Ron Paul: I hear members of Congress saying “if we could only nuke Iran”

Congressman Ron Paul has warned millions of radio listeners that the US is heading into a deadly confrontation with Iran, revealing his disbelief at members of Congress who have openly voiced support for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the country.

“If we do (attack) it is going to be a disaster,” the Congressman told the Alex Jones show this Thursday.

“I was astounded to see on one of the networks the other day that the debate was not are we going to attack? but are we going to attack before or after the election?” Paul continued.

The Congressman recently voiced his concern over House Congressional Resolution 362 which he has dubbed a ‘Virtual Iran War Resolution’.

“If that comes up it is demanding that the President put on an absolute blockade of the entire country of Iran, and punish any country or any business group around the world if they trade with Iran.” Paul told listeners.

Experts have predicted gas will rise to $6 per gallon if the resolution passes, Paul believes that may happen anyway just by anticipation.

“The frightening thing is they say they are taking no options off the table, even nuclear first strike.” The Congressman stated.

Paul believes from talking with his contacts in and around Congress that a strike on Iran has already been green lighted.

“That is my sense because the Democratic leadership in the House are proposing no resistance whatsoever, we saw this when a supplemental bill came up and the President asked for $107 billion for the war, the Democrat leadership gave them $162 billion.

It is still totally bewildering to me when I see men and women in the Congress that I know and like doing this just to get along. Most of them will say “I agree with you on all you say but the Iranians are bad people and they might attack us some day… I hear members of Congress saying ‘if we could only nuke them’.”

Ron Paul also spoke in detail about his new Campaign For Liberty Group and his views on the upcoming election.

Listen to the full interview below.

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, July 4, 2008

Source: Infowars

So who are the real terrorists?
Those people want to do exactly, what they say that they are afraid of Iran could do to them.
And they blame Iran to belong to the axis of evil. So who is really evil then?
They have a mindset like Hitler.
The inmates have taken over the asylum.
– The Infinite Unknown

US: Total Crash of the Entire Financial System Expected, Say Experts

Investors are fleeing from the U.S. stock market, Sending the Dow to Worst June Since Depression, looking for places to secure their wealth.

There is an unprecedented cash flow of ‘hot money’, which is usually defined as short-term global speculative funds moving among financial markets in search of the highest short-term return, moving into China:
Is China flooded with ‘hot money’ because of an expected meltdown in the U.S.?

Let’s further examine the prospects that we would experience a total crash of the entire financial system:

Fortis Bank Predicts US Financial Market Meltdown Within Weeks

We have seen the Dow suffering it’s worst 1st half since ‘70 accompanied by a lot of bad news for the economy like:
US: Big Trouble for General Motors, Crysler and Ford
America’s Aviation System About To Collapse
Starbucks to cut as many as 12,000 positions
And now the corporations are cheating you at the supermarkets: America’s Shrinking Groceries

The Dollar is being destroyed by the Federal Reserve, which has created in the last three years 4 Trillion Dollars of new money out of thin air: Ron Paul on Iran and Energy June 26, 2008

Ron Paul is further warning that: This coming crisis is bigger than the world has ever experienced
and that: We are at the beginning of a huge Dollar bubble.

The US Federal Reserve intentionally created inflation and that is why its credibility has fallen “below zero” and that is why Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve’s credibility crumbles.

More dire warnings:
RBS issues global stock and credit crash alert
Morgan Stanley warns of ‘catastrophic event’ as ECB fights Federal Reserve
Central bank body warns of Great Depression
Credit crisis expands, hitting all kinds of consumer loans
How Low Can The Dollar Go? Zero Value

Investors like Jim Rogers are telling us to “Avoid The Dollar At All Costs” and have told us that the Federal Reserve will fail and that Bernanke should be fired (alhough that isn’t possible because of his contract), because he has created the worst recession in the end and thats why he said: “Abolish the FED” on CNBC 2008.03.12.

The Fed is only doing good for the big corporations on Wall Street. If you would continuously come close to bankruptcy, because you have irresponsibly wasted your money, who will continuously give you billions of Dollars and bail you out, because you might fail? So I agree totally with Marc Faber: ‘Misleading’ Fed Should Let Banks Fail.

Well those corporations are said to be to “Big to Fail”, but they eventually will fail, because the entire system will fail and the Dollar is being destroyed in the process and so the people will end up with nothing, because their life savings are worthless paper. You are already paying the price for this policy, but maybe you haven’t looked at it that way:
The Price Of Food: 2007 – 2008
What inflation really is, is a taxation on monetary assets. And guess who is paying for all of that?

