March 2010 – Infinite Unknown

40% of Americans view Pope Benedict XVI favorably

March 31, 2010March 31, 2010 by Infinite

What does this say about 40% of Americans?!

– Pope Benedict Favorable Rating Drops to 40% in US (Gallup)

PRINCETON, NJ — A new low of 40% of Americans view Pope Benedict XVI favorably amid new criticism about the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of child sex abuse by priests. Now, nearly as many Americans have an unfavorable view of the pope as have a favorable view.

The current results represent a major shift from two years ago, when the pope’s favorable rating jumped to 63% as he was concluding a well-received visit to the United States that included personal meetings between the pope and victims of sex abuse by U.S. priests. The latest allegations of lax handling of abusive priests mostly concern past abuse cases in Europe, but they implicate the pope, who had a central role in the Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse cases prior to his becoming pope.

Pope Benedict’s image has deteriorated about equally among Catholics and non-Catholics from its 2008 high — by 20 and 23 points, respectively. Catholics continue to view him much more favorably than non-Catholics.

And now the Vatican wants to shield the Pope from any liability:

– How Vatican Tries to Dodge Legal Fallout of Sex Abuse (AOL News):

(March 31) — Developments in a Kentucky court case suggest that the Vatican will seek to shield Pope Benedict XVI and the church from liability in the worldwide clerical sex abuse crisis by distancing itself from individual dioceses.

In legal documents filed in U.S. District Court in Louisville last week, the Vatican claims that as the head of a sovereign state, the Vatican City, the pope is immune from prosecution. The papers further assert that American bishops are not employed by the Holy See.

The Vatican will also likely deny that a 1962 church decree about clergy and the reporting of clerical pedophilia is a “smoking gun” that led to a worldwide cover-up of sexual crimes.

– Vatican offers 3 reasons it’s not liable for abuse (AP):

The Vatican is seeking to dismiss the suit before Benedict XVI can be questioned or secret documents subpoenaed.

– Religion: Pope claims legal immunity; Vatican, Bishops, defend cover-up (Examiner):

While a cardinal at the Vatican, Joseph Ratzinger, now the pope, wrote a 2001 letter instructing bishops worldwide to report all cases of abuse to his office and keep church investigations secret under threat of excommunication.

The letter is the smoking gun; the Pope is a criminal.

The continuing moral failure of the Pope and Vatican is astonishing. Like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they continue to deny what has now become obvious to the most casual observer.

Related Information:

– 1963 letter indicates former pope knew of abuse (AP)

– Germany’s Catholic Church sexual abuse hotline received 1,000 calls the first day (Digital Journal)

– Austrian Catholic Church Abuse Hot Lines Log 566 Reports This Year (Austrian Independent)

– Australian Bishop says ‘vast amount’ of sexual abuse cases yet to emerge (Sydney Morning Herald)

– Deaf Boys Tried to Tell of Priest’s Abuse FOR YEARS (New York Times)

– Christopher Hitchens Slams Vatican, Pope Over Sex Abuse Scandal (Huffington Post)

– The Pope Is Not Above the Law (Slate)

– Sex Abuse Victims to Sue Vatican (Times)

– Pope Benedict Signals Won’t Be Intimidated By Abuse Critics, Uses Popemobile For First Time On A Palm Sunday (New York Times/AFP)

– Vatican knew of abuse in Ontario: Victim (Toronto Star)

– Pope failed to defrock an American priest who molested hundreds of deaf boys, despite receiving letters from American bishops pleading with him to act (Times)

– A church sex scandal where the truth is crucified (Toronto Star)

– Sinead O’Connor: ‘There Should Be A Full Criminal Investigation Of The Pope’ (LA Times)

– Catholic Church quietly expelling and punishing children, homeless (Irish Central)

– Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland routinely shredded copies of weekly reports about sexual abuse by priests (Flashback):

Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland routinely shredded copies of weekly reports about sexual abuse by priests, according to formerly sealed testimony turned over to Milwaukee County’s district attorney on Thursday.

