inexpensive rifles have been dandy for a cheap way to get into hunting deer, but that's another story. There are things about the old CZ 52 pistol that made it the most fantastic gun bargain ever.
First a little background. American shooters have always preferred big bore handguns. The standards in the 1800s were the .44s and 45s. One of the first revolvers ever made was the Colt Walker, a five pound monster made in 1847 that except for some uncommon specialties was the most powerful handgun in existence for almost 100 years, until the advent of the .357 magnum in the 1930s. American military chose the .45 caliber 1911 as the standard issue firearm. Big bores were where it was at, son, and smaller handguns just didn't cut the mustard. When the american services switched to 9 mm from the .45 in the 1980s to conform to NATO standards, you would have thought the world came to a halt. In gun circles the 1911 has achieved mythic status, there's a nostalgia factor involved here and .45 caliber is always touted as america's favorite, etc etc.
Here's where it gets interesting. Certainly a big bullet means a big destructive hole but it comes at a price. Large projectiles physically move at slower speeds which mean less penetration. There are some ways around this with modern technology, and police/military ammo take advantage of it, but in general .45 rounds make a big initial splash but don't travel very far in medium. This was probably why american military forces chose a much smaller and much faster rifle caliber, the .223, for the M16 and clones as standard issue. So this country's military and by extension the gun culture, for whatever reason, decided on big and slow for handguns and small and fast for long guns.
Back to the CZ 52. It's cartridge is the 7.62x25, a bottleneck .30 caliber, which means the casing diameter expands behind the bullet to hold a lot of gunpowder.
This is a very powerful round of ammunition. It was developed for sheer penetration in the old Soviet empire because, well, it's freaking cold in those countries and soldiers wear a lot of clothing. It's .30 caliber bullet can exit the CZ 52 and other pistols at over 1700 feet per second, a smoking fast velocity. Terminal energy can exceed the vaunted .357 magnum. But with the big bore fixation in the US a relatively small caliber handgun round like this was poo pooed as inferior to the mighty .45 and others. Add the fact that guns chambered for this round are all supposedly obsolete foreign commie pieces of trash compared to superior american steel and this caliber along with it's platforms was considerably overlooked. Nobody bought them.
Which meant the CZ 52 sold for dirt cheap. I bought mine on the intertubes for the grand total of $119, plus shipping. Ammo was, and actually still is, extremely inexpensive, especially now with other handgun calibers going for 3 to 4 times the cost.
One of the best things I ever did, because all of a sudden in the last couple of years people have seen the light about smaller handgun calibers. Not only is ammo, on average, cheaper for smaller, but you can stuff magazines chockablock with cartridges. FN has it's five-seven, which holds 20 speedy little cartridges. Later this year Kel-Tec is going to offer a pistol that holds 30 rounds of .22 magnum in the magazine. Technology advanced for all calibers and suddenly that big bore fetish isn't the only game in town. Approval of this new direction is growing, and of course it's gonna cost.
But there's one inescapable reason that small, speedy and immensely destructive bullets have boomed in popularity. They defeat body armor. I once had a cop neighbor who was a good friend that I went shooting with down in the cop shop basement range. He allowed me to know that police are more than a little concerned about this.
my cold, commie steal
Smaller bullets can penetrate a vest's fibers, and of course the faster one goes the more apt it will be to do so. Just for the record any 7.62x25 round will whistle through a type 2 vest like a hot knife through butter and may defeat a type 3a. With easily available surplus steel core armor piercing rounds, forget it.
Availability of the CZ 52 is limited now. Apparently dealers can't bring any nore lots into the country for sale and prices are reflective of that fact. Russian TT 30s which shoot the same ammo are still around and are a good buy for around $200, but personally I think the CZ is a much better gun. You can get 7.62x25 ammunition for $130 a can with over 1200 rounds in it but that's sure to jump soon. I enjoy shooting, and I really have a blast, pun intended, with this bargain hand cannon that's older than I am.
"When al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called off a planned chemical attack on New York's subway system in 2003, he offered a chilling explanation: The plot to unleash poison gas on New Yorkers was being dropped for "something better," Zawahiri said in a message intercepted by U.S. eavesdroppers. The meaning of Zawahiri's cryptic threat remains unclear more than six years later, but a new report warns that al-Qaeda has not abandoned its goal of attacking the United States with a chemical, biological or even nuclear weapon."