I just love this video. A must see:
The Stock Market and the Monetary System are on the verge of collapse!

Read moreUS: Total Crash of the Entire Financial System Expected, Say Experts

Weight Loss from Coconut Oil

American farmers attempted to plump up their cattle by feeding them coconut oil. Instead of gaining weight, their cows lost weight!

This is because:

1. The long-chain fats nearly always go to fat storage, while the MCFAs (medium chain fatty acids) are burned for energy… which is why you feel great after eating this coconut super food.

2. Coconut oil helps to stimulate the metabolism, so you burn more calories each day, which helps with weight loss and energy levels.

Source: Natural News

Coconut Oil Against HIV & Aids

Scientists in the Philippines researched the effects of coconut oil and lauric acid on patients with the HIV virus that causes Aids.

The results were amazing. Most of the Aids patients showed a dramatic drop in the HIV virus count, in some cases to “undetectable” levels.

While there needs to be a lot more research, there is certainly evidence to suggest that people with this virus would benefit from having a diet rich in coconut.

Coconut oil, like human breast milk, is rich in lauric acid, which boosts immunity and destroys harmful bacteria and viruses. In fact, coconut oil is one of the closest foods on the planet to breast milk.

Lipid researcher Dr. Jon Kabara says “Never before in the history of man is it so important to emphasize the value of Lauric Oils.”

Full article here: Natural News

Is China flooded with ‘hot money’ because of an expected meltdown in the U.S.?

Related articles and videos:
Ron Paul: This coming crisis is bigger than the world has ever experienced
Dow suffers worst 1st half since ‘70
Fortis Bank Predicts US Financial Market Meltdown Within Weeks
Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve’s credibility crumbles
Jim Rogers: Avoid The Dollar At All Costs
Ron Paul on Iran and Energy June 26, 2008
Marc Faber: ‘Misleading’ Fed Should Let Banks Fail

BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) — China has taken a series of increasingly aggressive measures in the past several months to blunt the impact of so-called “hot money,” amid the explosive growth of its foreign exchange reserves, which have soared beyond what can be explained by trade and investment flows.

The inflows have been so massive as to raise alarms over the country’s financial security.

According to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), as of the end of May, forex reserves stood at 1.797 trillion U.S. dollars.

During the first five months of 2008, forex reserves increased by 18.7 percent year-on-year, or 268.7 billion U.S. dollars, SAFE figures showed.

Where is all that money coming from, and where is it going?

HOW MUCH IS “HOT MONEY”?

What caught the attention of analysts was that forex reserves jumped at the same time as the current-account surplus and foreign direct investment (FDI) into the fixed-asset field declined year-on-year.

Set against the increased forex reserves in the first five months of this year, there was the 78.02 billion U.S. dollars represented by the trade surplus, which was down 8.6 percent year-on-year.

Another 42.78 billion U.S. dollars was connected with FDI in the first five months, which soared nearly 55 percent year-on-year. But FDI going into fixed assets (longer-term investment), actually fell 3.5 percent in the same period.

Jiang Zheng, a macro-economist at a Beijing-based securities firm, has closely tracked these figures and analyzed the data.

Deducting the trade surplus and the FDI, there was an unexplained 147.9 billion U.S. dollars in the forex reserve increase figure, which Jiang and numerous other analysts consider to be “hot money”, which is usually defined as short-term global speculative funds moving among financial markets in search of the highest short-term return.

The government doesn’t release official figures on this category of funds; in fact, it doesn’t even use the term “hot money”. So analysts can only make estimates.

Jiang said the “hot money” figures deduced by analysts might even be underestimates. “There is a tricky decline among the FDI figures, i.e. the drop of fixed-asset investment,” he explained.

“Foreign direct investment in the first five months soared about 55 percent. But strangely, fixed-asset FDI in the first five months fell 3.5 percent from last year’s figure,” Jiang said.

Jiang said it appeared that some speculative money had managed to move into China in the guise of FDI.

But there are many other channels for “hot money” to flow into China. These include falsified international trade with over-invoiced exports and underground private banks, according to Jiang.

Jiang and other analysts maintained that as much as 600 billion U.S. dollars in “hot money” had surged into the country, most of it after 2005.

Read moreIs China flooded with ‘hot money’ because of an expected meltdown in the U.S.?

Youtube to hand over all user histories and IP addresses!

Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users’ names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google’s liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

Viacom filed suit against Google in March 2007, seeking more than $1 billion in damages for allowing users to upload clips of Viacom’s copyright material. Google argues that the law provides a safe harbor for online services so long as they comply with copyright takedown requests.

Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users’ privacy, the judge’s ruling (.pdf) described that argument as “speculative” and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard drives.

The judge also turned Google’s own defense of its data retention policies — that IP addresses of computers aren’t personally revealing in and of themselves, against it to justify the log dump.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has already reacted, calling the order a violation of the Video Privacy Protection act that “threatens to expose deeply private information.”

The order also requires Google to turn over copies of all videos that it has taken down for any reason.

Viacom also requested YouTube’s source code, the code for identifying repeat copyright infringement uploads, copies of all videos marked private, and Google’s advertising database schema.

Those requests were denied in whole, except that Google will have to turn over data about how often each private video has been watched and by how many persons.

Read moreYoutube to hand over all user histories and IP addresses!

Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland

Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus.

The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus.

Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought was a conventional flu vaccine but, according to investigators, was actually an anti bird-flu drug.

Related articles:
Vaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Woman and Inmates (1845 – 2007)
Parents Must Immunize Their Children Or Go To Jail
Health Disaster: H5N1 DNA in Flu Vaccine
Two More Girls Die After Receiving Gardasil Cervical Cancer Vaccination
Georgia family challenges federal vaccine law

Read moreHomeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland

Health Disaster: H5N1 DNA in Flu Vaccine

Flu Mist a popular over the counter live flu vaccine has been found to contain two H5N1 DNA markers, these markers seem to have been sewn into the flu mist vaccine to ensure that H5N1 or another strain of Avian Flu goes pandemic.
This is going to cause major problems before long, it is imperative that people are warned about flu mist.

If you do not believe this: Biopharma.com

Source: YouTube (July 01, 2008)

McCain wants much larger U.S. military

Of course John McCain wants more military, it’s the only thing he knows about. – The Infinite Unknown

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate John McCain wants the U.S. military to be much larger than current expansion plans envision, an adviser to the Arizona senator said this week.

The Bush administration has begun expanding the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to create a combined strength of around 750,000 active duty troops — a process backed by McCain’s Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

But McCain believes an Army and Marine Corps with a combined strength of up to 900,000 troops is necessary, said Randy Scheunemann, an adviser to the candidate on foreign policy and national security.

“Sen. McCain feels the proposed increases are not sufficient. They need to be more, to fully address the challenges we face in the 21st century,” Scheunemann told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The U.S. Army and Marines have been severely strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many troops have served multiple tours in the war zones and currently spend only 12 months at home before they deploy again for another year.

As a member of the U.S. Senate’s armed services committee, McCain has built a reputation for scrutinizing the costs of big weapons programs and he has pledged to pursue that approach in the White House if he wins November’s election.

Read moreMcCain wants much larger U.S. military

Ron Paul: This coming crisis is bigger than the world has ever experienced

The following statement is written by Congressman Paul about the pending financial disaster.

He will introduce this statement as a special order and insert it into the Congressional Record next week. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to debut it first on the Campaign for Liberty blog. It reads as follows:

I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America. The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these long-held concerns, I have days-growing more frequent all the time-when I’m convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast-approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed.

Though the world has long suffered from the senselessness of wars that should have been avoided, my greatest fear is that the course on which we find ourselves will bring even greater conflict and economic suffering to the innocent people of the world-unless we quickly change our ways.

America, with her traditions of free markets and property rights, led the way toward great wealth and progress throughout the world as well as at home. Since we have lost our confidence in the principles of liberty, self reliance, hard work and frugality, and instead took on empire building, financed through inflation and debt, all this has changed. This is indeed frightening and an historic event.

The problem we face is not new in history. Authoritarianism has been around a long time. For centuries, inflation and debt have been used by tyrants to hold power, promote aggression, and provide “bread and circuses” for the people. The notion that a country can afford “guns and butter” with no significant penalty existed even before the 1960s when it became a popular slogan. It was then, though, we were told the Vietnam War and a massive expansion of the welfare state were not problems. The seventies proved that assumption wrong.

Related articles and videos:
Dow suffers worst 1st half since ‘70
Fortis Bank Predicts US Financial Market Meltdown Within Weeks
Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve’s credibility crumbles
Jim Rogers: Avoid The Dollar At All Costs
Ron Paul on Iran and Energy June 26, 2008
Marc Faber: ‘Misleading’ Fed Should Let Banks Fail

Read moreRon Paul: This coming crisis is bigger than the world has ever experienced

Citigroup says long-term gold price could double or even triple

Citigroup forecasts that “gold is likely to regain $1,000/oz by end-08 and to work higher through 2009-2010.”