– Swiss Catholic Church Investigating 10 Abuse Cases (Reuters)

– Irish Catholic Church Paid Child Sex Abuse Victim To Keep Quiet (Guardian)

– Catholic Church Child Abuse: Nuns Now Also Accused (Radio Netherlands Worldwide)

– Church: Pope Had Role in Moving Molesting Priest (Bloomberg)

– Pope knew priest was paedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry (Times)

– Pope will struggle to survive abuse scandal (Irish Independent)

– Benedict’s involvement ’shows extent of cover-ups’ (Irish Independent)

– Sinead O’Connor: I’d help Jesus to burn down the Vatican (Irish Independent)

– RIGHTS-GERMANY: ‘Catholic Church Protects Paedophile Priests’ (IPS)

– Child abuse claims sweep Catholic Church in Europe (AP)

Germany’s Catholic Church sexual abuse hotline received 1,000 calls the first day

March 31, 2010March 31, 2010 by Infinite

Amid growing reports of sexual abuse and scandals, Germany’s Catholic Church has launched a sexual abuse helpline, which has angered one organization who helps those victims. However, on its first day the hotline received 1,000 calls.

Trier, Germany – The Roman Catholic Church in Germany launched a telephone hotline for those victims who have been sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests on Tuesday, according to BBC News. A NBC News report shows that the hotline received more than 1,000 calls on its first day.

The helpline, which is based in the western city of Trier, appointed the church’s bishop, Stephen Ackerman, for handling the investigations of any allegations made against its clergy, “We want to be responsive, we want to know what has been suffered and want to support those affected,” said Ackerman.

Many people believe the church should be a last resort to report sexual abuse as they should first contact either police or family members, according to David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, “Victims should tell loved ones and police first. Victims should tell loved ones and police first.”

Austrian Catholic Church Abuse Hot Lines Log 566 Reports This Year

March 31, 2010 by Infinite

See also: Austrian church abuse hot lines log 566 reports (Boston Herald)

There have been 566 reports of various kinds of abuse by clergy at the Catholic Church’s ombudsman’s offices this year, it was reported today (Tues).

Vienna archdiocese has had the highest number, 174, followed by Innsbruck diocese with 115. More than half of them can no longer be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations.

Cases of sexual abuse constitute 27 per cent of these, cases of violence 26 per cent. More than half of them require further investigation, according to the media.

The rising number of reports has caused Vienna Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the titular head of the Austrian Catholic Church and chairman of the Austrian Bishops Conference, to react.

Australian Bishop says ‘vast amount’ of sexual abuse cases yet to emerge

March 31, 2010 by Infinite

THE Catholic Church has a turbulent future as probably a much smaller church in the West, with a ”vast amount” of sexual abuse cases yet to emerge, according to a retired Australian bishop.

”The church is not going to fold up its tent and disappear, but there could be very dramatic changes” as a result of the clergy abuse crisis, said Bishop Geoffrey Robinson.

The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, blamed a failure of leadership and a lack of courage for the crisis and warned that while Australia had learnt its lessons, the difficulties for the church in many countries were still coming.

”It’s a big crisis for the church. We are all hurt by this, but we’ve got to face it and get on with it,” he said.

In the past month, Pope Benedict XVI has apologised to Irish Catholics after two devastating secular reports into clerical abuse and cover-ups, and hundreds of new allegations emerged in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

Deaf Boys Tried to Tell of Priest’s Abuse FOR YEARS

March 31, 2010 by Infinite

They were deaf, but they were not silent. For decades, a group of men who were sexually abused as children by the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin reported to every type of official they could think of that he was a danger, according to the victims and church documents.

Steven Geier said the priest who molested him as a boy told him he had to keep it a secret. Mr. Geier reported the abuse to three priests, including the Rev. Tom Schroeder

They told other priests. They told three archbishops of Milwaukee. They told two police departments and the district attorney. They used sign language, written affidavits and graphic gestures to show what exactly Father Murphy had done to them. But their reports fell on the deaf ears of hearing people.