Apparently they believe enough dullards actually buy this garbage, or they're just following orders like good media whores, or they simply live in a bubble and need to churn this stuff out every now and then. Sort of like "man bites dog" staple.
"Al Qaeda" has always been a CIA front. Sure, it exists, but not how we're lied to about it.
It's a small group of spooks pulling off false flag attacks and directing patsies to pose as this big bad, omnipresent threat that serves as the excuse for endless war abroad and a police state at home.
"Chances of earth being detected by alien life forms are disappearing because of the digital revolution, a leading space scientist has claimed. Dr Frank Drake said the phasing out of analogue transmissions from television, radio and radar was making our planet electronically invisible from outer space. While old style signals used to spread out millions of miles into outer space, even reaching some distant stars, digital transmissions are much weaker and therefore are less easy to detect by extra-terrestrial life forms. Scientists on earth are constantly monitoring the heavens for any sign of transmissions from other planets and it is assumed other life forms out there will be doing the same. But Dr Drake, who founded the US based organisation Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), 50-years ago, said the phasing out of analogue transmissions was making this virtually impossible. He said the earth used to be surrounded by a 50 light year wide shell of radiation, with old-style television transmissions generating around one million watts. But he said with satellites aiming much of their transmissions towards earth now virtually no radiation was escaping into outer space."
"The Republican Party is seeking input and money from GOP voters - seemingly under the guise of the U.S. Census Bureau. "Strengthening our Party for the 2010 elections is going to take a massive grass-roots effort all across America. That is why I have authorized a Census to be conducted of every Congressional District in the country," GOP Chairman Michael Steele says in a letter mailed nationwide. The letter was sent in plain white envelopes marked "Do Not Destroy, Official Document." Labeled "2010 Congressional District Census," the letter uses a capital "C," the same as the Census Bureau. It also includes a "Census Tracking Code." The letter makes a plea for money and accompanies a form asking voters to identify their political leanings and issues important to them. There are no disclaimers that participation in the GOP effort is voluntary; participation in the government census is required by law. Failure to participate carries a $5,000 fine, though it is rarely enforced. Sara Sendek, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman, said the letter was not an attempt to mislead voters."
"EVERYTHING YOU need to know about the U.S. aid effort to assist Haiti in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake can be summed up by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s touchdown in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, January 16: they shut down the airport for three hours surrounding her arrival for “security” reasons, which meant that no aid flights could come in during those critical hours. If there was one day when the Haitian people needed aid to flow all day long, that was the day, because the people trapped under the rubble on Tuesday evening couldn’t survive much beyond Saturday without water. Defenders of Clinton will say that her disimpassioned, monotone, photo-op speech was needed to draw attention to the plight of the Haitians. But no one north of hell can defend her next move: according to airport personnel that I spoke to during my recent evacuation from Haiti, she paralyzed the airport later that same day to have a new outfit flown in from the Dominican Republic."
"The day I left via Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport, I saw lots of crates of food, water and medical supplies piled on the tarmac. But I didn’t see that aid being transported out of the airport to actually get to Haitians. Undoubtedly, there has been some aid distributed, but because there was no serious effort to disperse that aid in the first four days after the quake, tens of thousands of people trapped under rubble have died needlessly because they couldn’t get a sip of water. The Geneva-based organization Doctors Without Borders has been turned away from the airport numerous times to allow U.S. troops to land. A ring of U.S. warships surrounds Haiti to make sure that Haitians don’t escape the disaster and try to get to the United States. The U.S. has taken control of Haiti’s main airport and seaport, and is in the process of deploying 18,000 U.S. troops to bolster the 9,000 UN troops already occupying the island nation–and as an eyewitness, I can tell you those troops are guarding their own compounds rather than distributing aid."
"Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, armies of corporate lobbyists grease the palms of our elected officials, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia, and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, this product is duping us into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.
What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent, or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to re-inflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next fifteen to twenty years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, increasing the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan, which have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws and restore habeas corpus."
"Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads, and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National Advertisers' annual conference in October. The Obama campaign was named Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand Obama is a marketer's dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the advertisers want because of how they can make you feel."
"While the deployment of 10000 US troops in Haiti has been qualified by a number of Latin American political leaders as an invasion and occupation under the guise of a humanitarian relief operation, the arrival of the USS Bataan in Haiti raises even more questions.
Over recent years, this amphibious assault ship has been converted into a floating secret prison, forming part of the CIA network of "black sites" used for so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques". The ship’s flat hold bottom, designed to accommodate troops for disembarkment, has been equipped with cages. Prisoners are subjected to the same experiments as in Guantánamo.
Having denied it for a long time, the Pentagon eventually acknowledged that the USS Bataan had in fact been used as a prison in December 2001, but that it recovered its normal functions as of January 2002, an allegation which is contested by numerous specialists who claim that it continued to operate as a prison off shore. It appears highly unlikely that the prisoners were taken to another location after the earthquake and that the ship was overhauled to allow for the transportation of troops."
"The U.S. Navy is rushing relief supplies to Haiti and providing medical assistance for quake victims on board its ships. They are also also transporting vital help from Operation Blessing. As the men of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit went ashore in Haiti to assist with relief and recovery, the sailors on the USS Bataan have stayed busy keeping the pipeline of aid flowing into the country."
"The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees. Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained. Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners. The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped. It is the use of ships to detain prisoners, however, that is raising fresh concern and demands for inquiries in Britain and the US. According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed. Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans." "The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo." Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights. "By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them."
"I know there are a lot of people out there who are upset about some of the things I've been saying on my radio program lately. My comments about the situation in Haiti have hurt and angered many Americans who genuinely care about the plight of the Haitian people, and that hurt and anger will likely never go away. Many of you are probably wondering, "What would compel a human being to say things like that?" Well, here's your answer: I am a very bad person. And, to tell you the truth, I don't really want to be alive anymore. Try to look at it from my point of view. I have no reason to live. In my 59 years, I've made millions of dollars, built a veritable media empire, and accomplished virtually everything that a man of my limited imagination and worldview could possibly accomplish. And yet, at this point, in no way could you refer to what I'm doing as "living," exactly. I just sort of exist. I derive no real pleasure from life. Oh, sure, I talk a big game about what a golf nut I am and how much I enjoy the taste of a fine cigar, but it's all horseshit. Complete and utter horseshit. I don't enjoy that stuff. I don't enjoy anything. I don't even want to be here. The sadness and regret I feel every waking hour of my life is absolutely unbearable. I am a miserable pig and I do not want to exist. The irony is that, even if I did die, the hell I would surely be sent to could not possibly be any worse than the bottomless pool of excrement I already paddle around in like some demented, shit-covered walrus. In fact, every time I hear my voice coming through the headphones I nearly gag, and I think, "What the fuck am I doing?" Why would I say that Michael J. Fox is faking his Parkinson's symptoms? Why would I find it funny to play a song called "Barack the Magic Negro"? Why would I tell people not to give aid to Haiti? What the fuck is wrong with me? I live in constant terror and that terror informs my every word, thought, and action. See, the thing is, I honestly cannot control the bilious hatred and filth that oozes out of my mouth. I want to—believe me, I want to—but I can't. And every time I speak, a tiny voice inside my head is screaming, "Stop talking, you stupid, insensitive prick. JUST STOP FUCKING TALKING. All you do is spread hate and fear, and the world would be a better place without you, you worthless, amoral, cocksucking fuckface."
"Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the use and sale of a new weapon that simulates a feeling of being shot in those targeted. The cannon called "the Thunder Generator" has been produced by the Netanya-based technology development advisory firm, ArmyTec company, and is capable of creating shockwaves that pass through people. The feeling of "being hit" produced by the stun gun is said to be similar to that of standing in front of a firing squad.
The weapon uses a mixture of liquefied petroleum, cooking gas and air which traveling through the cannon barrel detonates and intensifies until it exits. The process generates a succession of 60 to 100 high-velocity shock bursts per minute, each traveling at about 2,000 meters per second and lasting up to 300 milliseconds, according to a report by Defense News website, citing company data. "That's more than enough for hours of continuous operation," said ArmyTec President Shlomo Tabak, a former Israeli military special operations officer, describing the new device as "controlled and safe." Experts, however, say the Thunder Generator could be lethal or inflict permanent damage if fired at less than 10 meters."