In their recent Gold Commodity Update, Citigroup metals analysts John H. Hill and Graham Wark also predicted that “longer term, we believe that gold is capable of doubling or tripling from current levels.”

The Citi global metals forecasts have an upward bias, at $906/$950/1000 average in 2008/09/10.

The analysts said “secular and seasonal factors favor gold” during the second half of this year. “We remain positive on gold, based on macro and supply/demand factors. The forces that have propelled gold for 5 years are firmly in place.”

During the second quarter of this year, gold has averaged $896/oz, up 34% from the same quarter of 2007 and down 3% from the first quarter of this year. “Following a series of downside fundamental tests gold appears to have found a floor, and quietly climbed back to $917/oz.”

“Despite extensive hand-wringing, the ‘floor in the dollar’ has inflicted minimal damage,” the analysts noted. “We believe the drivers of the gold bull market remain intact, heading into a favorable period.”

“We see gold as well-positioned heading into Autumn, when fabrication tends to heighten the market,” they added.

Related articles and videos:
Dow suffers worst 1st half since ‘70
Fortis Bank Predicts US Financial Market Meltdown Within Weeks
Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve’s credibility crumbles
Jim Rogers: Avoid The Dollar At All Costs
Ron Paul on Iran and Energy June 26, 2008
Marc Faber: ‘Misleading’ Fed Should Let Banks Fail

The Dollar is being destroyed, Wall Street is collapsing, the U.S. are broke.
Of course Gold and Silver! will double and then triple.
Gold and Silver are the only safe haven in the coming meltdown of the financial markets.
It takes an extraordinary bright analyst to come to that conclusion!
More Information here:
World Situation & Solution – The Infinite Unknown

Nevertheless, Hill and Wark warned, “It will be important for seasonal/volatility dampened fabrication demand to recover, before gold can move higher.” However, they added,” Longer term, we would not be surprised to see gold double from current levels as the global policy prescriptions for the credit crunch remain powerfully and uniformly re-flationary.”

Read moreCitigroup says long-term gold price could double or even triple

ECB raises key rate to 4.25%

FRANKFURT: The European Central Bank, spooked by soaring prices for food and fuel, raised interest rates Thursday, joining several other central banks in battling a global eruption of inflation.

The quarter-point hike, which the bank had signaled last month, had little initial effect on markets, with the euro treading water against the dollar and stocks staying relatively steady. Central banks in Sweden and Norway also raised rates this week, citing inflation. On Thursday, Indonesia raised its key interest rate for the third time this year, while India raised its key lending rate twice last month.

The Federal Reserve in the United States, where short-term interest rates are only half of those in Europe, has so far declined to join them.

The European Central Bank’s decision deepens a recent divergence in monetary policy across the Atlantic, ending a long period when it tended to follow the course set by the Fed.

But the sharp rise in inflation has put Europe’s bank into a policy bind because it has been accompanied, in recent days, by evidence that the economy here is deteriorating much like that of the United States.

Manufacturing activity in the 15 countries that use the euro shrank in June for the first time in three years, according to a survey of European purchasing managers. In Spain and Ireland, where a collapse in housing prices has magnified the problems, there is a real risk of recession.

Still, the European Central Bank, hewing to its inflation-fighting mandate, pressed on with the expected increase, moving the benchmark rate to 4.25 percent from 4 percent. Among other things, it is intended as a warning to unions not to use higher inflation as a lever to demand hefty wage increases.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Say goodbye to the Dollar and to Wall Street.
Got Gold and Silver? – The Infinite Unknown

Related articles and videos:
Dow suffers worst 1st half since ‘70
Fortis Bank Predicts US Financial Market Meltdown Within Weeks
Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve’s credibility crumbles
Jim Rogers: Avoid The Dollar At All Costs
Ron Paul on Iran and Energy June 26, 2008
Marc Faber: ‘Misleading’ Fed Should Let Banks Fail

_____________________________________________________________________________________

It was not clear, before an afternoon news conference chaired by the bank’s president, Jean-Claude Trichet, whether the rate increase would be a one-time gesture or the start of a cycle of tighter monetary policy.

Several economists said they doubted the bank could tighten much further, given the parlous economic situation.

“The ECB is hiking at a time when confidence is plummeting,” said Thomas Mayer, the chief European economist at Deutsche Bank. “The question is, ‘what do you do when asset prices fall at the same time that consumer prices rise?’ The central bankers seem to have reached the end of the line.”