This week, they learned that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, received letters about Father Murphy in 1996 from Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee, who said that the deaf community needed “a healing response from the Church.” The Vatican sat on the case, then equivocated, and when Father Murphy died in 1998, he died a priest.

Christopher Hitchens Slams Vatican, Pope Over Sex Abuse Scandal

March 31, 2010March 31, 2010 by Infinite

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Christopher Hitchens, whose antagonism towards religion is well-established, had harsh words for the Catholic Church, and the Pope in particular, during an appearance on “Morning Joe” today.

The most recent scandal that has erupted over the priest who molested over 200 deaf boys, Hitchens said, proves that “the fatal taint” goes all the way to the top:

A school for children who can only use sign language. 200 of them have their childhoods completely wrecked by this priest, and entreaties are addressed to the man who is now Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, the man who was saying at the time that the only problem with the scandal was there was a press campaign against the church. The abuse was not the problem, the torture the rape; only the revelation of it. Nothing happens except that he forgives the priest who asked for forgiveness before he dies.
I wrote then and I believe now that the fatal taint went straight to the top at that point, and now we have as head of the church someone who’s personally as well institutionally responsible for knowing of this, covering it up and protecting, not the children, but the predators.

Asked by host Willie Geist when the Catholic Church will reach a breaking point, considering how many of these scandals it has weathered in the past, Hitchens replied that the breaking point has indeed arrived:

The breaking point just came, when it became obvious from reports from Munich, and reports from Wisconsin, and reports now from Verona, in Italy, that the man who is now calling himself the Pope was the person individually responsible for the coverup.

Read moreChristopher Hitchens Slams Vatican, Pope Over Sex Abuse Scandal

The Pope Is Not Above the Law

March 31, 2010March 31, 2010 by Infinite

The crimes within the Catholic Church demand justice.

Pope Benedict XVI

One by one, as I predicted, the pathetic excuses of Joseph Ratzinger’s apologists evaporate before our eyes. It was said until recently that when the Rev. Peter Hullermann was found to be a vicious pederast in 1980, the man who is now pope had no personal involvement in his subsequent transfer to his own diocese or in his later unimpeded career as a rapist and a molester. But now we find that the psychiatrist to whom the church turned for “therapy” was adamant that Hullermann never be allowed to go near children ever again. We also find that Ratzinger was one of those to whom the memo about Hullermann’s transfer was actually addressed. All attempts to place the blame on a loyal subordinate, Ratzinger’s vicar general, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber, have predictably failed. According to a recent report, “the transfer of Father Hullermann from Essen would not have been a routine matter, experts said.” Either that-damning enough in itself-or it perhaps would have been a routine matter, which is even worse. Certainly the pattern-of finding another parish with fresh children for the priest to assault-is the one that has become horribly “routine” ever since and became standard practice when Ratzinger became a cardinal and was placed in charge of the church’s global response to clerical pederasty.

So now a new defense has had to be hastily improvised. It is argued that, during his time as archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, Ratzinger was more preoccupied with doctrinal questions than with mere disciplinary ones. Of course, of course: The future pope had his eyes fixed on ethereal and divine matters and could not be expected to concern himself with parish-level atrocities. This cobbled-up apologia actually repays a little bit of study. What exactly were these doctrinal issues? Well, apart from punishing a priest who celebrated a Mass at an anti-war demonstration-which incidentally does seem to argue for a “hands-on” approach to individual clergymen-Ratzinger’s chief concern appears to have been that of first communion and first confession. Over the previous decade, it had become customary in Bavaria to subject small children to their first communion at a tender age but to wait a year until they made their first confession. It was a matter of whether they were old enough to understand. Enough of this liberalism, said Ratzinger, the first confession should come in the same year as the first communion. One priest, the Rev. Wilfried Sussbauer, reports that he wrote to Ratzinger expressing misgivings about this and received “an extremely biting letter” in response.

China: Severe Drought; Cloud-Seeding Across 77 Counties; Emergency Supplies of Drinking Water to 18 Million People; Rice Prices Spike 10% in One Month

March 31, 2010 by Infinite

Got food & water supplies?

