Relatively junior council officials are giving permission for operations to spy on people
Thousands of middle managers in local councils are being authorised to spy on people suspected of petty offences using powers designed to prevent crime and terrorism.Even junior council officials are being allowed to initiate surveillance operations in what privacy campaigners likened to Eastern bloc police tactics.
The Home Office is expected to be urged by the Commons Home Affairs select committee to issue guidelines to councils on the type of operations in which surveillance can be used.
Amid increasing concern in Parliament that the UK is slowly becoming a surveillance society, the committee has looked at the operation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), which some MPs say is being misused to focus on petty crime rather than serious offending.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs select committee, told The Times: “I am personally shocked by the numbers involved in surveillance by the local authorities. It is important we make sure there is proper accountability and transparency in the way this operates.” The committee, which has concluded an investigation into the surveillance society and is to publish its report in eight days’ time, is understood to have been concerned at the lack of guidance from central government to local authorities on how powers under the Act should be used.
Councils are increasingly allowing anyone of a “service manager” grade rather than high-ranking officials with a legal background to authorise surveillance operations. Relatively junior council officials are giving permission for operations to spy on people, their homes, obtain their telephone records and discover who they are e-mailing.
“A lot of councils are making the proactive decision to use these powers more,” a spokesman for Lacors, the central body that oversees local authorities, said.
“They think it’s a fantastic tool. Inevitably, more middle-management staff will be called on to authorise surveillance.”
May 30 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Donald Kohn raised the possibility of giving Wall Street securities firms permanent access to loans from the central bank, as long as regulators tighten oversight of the companies.
Kohn also advocated continuing Fed auctions of funds to commercial banks and loans of Treasuries to Wall Street dealers even after markets stabilize. Such channels would stay open “either on a standby basis or operating at a very low level,” he said in a speech in New York yesterday.
The remarks go beyond Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who has indicated the central bank would shut lending to investment banks when the credit crisis passes. Lawmakers and regulators are debating how to approach the supervision of investment banks in the aftermath of the Fed’s rescue of Bear Stearns Cos. in March.
“If you are a bondholder in one of these Wall Street firms, you know you have a big `Sugar Daddy’ now called the Federal Reserve that’s going to back you up,” said Jeff Pantages, chief investment officer of Alaska Permanent Capital Management in Anchorage, which oversees $1.8 billion in assets.
“But if you are a stockholder this kind of worries you” because investment banks “will be more highly regulated and won’t be able to use leverage as much as” before, he said.
Kohn said he hasn’t decided whether securities firms should continue to gain access to loans from the central bank.
More Extensive
“The more extensive the access, the greater the degree to which market discipline will be loosened and prudential regulation will need to be tightened,” Kohn said in his speech to a conference hosted by the New York Fed. “Unquestionably, regulation needs to respond to what we have learned about the importance of primary dealers and their vulnerabilities to liquidity pressures.”
The Libertarian Partyrecently nominated former Republican Congressman Bob Barr as their presidential nominee. This nomination represents a compromise of the principles that the Libertarian Party used to stand for. Party members decided that they were going to sell out the principles of their party in exchange for some coverage in the corporate controlled media. Is some coverage in the establishment media worth having a man at the front of the party with an incredibly dubious past pertaining to freedom and liberty? Although it is possible that Barr might have changed his ways and realized his mistakes for not abiding by the Constitution, his record speaks for itself. Barr voted in favor of the Patriot Act, worked for the CIA throughout the 1970s and supported the phony war on drugs for several years. The Patriot Act is one of the most tyrannical pieces of legislation ever passed in the history of the United States. The war on drugs is entirely against the principles of the Libertarian Party. Considering Barr’s record of supporting anti-freedom policies and legislation, he is not a suitable choice to vote for in the general election. If you want to vote for a candidate that believes in liberty and the Constitution, write in Ron Paul.
Barr won the nomination over Mary Ruwart who would have been a fine candidate to promote the Libertarian cause. Ruwart is an author who has supported the cause of individual freedom for many years. She is a long time member of the Libertarian party and had none of the baggage that Barr has. By selecting Barr as the presidential nominee, the Libertarian Party has selected a poor representative.
Below is a blurb from a Bloomberg report talking about how Barr has upset many Libertarians with his dubious past.
Barr has angered Libertarians by backing what they view as abuses of government, including efforts to crack down on drugs and his vote for the Patriot Act, which gave the government expanded powers, such as wiretapping, to fight terrorism. Civil libertarians condemn his co-sponsorship of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages, and his opposition to abortion.