Read moreECB raises key rate to 4.25%

MSG: Causes obesity, is toxic and destroys your brain

Related articles and videos:
Your Food is Toxic and Makes You Sick, Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD
Chemical Additives – Are They Slowly Killing Our Children?
Interview with Dr. Russell Blaylock on devastating health effects of MSG, aspartame and excitotoxins
George Carlin, Diet Coke With Aspartame & Cardiac Death
Supermarket Bans Aspartame From Own-Label Products
The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see.
Fluoride, Aspartame and Agenda 21

I wondered if there could be an actual chemical causing the massive obesity epidemic, so did a friend of mine, John Erb. He was a research assistant at the University of Waterloo, and spent years working for the government.

He made an amazing discovery while going through scientific journals for a book he was writing called The Slow Poisoning of America. In hundreds of studies around the world, scientists were creating obese mice and rats to use in diet or diabetes test studies.

No strain of rat or mice is naturally obese, so the scientists have to create them. They make these morbidly obese creatures by injecting them with a chemical when they are first born. The MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing rats (and humans?) to become obese They even have a title for the race of fat rodents they create: “MSG-Treated Rats” .

MSG?

I was shocked too. I went to my kitchen, checking the cupboards and the fridge.

Read moreMSG: Causes obesity, is toxic and destroys your brain

Your Food is Toxic and Makes You Sick, Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD

Related articles and videos:
Chemical Additives – Are They Slowly Killing Our Children?
Interview with Dr. Russell Blaylock on devastating health effects of MSG, aspartame and excitotoxins
George Carlin, Diet Coke With Aspartame & Cardiac Death
MSG: Causes obesity, is toxic and destroys your brain
Supermarket Bans Aspartame From Own-Label Products
The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see.
Fluoride, Aspartame and Agenda 21

Hidden Sources Of MSG In Foods

From the book ‘Excitotoxins – The Taste That Kills By Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD

What if someone were to tell you that a chemical (MSG) added to food could cause brain damage in your children, and that this chemical could effect how your children’s nervous systems formed during development so that in later years they may have learning or emotional difficulties?

What if there was scientific evidence that these chemicals could permanently damage a critical part of the brain known to control hormones so that later in life your child might have endocrine problems? How would you feel?

Suppose evidence was presented to you strongly suggesting that the artificial sweetener in your diet soft drink may cause brain tumors to develop, and that the number of brain tumors reported since the introduction of this widespread introduction of this artificial sweetener has risen dramatically? Would that affect your decision to drink these products and especially to allow your children to drink them? What if you could be shown overwhelming evidence that one of the main ingredients in this sweetener (aspartate) could cause the same brain lesions as MSG? Would that affect your buying decisions?

And finally, what if it could be demonstrated that all of these types of chemicals, called excitotoxins, could possibly aggravate or even precipitate many of today’s epidemic neurodegenerative brain diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, ALS, and Alzheimer’s disease? Would you be concerned if you knew that these excitotoxin food additives are a particular risk if you have diabetes, or have ever had a stroke, brain injury, brain tumor, seizure, or have suffered from hypertension, meningitis, or viral encephalitis?

Would you also be upset to learn that many of the brain lesions caused by these products in your children are irreversible and can result from a SINGLE exposure of these products in sufficient concentration?

How would you feel when you learn the food industry hides and disguises these excitotoxin additives (MSG and Aspartate) so they can’t be recognized? Incredulous? Enraged? The fact is many foods are labeled as having ‘No MSG’ but in fact not only contain MSG but also are laced with other excitotoxins of equal potency and danger.

All of the above are true. And all of these well known brain toxins are poured into our food and drink by the thousands of tons to boost sales. These additives have NO OTHER purpose other than to enhance to TASTE of food and the SWEETNESS of various diet products.

Hidden Sources Of MSG

Read moreYour Food is Toxic and Makes You Sick, Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD

Why Floods Bring America To Its Knees

Related articles:
Floods may boost world food prices for years
Floods wipe out US crops
The Best Farmland in the U.S. Is Flooded; Most Americans Are Too Stupid to Panic
The Price Of Food: 2007 – 2008
The U.S. Has No Remaining Grain Reserves
Nine meals from anarchy – how Britain is facing a very real food crisis
Time to Stockpile Food?
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.
UN alert: One-fourth of world’s wheat at risk from new fungus
THE FOUR HORSEMEN APPROACH – FAMINE IS IN THE AIR

A catastrophe for Iowa farmers will not be just a catastrophe for Midwestern Americans. In the Iowa floods, we’ll see more evidence of how the problems of weird weather (climate change) combine and ramify the problems associated with Peak Oil. In this particular case they lead to an inflection point sometime around the 2008 harvest season, which will also be our time of political harvest.