– The Food Crisis of 2010: USDA vs Reality

The artificial rain through cloud-seeding is like poison.

Severe drought in Southwestern China is driving up food prices and heightening concerns about the availability of drinking water.

– Price of rice rises in south China (China Daily):

Huang Weijuan, a Guangzhou housewife, said she spent 55 yuan ($8) to buy a bag of rice in Taojin agricultural bazaar in the city’s Yuexiu district over the weekend.

“But the price for the same bag of rice, which weighs 20 kg, was about 50 yuan a month ago,” Huang said.

And the price of courgette, a vegetable which mainly grows in Yunnan province, is now selling at 5 yuan per kg in the bazaar, up 0.5 yuan from last month, Huang said.

“The price of many foods and vegetables have gone up in the past month and I worry that prices will keep increasing,” she said.

The government is rushing to help in order to alleviate the potential for social tension. In some of the hardest hit provinces, the government has been forced to provide emergency supplies of drinking water to 18 million people. They’ve also resorted to creating artificial rain through cloud-seeding. Over 3,200 artillery pieces bombarded the sky with chemicals across 77 counties, forcing moderate rain to fall.

“It was the first rain I have seen since last October, but it only lasted for about three hours from 3 am to 6 am this morning,” Bu Lupiao, a farmer of Bapiao village in Jinghong county, Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture.

Since October… That’s one heck of a drought. Yet the farmer above was lucky. In Chuxiong Yi prefecture, over 100 cloud seeding guns failed to create rain. Cloud seeding isn’t a long-term solution, thus the natural rain better come soon else there could be more pressure on living standards in drought-hit regions.

Europe’s largest undersea volcano threatens southern Italy: report

March 30, 2010 by Infinite

ROME (AFP) – Europe’s largest undersea volcano could disintegrate and unleash a tsunami that would engulf southern Italy “at any time”, a prominent vulcanologist warned in an interview published Monday.

The Marsili volcano, which is bursting with magma, has “fragile walls” that could collapse, Enzo Boschi told the leading daily Corriere della Sera.

“It could even happen tomorrow,” said Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).

“Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magma chamber is of sizeable dimensions,” he said. “All that tells us that the volcano is active and could begin erupting at any time.”

The event would result in “a strong tsunami that could strike the coasts of Campania, Calabria and Sicily,” Boschi said.

The undersea Marsili, 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) tall and located some 150 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of Naples, has not erupted since the start of recorded history.

It is 70 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide, and its crater is some 450 metres below the surface of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Sex Abuse Victims to Sue Vatican

March 31, 2010March 30, 2010 by Infinite

The Pope’s record is “above discussion”!

– Pope failed to defrock an American priest who molested hundreds of deaf boys, despite receiving letters from American bishops pleading with him to act (Times)

– A church sex scandal where the truth is crucified (Toronto Star)

The Pope has been accused of protecting Father Lawrence Murphy

NEW revelations about Pope Benedict XVI’s alleged role in covering up accusations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy have exposed the Vatican to the risk of lawsuits brought by victims around the world.

Mounting anger at the Catholic Church’s failure to act on predatory priests in the US, Europe and Mexico has plunged the papacy into an institutional crisis described by an American Catholic newspaper last week as “the largest in centuries”.

Yesterday the Vatican denounced the “aggressive persistence” of critics who were attempting to “involve the Holy Father personally in the matter of abuse”. A spokesman told Vatican Radio that the Pope’s record was “above discussion”.

Yet the talk in Catholic circles was of little else as the Pope’s former life as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich and senior Vatican administrator, came under intensifying scrutiny.

Last week it was alleged that, as head of the Vatican office monitoring priestly misconduct, Ratzinger failed to punish Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused up to 200 boys at a Wisconsin school for the deaf.

Instead of being defrocked or reported to police, Murphy remained a priest until his death in 1998.

“We are talking about a man who, before he became Pope, knew what Murphy was doing and did nothing about it,” said Donald Marshall, a mechanic who claims Murphy assaulted him in 1977 when he was 13. “The Pope is a fraud and a hypocrite.”