They see them everywhere because they need them. It justifies everything they do. And then people die.
The myth of Haiti's lawless streets - To withhold aid because of the 'security situation' is a miserable excuse for agencies' failure to deliver desperately needed help
"As a member of the media covering the tragedy in Haiti, it's with a sense of alarm and astonishment that I've witnessed how some senior aid officials have argued for withholding aid of the utmost urgency because of sensational claims about violence and insecurity, which appear to be based more on fantasy than reality. John O'Shea, who runs the well-known Irish aid agency Goal, has joined this chorus, telling the Guardian he couldn't get his trucks from the Dominican Republic to Haiti because he had no guarantees his drivers wouldn't be "macheted to death on the way down". He added that Goal has no plans to deploy its much-needed doctors and nurses on the streets of Port-au-Prince. From what I've observed, such chilling claims do not match the reality on the ground; and by trumpeting a distorted and sensational picture about the violence, some senior aid officials may be culpable of undermining the very aid effort they are supposed to be promoting. When I traveled into Haiti's disaster zone last week from the Dominican Republic, I did so alone and on a bus, whose passengers were mostly Haitians, including some living in the US. Since then, whether on the road to Port-au-Prince or within the city, I have not witnessed anyone wielding a gun, a machete or a club of any kind. Nor have I witnessed an act of violence. (I have seen one badly wounded man who had been shot in circumstances which were unclear and who was eventually rescued by US soldiers after an American reporter sought help.) Any violence is localised and sporadic; the situation is desperate yet not dangerous in general. Crucially, it's not a war zone; it's a disaster zone – and there appears to have been little attempt to distinguish carefully between destructive acts of criminality and the behaviour of starving people helping themselves to what they can forage. For Haitians and many of those trying to help them, the overriding sentiment is that a massive catastrophe on this scale shouldn't have to wait for aid because blanket security is the absolute priority."
"Kenneth Howe of Worcester, Massachusetts was beaten to death by police last November 25. This is the official conclusion by the Essex County Medical Examiner, who ruled that the official cause of death was “blunt impact of the head and torso with compression of the chest.” It is profoundly doubtful that the killing of the 45-year-old Howe– carried out by a swarm of 10-20 tax-feeders at a “sobriety checkpoint” — will be prosecuted as a criminal offense of any kind, let alone murder. “The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner uses the term homicide to mean a death at the hands of another,” explained the M.E.’s attorney, Jacqueline Faherty. “A medical examiner does not offer an opinion regarding criminal wrongdoing or civil liability.” In keeping with routine procedure in any case involving the death of a helpless Mundane at the hands of the Bullies in Blue, the Medical Examiner eagerly described the victim’s cardiovascular disease as a “contributory factor” in the death. Curiously, “contributory factors” of that kind aren’t taken into account when someone is fatally beaten or otherwise subjected to lethal violence by a gang of bullies not carrying the insignia of state “authority.” Often, when someone dies at the hands of an assailant or assailants whose violence is sanctified by the state, we are supposed to believe that the victim wasn’t killed by the police — he just happened to die in their custody. Thus victims of lethal Taser strikes succumbed to “excited delirium,” rather than being murdered by electro-shock torture. The assailants similarly seek to exculpate themselves when an innocent person suffering from heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, or other medical problems is beaten or suffocated to death by a police mob. By way of contrast, when violent deaths of that kind are inflicted by commonplace criminals, the victim’s health problems — if they are mentioned at all — are taken as evidence of the exceptional viciousness of the crime. The tacit assumption here is that police are entitled to kill anyone at any time who displays anything other than immediate, complete, unconditional submission."
The fascist mentality that was fostered after 9/11 was put into place where people traveled - roadblocks, airports, to condition the proles to meekly accept being pushed around. It was a conscious decision in giving free rein to goons and thugs to harass, humiliate and bully people just going about their business because they want to condition the populace to accept loss of freedom and dignity. In the vast majority of instances like this the only thing victims are guilty of is refusing to immediately capitulate to being a groveling supplicant when faced with swaggering trash.