These are not your daddy’s or granddaddy’s floods. These are 500-year floods, events not seen before non-Indian people started living out on that stretch of the North American prairie. The vast majority of homeowners in Eastern Iowa did not have flood insurance because the likelihood of being affected above the 500-year-line was so miniscule – their insurance agents actually advised them against getting it.

The personal ruin out there will be comprehensive and profound, a wet version of the 1930s Dust Bowl, with families facing total loss and perhaps migrating elsewhere in the nation because they have no home to go back to.

Iowa in 2008 will be an even slower-motion disaster than Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Beyond the troubles of 25,000 people who have lost all their material possessions is a world whose grain reserves stand at record lows. The crop losses in Iowa will aggravate what is already a pretty dire situation. So far, the US public has experienced the world grain situation mainly in higher supermarket prices.

Cheap corn is behind the magic of the American processed food industry – all those pizza pockets and juicy-juice boxes that frantic Americans resort to because they have no time between two jobs and family-chauffeur duties to actually cook (note: reheating is not cooking).

Read moreWhy Floods Bring America To Its Knees

Gaza: A modern concentration camp run by Israel

Related articles:
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Israeli siege leads to soaring anemia in Gaza newborns

GAZA CITY, Jul 2 (IPS) – Gaza is being forced to pump 77 tonnes of untreated or partially treated sewage out to sea daily due to the Israeli blockade of the coastal territory. The fear is that some of this is creeping back into drinking water.

“The health of Gaza’s 1.5 million people is at risk,” Mahmoud Daher, from the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) told IPS following a report released by WHO after it carried out a number of tests on Gaza’s contaminated water.

On the ground Israel’s closure has translated into a lack of fuel, electricity and spare parts needed to operate wastewater and sewerage treatment plants. Consequently Gaza’s water and sanitation systems are near complete collapse as the power required to run treatment and desalination plants, pump water to homes, and pump sewage away from populated areas is only available on a very limited basis.

Following Hamas’ takeover in Gaza last year, after it won legislative elections in 2006, Israel designated the densely populated strip of 360 square kilometres hostile territory and sealed off the borders, enforcing an embargo which is supported by the international community.

Since then the Jewish state has allowed only a trickle of humanitarian goods into Gaza, and only after intense international pressure and intervention. Besides drastically reducing fuel and electricity supplies, Israel has also barred import of most vital technical parts, which humanitarian organisations argue are necessary if Gaza’s basic infrastructure is to operate.

In order to assess the degree of sewage contamination WHO took seawater samples from 13 risky areas in the five governorates of the Gaza Strip. Two microbiological tests were carried out to examine the presence of human and animal faeces.

The results revealed that three areas in Gaza and one area in the Rafah governorate (30.8 percent) are polluted with human faeces (Faecal Coliform) and animal faeces (Faecal Streptococcus), and three areas in Gaza city (23.1 percent) are polluted with animal faeces.

The danger is that this contaminated sea water is leaking into Gaza’s underground water aqueduct following a two-year drought. The drought has meant that the 160 million cubic metres of water extracted every year from Gaza’s underground water supply is not being replenished as the strip received only an annual average of 85 million cubic metres of rain over the last couple of years.

Read moreGaza: A modern concentration camp run by Israel

Bush Stimulates The Porn Industry With His Economic Package

Related video: – Why America deserves G. W. Bush

When President Bush announced his economic stimulus in January, he bragged that his package was the “right size” and would “boost” the economy:

I am pleased that this agreement meets the criterion that I set forth last week to provide an effective, robust, and temporary set of incentives that will boost our economy and encourage job creation. This package has the right set of policies and is the right size. The incentives in this package will lead to higher consumer spending and increased business investment this year.

It sure has led to “higher consumer spending,” but not where Bush had probably hoped. The adult pornography industry reports that has seen a huge uptick in business thanks to Bush’s package. According to a press release from the Adult Internet Market Research Company:

An independent market-research firm, AIMRCo (Adult Internet Market Research Company), has discovered that many websites focused on adult or erotic material have experienced an upswing in sales in the recent weeks since checks have appeared in millions of Americans’ mailboxes across the country.