The reports coincided with a burgeoning German row over Father Peter Hullermann, a Bavarian priest who received therapy for paedophilia in Ratzinger’s diocese and was transferred to a new parish, where he continued molesting boys.

Pope Benedict Signals Won’t Be Intimidated By Abuse Critics, Uses Popemobile For First Time On A Palm Sunday

March 30, 2010 by Infinite

– Pope Signals Won’t Be Intimidated By Abuse Critics (New York Times):

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict, facing one of the gravest crises of his pontificate as a sexual abuse scandal sweeps the Church, indicated Sunday that his faith would give him the courage not to be intimidated by critics.

Oh, really?:

– Pope uses popemobile for first time on a Palm Sunday (France24)

(AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI, under fire as the Roman Catholic Church grapples with snowballing paedophilia scandals, used the popemobile for the first time on a Palm Sunday for his traditional outing in St Peter’s Square.

The 82-year-old pope, appearing in good health, used the iconic white vehicle to criss-cross the sun-drenched square, waving to tens of thousands of pilgrims. In previous years he has carried out the tradition on foot.

Security concerns may also have prompted the decision to use the popemobile, the white bulletproof vehicle introduced for Benedict’s predecessor John Paul II.

What faith???

Mongolian herders lost millions of animals because of extreme cold

March 30, 2010 by Infinite

Appeal for Mongolian herders after cold kills livestock

Mongolia has been hit by unusually severe winter weather

The International Red Cross has appealed for help for thousands of Mongolian herders who have lost their livestock because of extreme cold.

The Red Cross said that millions of animals had perished during the country’s hardest winter in years.

It says it needs over $900,000 (£603,000) to provide emergency assistance to the worst-hit families and restock herds.

A BBC correspondent says those animals who survived are running out of food.

In recent months temperatures in Mongolia have dropped below -40C.

Local residents call it a “dzud” – a severe winter following a very dry summer, which has left reserves of fodder low.

EUROPOL: New EU Gestapo Spies on Britons

March 30, 2010 by Infinite

… and and all other EU citizens.

Europol: Millions of Britons face being snooped on by a new European agency

MILLIONS of Britons face being snooped on by a new European intelligence agency which has been handed frightening powers to pry into our lives.

Europol can access personal information on anyone – including their political opinions and sexual preferences – if it suspects, rightly or wrongly, that they may be involved in any “preparatory act” which could lead to criminal activity.

The vagueness of the Hague-based force’s remit sparked furious protests yesterday with critics warning that the EU snoopers threaten our right to free speech.

It is understood the agency will concentrate on anyone thought “xenophobic” or likely to commit a crime involving the environment, computers or motor vehicles.

This could include covert monitoring of people who deny the existence of climate change or speak out on controversial issues.

Paul Nuttall, chairman of the UK Independence Party, said: “I am horrified. We thought Gordon Brown’s Big Brother state was bad enough but at least we are going to kick him out in May. These guys we cannot sack until we leave the EU.”

James Welch, legal director of campaign group Liberty, said: “We have huge concerns that Europol appears to have been given powers to hold very sensitive information and to investigate matters that aren’t even crimes in this country. Any extension of police powers at any level needs to be properly debated and scrutinised.”

Until January 1, Europol was a police office funded by various states to help tackle international organised crime. But it has been reborn as the official criminal intelligence-gathering arm of the EU and Brussels has vastly increased its powers.

Discharged IDF Soldiers Sue For Millions Over Anthrax Vaccine Experiment

March 30, 2010 by Infinite

Dozens of soldiers who took part in experiment in early 1990s aimed at determining efficacy of Anthrax vaccine demand $80,000 each in damages. ‘Physical harm was passed down to our children,’ plaintiff says

Sixty-four former IDF soldiers are suing the Defense Ministry for NIS 18 million ($4.8 million) over what they claim is damage caused to them during Anthrax vaccine experiments in the early 1990s.