"Turkish police have detained 120 people suspected of ties to the Al-Qaeda terror network, according to news reports. The state-run Anatolia news agency, quoting unnamed officials, says the suspects were detained in simultaneous raids in 16 provinces. Private NTV television said at least 120 people were taken away for questioning. Anatolia says those detained include a university faculty member in the eastern city of Van, suspected of recruiting students and other people and of sending them to Afghanistan for training. Homegrown Islamic militants tied to the al-Qaeda carried out suicide bombings in Istanbul, killing 58 people in 2003. However, al-Qaeda's austere and violent interpretation of Islam receives little public backing in Turkey."
"Erdogan said, "we will not bow to this dirty games, dirty relations, these illegal attempt", in a first response from the govt over new alleged coup plot"
Looks like Turkey is permanently separated from the US/Israel/Brit axis of weasels. This is actually the second coup attempt against Turkey's prime minister Erdogan, with the first one also engineered by the usual supects.
All muslim nations who fail to prostrate before the axis are targeted for chaos and destruction. The despots in Arab countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia who sold their souls to the weasels think their pact with the devil will save them while Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Iran topple like dominos. They think they'll be safe from empire's rampage as long as they step on any restlessness in the teeming multitudes. Little do they realize they're penciled in for later.
Our betters exert their exclusive, entitled imperium wherever they go, whatever they do, from disaster relief to occupying conquered lands to just going on a trip. Must be hard to live amongst the wogs.
"It is a tale of two cities. One has ice-cold beers, internet access, thousands of men and billions of dollars’ worth of gleaming machinery, together with piles of food, blankets, generators and other aid relief from around the globe. This is the heavily fortified US-controlled Port-au-Prince airport and neighbouring United Nations compound. The other is the devastated city of Port-au-Prince, where the stench of death fills the air and starving people are in utter despair, still in need of the basic necessities of food, water, shelter and medical care. Never, in more than 20 years of covering disasters, has the void between the might and power of the Westernised world and the penniless and pitiful people they have been mobilised to ‘save’ been so glaringly obvious to me."
"UNLIKE ALMOST ANYWHERE else in Baghdad, you could dine at the cafeteria in the Republican Palace for six months and never eat hummus, flatbread, or a lamb kebab. The fare was always American, often with a Southern flavor. A buffet featured grits, cornbread, and a bottomless barrel of pork: sausage for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch, pork chops for dinner. There were bacon cheeseburgers, grilled cheese-and-bacon sandwiches, and bacon omelets. Hundreds of Iraqi secretaries and translators who worked for the occupation authority had to eat in the dining hall. Most of them were Muslims, and many were offended by the presence of pork. But the American contractors running the kitchen kept serving it. The cafeteria was all about meeting American needs for high-calorie, high-fat comfort food."
"The Green Zone quickly became Baghdad's "Little America." Everyone who worked in the palace lived there, either in white metal trailers or in the towering al-Rasheed. Hundreds of private contractors working for firms including Bechtel, General Electric, and Halliburton set up trailer parks there, as did legions of private security guards hired to protect the contractors. The only Iraqis allowed inside the Green Zone were those who worked for the Americans or those who could prove that they had lived there before the war."
Don't forget Bush's posse whenever he stepped foot outside Washington. Obama probably has the same army accompanying him. And like his medieval predecessors he has his food tasters.
"In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area. “It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything,” said a letter from alleged Philadelphian Ellie Light, that was published in the Jan. 19 edition of The Philadelphia Daily News. A letter from Light in the Jan. 20 edition of the San Francisco Examiner concluded with an identical sentence, but with an address for Light all the way across the country in Daly City, California. Variations of Light’s letter ran in Ohio’s Mansfield News Journal on Jan. 13, with Light claiming an address in Mansfield; in New Mexico’s Ruidoso News on Jan. 12, claiming an address in Three Rivers; in South Carolina’s The Sun News on Jan. 18, claiming an address in Myrtle Beach; and in the Daily News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on Jan. 15, claiming an address in Waynesboro. Her publications list includes other papers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and California, all claiming separate addresses."
Earth becoming invisible to aliens 