According to Kirk Mishkin, Head Research Consultant for AIMRCo, “Many of the sites we surveyed have reported 20-30% growth in membership rates since mid-May when the checks were first sent out, and typically the summer is a slow period for this market.”

Jillian Fox of LSGmodels.com (nsfw) said that in a survey to its members, “thirty two percent of respondents referenced the recent stimulus package as part of their decision to either become a new member, or renew an existing membership.”

The Bush administration has attempted to wage an aggressive fight in the War on Porn. In fact, cracking down on “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography was “one of the top priorities” of Alberto Gonzales while he was Attorney General, often coming before terrorism prosecutions.

Ironically, the porn industry is now thanking Bush for his policies. “Getting more people to buy porn was probably the last thing Bush had on his mind when he came up with his ‘stimulus package,’ but we’ll take it,” said Fox.

July 02, 2008

Source: Think Progress

US: Big Trouble for General Motors, Crysler and Ford

Related articles and videos:
Dow suffers worst 1st half since ‘70
Fortis Bank Predicts US Financial Market Meltdown Within Weeks
Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve’s credibility crumbles
Jim Rogers: Avoid The Dollar At All Costs
Ron Paul on Iran and Energy June 26, 2008
Marc Faber: ‘Misleading’ Fed Should Let Banks Fail

Shares of General Motors are trading at prices last seen in the 1950s.

(Consider that the Dollar today is worthless compared to 1950! – The Infinite Unknown)

America’s automobile industry may be facing the biggest turnaround challenge in its history, a problem punctuated Tuesday as the carmakers released monthly sales results.

Times were tough enough in Detroit before gasoline hit $4 per gallon, but in the past two months the outlook has taken a turn for the worse.

Shares of General Motors are trading at prices last seen in the 1950s, their value cut in half in just eight weeks. Ford and Chrysler are in even worse shape, analysts say.

The sobering implication: The Big Three may have to become the Big Two, and even survivors will have a tough road ahead.

Bankruptcy is not a near-term threat, but the three carmakers are fast burning through cash reserves. And while government assistance – or perhaps an energy policy that supports new automotive technologies – could become a lifeline, it can’t substitute for the hard work of transforming product lines.


Reporter Mark Trumbull discusses the current situation for car manufacturers.

“The rate of cash usage is alarming,” says Gregg Lemos Stein, an auto analyst at Standard & Poor’s in New York, which has put all three carmakers on “credit watch” to review the default risk on their debts. “They’ve never been lower than this,” he adds, referring to S&P’s current B rating on their debt.

The current debt ratings place the Detroit automakers in what’s known as “junk bond” status, below the typical quality range known as investment grade. The good news: Bankruptcy or default isn’t an imminent risk, Mr. Lemos Stein says, because the companies headed into this crisis with cash on hand.

But the credit watch, in place as of June 20, means that analysts are concerned about a deteriorating outlook.

“We believe all three companies currently have ample liquidity for at least the rest of 2008 as measured by cash balances, available bank facilities, and … unencumbered assets” that could be sold, S&P analysts said in their recent report.

The cash-flow problem could reach “undesirable” levels by the second half of next year, they said.

Read moreUS: Big Trouble for General Motors, Crysler and Ford

Police ‘torture’ videos cause uproar in Mexico


A frame from a video obtained by the Heraldo de Leon newspaper shows a torture session.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) Videos showing Leon police practicing torture techniques on a fellow officer and dragging another through vomit at the instruction of a U.S. adviser created an uproar Tuesday in Mexico, which has struggled to eliminate torture in law enforcement.

Two of the videos — broadcast by national television networks and displayed on newspaper Internet sites — showed what Leon city Police Chief Carlos Tornero described as training for an elite unit that must face “real-life, high-stress situations,” such as kidnapping and torture by organized crime groups.

But many Mexicans saw a sinister side, especially at a moment when police and soldiers across the country are struggling with scandals over alleged abuses.

“They are teaching police … to torture!” read the headline in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma.

Human rights investigators in Guanajuato state, where Leon is located, are looking into the tapes, and the National Human Rights Commission also expressed concern.

“It’s very worrisome that there may be training courses that teach people to torture,” said Raul Plascencia, one of the commission’s top inspectors.

One of the videos, first obtained by the newspaper El Heraldo de Leon, shows police appearing to squirt water up a man’s nose — a technique once notorious among Mexican police. Then they dunk his head in a hole said to be full of excrement and rats. The man gasps for air and moans repeatedly.

(George Orwell 1984 – The Infinite Unknown)

In another video, an unidentified English-speaking trainer has an exhausted agent roll into his own vomit. Other officers then drag him through the mess.