The experiments, which were meant to determine the efficacy of an Anthrax vaccine, were carried out in light of what was then defined at the time as the “strategic threat of a surprise biological attack facing Israel.”

Nicknamed “Omer 2,” the experiments included 716 IDF soldiers picked out of a pool of 4,000.

The lawsuit, filed with the Petah Tikva District Court, is based on the principle according to which anyone who decides to take part in an experiment must do so willingly and after considering the risks involved.

As part of the lawsuit the soldiers are demanding that the state reveal the ingredients of the serum that was given to them, in addition to NIS 300,000 (about $80,000) in damages to each plaintiff for mental anguish and emotional distress resulting from the involuntary use of one’s body and medical negligence.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs cited an Israel Medical Association (IMA) report according to which the experiments were unjustifiable.

EU Draws Up Plans For Single ‘Economic Government’

March 30, 2010March 30, 2010 by Infinite

– Lisbon Treaty: Now EU Takes Charge Of Britain

– EU President Herman Van Rompuy Announces 2009 as ‘First Year of Global Governance’

– Climategate: Hacked emails include calls for ‘Earth Government’ as foundation of new world order, splitting of America

The EU President has NOT been elected. Herman Van Rompuy was appointed by the heads of the 27 EU member states.

Germany and France have tabled controversial plans to create an “economic government of the European Union” to police financial policy across the continent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the summit of European Union leaders in Brussels

They have put Herman Van Rompuy, the EU President, in charge of a special task force to examine “all options possible” to prevent another crisis like the one caused by the Greek meltdown.

His mission will be to draw up a master-plan for the best way to oversee and enforce economic targets set in Brussels as a key part of a bail-out package for Greece.

The options he will consider include the creation of an “economic government” by the by the end of the year.

US: States Consider New Taxes on Virtually Everything

March 30, 2010 by Infinite

States Seeking Cash Hope to Expand Taxes to Services

A LITTLE OFF THE TOP Michigan residents may have to pay a 5.5 percent tax for haircuts. States across the nation are considering similar taxes on services to solve their budget problems.

In the scramble to find something, anything, to generate more revenue, states are considering new taxes on virtually everything: garbage pickup, dating services, bowling night, haircuts, even clowns.

A Michigan proposal would lower the sales tax but make it broader, levying it on over 100 additional types of services like haircuts, including those at Chaltraw’s Barber Shop in Standish, where Al Marden awaited his turn.

“It’s hard enough doing what we do,” grumbled John Luke, a plumber in the Philadelphia suburbs. His services would, for the first time, come with an added tax if the governor has his way.

Opponents of imposing taxes on services like funerals, legal advice, helicopter rides and dry cleaning argue that this push comes as businesses are barely clinging to life and can ill afford to see customers further put off by new taxes. This is especially true, they say, in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where some of the most sweeping proposals are being considered this spring.

But this is also a period of economic gloom for states. Pension funds are in the red, federal stimulus help will soon vanish, and revenues from traditional sources like income and property taxes are slumping ever lower, with few elected officials willing to risk voter wrath by raising them.

Vatican knew of abuse in Ontario: Victim

March 31, 2010March 30, 2010 by Infinite

Papal embassy officials told in 1993, says man abused by former monsignor

Former Monsignor Bernard Prince, right, befriended Pope John Paul II.

An Ontario victim of a pedophile priest who later became a top Vatican official says the Vatican knew of allegations against the priest years before he was convicted.

The priest, former Monsignor Bernard Prince, was convicted in 2008 of molesting 13 young boys between 1964 and 1984. Most of the incidents occurred in the Killaloe area, near Pembroke in eastern Ontario. He was defrocked last year.

Prince was appointed to a top Vatican job in Rome in 1991 – the year after the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pembroke learned of sex abuse allegations – says the victim, who can’t be identified because of a court publication ban on identifying him. The victim says in 1993 the Apostolic Nunciature in Ottawa – the Vatican’s embassy – was notified of the allegations.

Yet Prince remained secretary general of the Vatican’s Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith until his retirement in 2004.

“The Apostolic Nuncio in Ottawa was aware of the allegations,” says the victim, referring to the Vatican’s ambassador at the time, Archbishop Carlo Curis.

“They did nothing about it,” the victim alleges, referring to Vatican officials. “In fact, they just continued to cover him up.”

How the European Parliament is spending your taxes

March 30, 2010March 30, 2010 by Infinite

There are highlights of the draft budget proposed by the European Parliament for its own building programme:

€40 million for new office space in Brussels to accommodate the 150 new staff members and 66 contract staff
€586 million to renovate and extend the European Parliament building in Luxembourg (you didn’t know that the European Parliament had a building in Luxembourg as well as Brussels and Strasbourg, did you?)
€80 million to provide an additional office for each MEP for the accommodation of a third or fourth assistant
€10 million for a second creche in Brussels
€20 million for a “House of European History”

Although the member states are working to constrain their expenditure, one item in their national budgets keeps rising: contributions to the EU budget. Recession? What recession?

US Scientists: The Gulf Stream ‘Is NOT Slowing Down’

March 29, 2010 by Infinite

Data came from the global network of Argo floats in the oceans

The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea.

Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.

A slow-down – dramatised in the movie The Day After Tomorrow – is projected by some models of climate change.

The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The stream is a key process in the climate of western Europe, bringing heat northwards from the tropics and keeping countries such as the UK 4-6C warmer than they would otherwise be.

It forms part of a larger movement of water, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is itself one component of the global thermohaline system of currents.

Between 2002 and 2009, the team says, there was no trend discernible – just a lot of variability on short timescales.

The Atlantic overturning circulation is still an important player in today’s climate

Josh Willis, Nasa

The satellite record going back to 1993 did suggest a small increase in flow, although the researchers cannot be sure it is significant.

“The changes we’re seeing in overturning strength are probably part of a natural cycle,” said Josh Willis from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

It’s Official: America Now Enforces Capital Controls

March 29, 2010March 29, 2010 by Infinite

AND NOW …. CAPITAL CONTROLS!

Now that is a DICTATORSHIP!

Gerald Celente – ‘The No.1 Trend Forecaster’ – is correct:

– Gerald Celente: This time they will close the Banks & Wall Street (03/27/10)

‘Fascism is coming to America’

Actually one should flee such a country, if possible, or immediately change the government.

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer country. On March 18, with very little pomp and circumstance, president Obama passed the most recent stimulus act, the $17.5 billion Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (H.R. 2487), brilliantly goalseeked by the administration’s millionaire cronies to abbreviate as HIRE.

As it was merely the latest in an endless stream of acts destined to expand the government payroll to infinity, nobody cared about it, or actually read it.

Because if anyone had read it, the act would have been known as the Capital Controls Act, as one of the lesser, but infinitely more important provisions on page 27, known as Offset Provisions – Subtitle A-Foreign Account Tax Compliance, institutes just that.

In brief, the Provision requires that foreign banks not only withhold 30% of all outgoing capital flows (likely remitting the collection promptly back to the US Treasury) but also disclose the full details of non-exempt account-holders to the US and the IRS.

And should this provision be deemed illegal by a given foreign nation’s domestic laws (think Switzerland), well the foreign financial institution is required to close the account. It’s the law.

If you thought you could move your capital to the non-sequestration safety of non-US financial institutions, sorry you lose – the law now says so. Capital Controls are now here and are now fully enforced by the law.

Let’s parse through the just passed law, which has been mentioned by exactly zero mainstream media outlets.

Here is the default new state of capital outflows:

Sell-off in US Treasuries Raises Sovereign Debt Fears

March 29, 2010 by Infinite

The greatest financial collapse in history is coming.

The US and the Federal Reserve are bankrupting America and destroying the US dollar.

– Record: National Debt Up $2 Trillion in Just 421 Days on Obama’s Watch

– US budget deficit hits record $221bn, the largest monthly deficit in history

– Rep. Ron Paul: The US Is Insolvent, Government Debt Will Never Be Repaid

– Marc Faber on CNN: The Patient is Already Dead

– Obama Administration Using Accounting Gimmicks That Would Make Enron ‘Blush,’ Says Republican Lawmaker

Are you prepared for what is coming?