“These are no more than training exercises for certain situations, but I want to stress that we are not showing people how to use these methods,” Tornero said.

Read morePolice ‘torture’ videos cause uproar in Mexico

DROUGHT-STRICKEN CYPRUS GETS WATER FROM GREECE

NICOSIA, Cyprus – A Greek tanker carrying about 1.76 million cubic feet of water arrived in the Cypriot port of Limassol on Monday to help the drought-stricken island replenish its dwindling water reserves.

The tanker is the first in a fleet of ships chartered by the Cypriot government at a cost of $65 million to provide water to towns now experiencing emergency rationing.

With the Mediterranean island’s 17 main reservoirs now at critical levels – just seven percent full – Cypriots have endured meager water rations since March.

The main water pipelines have been turned on for only a few nights each week. And some residents, particularly those living in high-rise apartment blocks, have complained of not getting any water at all because pressure has been insufficient to push the water to rooftop storage tanks.

Cypriots have been forbidden to wash their cars or water their gardens. Underground water pumped from boreholes has also become scarce.

Read moreDROUGHT-STRICKEN CYPRUS GETS WATER FROM GREECE

UFOs Spotted by Navy Engineer, Soldiers and Helicopter Police

Royal Navy aircraft engineer claims to have seen a “glowing” UFO hover over the M5 motorway.

Michael Madden, 25, said he watched in disbelief as the disc-shaped object floated above his head before it “zoomed off at incredible speed”.

He said the unidentified flying object flew for up to three minutes above junction 21 of the M5, near Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.

Mr Madden was on his way back from Manchester with colleague Michael Casson, 22, at 9.50pm on Sunday June 29 when he saw the suspected ‘extra-terrestrial’ craft.He said: “I work with aircraft and grew up next to Manchester Airport so I know exactly what a plane looks and sounds like. This was definitely not a plane.

“It was a circular disc which was glowing bright, hovering hundreds of metres up.

“Other people must have spotted it. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life. It really did look like the alien aircraft in films. It had an antenna fixed to the back.”

Mr Madden’s claim follows a string of recent UFO “sightings”.

On June 7 three soldiers said they saw 13 UFOs, which looked like “rotating cubes”, while on night patrol at Tern Hill military barracks near Market Drayton, Shropshire. One, Corporal Mark Proctor, 38, of the 1st Battalion of the Irish Regiment, recorded the sighting on his mobile phone and reported it to Army officers.

That sighting came just two hours before helicopter police officers reported an encounter with a huge craft 80 miles away near Cardiff. They claimed to have given chase to the “flying saucer-shaped” object after it almost collided with their aircraft near the Ministry of Defence base of St Athan.

Then Father-of-two David Osborne, 47, videoed 12 orange objects in the night sky above Basingstoke, Hampshire, at 10.40pm on June 28.

The alleged UFOs moved across the sky, switching from a D formation, to a random pattern, to a line then a triangle before disappearing.

02/07/2008

Source: Telegraph

Pentagon Plans a High Risk Chemical Weapons Transport

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is considering a plan to ship deadly chemical weapons to military sites in four states to accelerate the destruction of the munitions, a new report to Congress says.

The idea of transporting such lethal agents along routes such as from Colorado to Oregon is prompting opposition from Congress and watchdog groups.

They say the plan exposes the American public to unnecessary risks as the U.S. government is concerned about terrorist attacks.

To honor a 1997 treaty banning chemical weapons, Congress has ordered the military to destroy all its munitions by the end of 2017.

In an unpublicized report delivered to lawmakers last week, the Pentagon said it probably could not meet that deadline unless it ships nerve agents and mustard gas to additional sites for destruction.

Even adding more people and working around the clock at the two sites with complicated dismantling requirements in Kentucky and Colorado may not help the military meet the 2017 deadline, the report said.

Work would be speeded up if some weapons at Kentucky’s Blue Grass Army Depot are moved to sites in Alabama and Arkansas, the report said, while some at the Pueblo, Colo., site are sent to Utah and Oregon.

Congress would have to change laws that forbid moving the weapons, the report said.

That prospect is uncertain. While chemical weapons have been destroyed safely at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, it is too risky to ship more there, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said in a statement.

It’s shocking and irresponsible for the Department of Defense to even propose to ship large volumes of weapons of mass destruction across the highways of the United States considering the risks and atmosphere of terrorist threats,” said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a Kentucky citizens organization.

Read morePentagon Plans a High Risk Chemical Weapons Transport