– Gerald Celente: This time they will close the Banks & Wall Street (03/27/10)

– US Government Preparing For Civil Unrest In America

Investors are braced for a further sell-off in US Treasuries after dramatic moves last week raised fears that the surfeit of US government debt is starting to saturate bond markets.

The yield on 10-year Treasuries – the benchmark price of global capital – surged 30 basis points in just two days last week to over 3.9pc, the highest level since the Lehman crisis. Alan Greenspan, ex-head of the US Federal Reserve, said the abrupt move may be “the canary in the coal mine”, a warning to Washington that it can no longer borrow with impunity. He said there is a “huge overhang of federal debt, which we have never seen before”.

David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff said Treasury yields have ratcheted up 90 basis points since December in a “destabilising fashion”, for the wrong reasons. Growth has not been strong enough to revive fears of inflation. Commodity prices peaked in January and US home sales have fallen for the last three months, pointing to a double-dip in the housing market.

Mr Rosenberg said the yield spike recalls the move in the spring of 2007 just as the credit system started to unravel. “The question is how the equity market is going to handle this back-up in rates,” he said.

The trigger for last week’s sell-off was poor demand at Treasury auctions, linked to the passage of the Obama health care reform. Critics say it will add $1 trillion (£670bn) to America’s debt over the next decade, a claim disputed fiercely by Democrats.

Rep. Ron Paul: Healthcare Will Drive US To Bankruptcy

March 29, 2010 by Infinite

Date: 28th Mar 10

Bank of America & Wells Fargo to Pay Zero 2009 Federal Income Tax

March 29, 2010March 29, 2010 by Infinite

Bank of America, Wells Fargo Probably Won’t Pay Income Tax for 2009 (Charlotte Observer):

This tax season will be kind to Bank of America and Wells Fargo: It appears that neither bank will have to pay federal income taxes for 2009.

Bank of America probably won’t pay federal taxes because it lost money in the U.S. for the year. Wells Fargo was profitable, but can write down its tax bill because of losses at Wachovia, which it rescued from a near collapse.

Read moreBank of America & Wells Fargo to Pay Zero 2009 Federal Income Tax

Deadly Suicide Bombings on Moscow Metro Beneath the Offices of the FSB Kill at Least 36

March 29, 2010 by Infinite

Amateur video showing the aftermath of one of the explosions

At least 36 people have been killed after two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow Metro trains in the morning rush hour, officials say.

Twenty-four died in the first blast at 0756 (0356 GMT) as a train stood at the central Lubyanka station, beneath the offices of the FSB intelligence agency.

About 40 minutes later, a second explosion ripped through a train at Park Kultury, leaving another 12 dead.

The FSB said it was likely a group from the North Caucasus was responsible.

The BBC’s Richard Galpin in Moscow says no group has yet said it carried out the attacks, but past suicide bombings in the capital have been carried out by or blamed on Islamist rebels fighting for independence in Chechnya.

People were yelling like hell… Within about two minutes everything was covered in smoke

Alexei, witness

Live: Moscow Metro bombings In pictures: Aftermath of attacks Profile: Moscow Metro A Chechen link to Moscow bombs?

In February, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov said “the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia… the war is coming to their cities”.

At an emergency meeting with senior officials, President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to uphold the “policy of suppressing terror and the fight against terrorism”.

“We will continue operations against terrorists without compromises and to the end,” he said.

CIA Officer Robert Steele Stresses The Importance of Blogging (MONTAGE)

March 29, 2010March 29, 2010 by Infinite

This is a follow up montage to those who say Bloggers and making videos (Vloggers) and those who comment, are not making a difference.

Added: 26. March 2010

Just look how your government attacks WikiLeaks:

– The War on WikiLeaks … and Why It Matters

– US Must Stop Spying on WikiLeaks

– Pentagon Targets WikiLeaks Whistleblowers

– US Army considered attack on Wikileaks