US banks set aside a record $37.1bn to cover losses on real estate loans and other credits during the first quarter in a sign of the growing economic pain being caused by the global credit crisis, regulators said on Thursday.
Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said it was likely loan-loss provisions and bank failures would rise in coming quarters as the fallout from market turmoil hits the real economy.
“While we may be past the worst of the turmoil in financial markets, we’re still in the early stages of the traditional credit crisis you typically see during an economic downturn,” she said, adding: “What we really need to focus on is the uncertainty surrounding the economy . . . and again it is all about housing.”
Ms Bair spoke as the FDIC released its quarterly banking profile, which showed loan-loss provisions in the first quarter were more than four times higher than last year’s level. That was the main reason bank earnings fell 46 per cent to $19.3bn from the first quarter in 2007 for the commercial banks and savings institutions where the FDIC insures customer deposits.
Following restatements by banks, the FDIC revised the industry’s net income for the fourth quarter of last year from $5.8bn to $646m – the lowest since the end of 1990.
Meanwhile, the FDIC said the number of “problem” banks rose in the first quarter from 76 to 90, with combined assets of $26.3bn. Three US banks have failed this year, compared with three for the whole of last year and none in 2005 and 2006.
Ms Bair said she expected more bank failures but emphasised that the number of problem institutions remained well below the record levels of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s – when one in 10 banks were in that category.
However, she said one worrying trend was the declining “coverage ratio”, which compares bank reserves with the level of loans that are 90 days past due. This ratio fell for the eighth consecutive quarter, to 89 cents in reserves for every $1 of noncurrent loans, the lowest level since the first quarter of 1993.
“This is the kind of thing that gives regulators heartburn,” said Ms Bair. “We also want them to beef up their capital cushions beyond regulatory minimums given uncertainty about the housing markets and the economy . . . It’s only prudent to be building up capital at a time like this.”
In a sign that some US banks may have underestimated the cost of the housing slump, KeyCorp this week doubled its forecast for loan losses – its second revision in as many months – sending its share price tumbling by more than 10 per cent. During the property boom, KeyCorp expanded in fast-growing regions such as southern California and Florida, where problem loans are now growing.
By Joanna Chung and Saskia Scholtes in New York
Published: May 29 2008 20:43 | Last updated: May 29 2008 20:43
(NaturalNews) The use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the U.S. military may lead to a death toll far higher than that from the nuclear bombs dropped at the end of World War II.
DU is a waste product of uranium enrichment, containing approximately one-third the radioactive isotopes of naturally occurring uranium. Because of its high density, it is used in armor- or tank-piercing ammunition. It has been fired by the U.S. and British militaries in the two Iraq wars and in Afghanistan, as well as by NATO forces in Kosovo and the Israeli military in Lebanon and Palestine.
Inhaled or ingested DU particles are highly toxic, and DU has been classified as an illegal weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority has estimated that 50 tons of DU dust from the first Gulf War could lead to 500,000 cancer deaths by the year 2000. To date, a total of 2,000 tons have been generated in the Middle East.
Chinese hackers pose a clear and present danger to U.S. government and private-sector computer networks and may be responsible for two major U.S. power blackouts.
Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.
One prominent expert told National Journal he believes that China’s People’s Liberation Army played a role in the power outages. Tim Bennett, the former president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a leading trade group, said that U.S. intelligence officials have told him that the PLA in 2003 gained access to a network that controlled electric power systems serving the northeastern United States. The intelligence officials said that forensic analysis had confirmed the source, Bennett said. “They said that, with confidence, it had been traced back to the PLA.” These officials believe that the intrusion may have precipitated the largest blackout in North American history, which occurred in August of that year. A 9,300-square-mile area, touching Michigan, Ohio, New York, and parts of Canada, lost power; an estimated 50 million people were affected.
Officially, the blackout was attributed to a variety of factors, none of which involved foreign intervention. Investigators blamed “overgrown trees” that came into contact with strained high-voltage lines near facilities in Ohio owned by FirstEnergy Corp. More than 100 power plants were shut down during the cascading failure. A computer virus, then in wide circulation, disrupted the communications lines that utility companies use to manage the power grid, and this exacerbated the problem. The blackout prompted President Bush to address the nation the day it happened. Power was mostly restored within 24 hours.
There has never been an official U.S. government assertion of Chinese involvement in the outage, but intelligence and other government officials contacted for this story did not explicitly rule out a Chinese role. One security analyst in the private sector with close ties to the intelligence community said that some senior intelligence officials believe that China played a role in the 2003 blackout that is still not fully understood.
LOS ANGELES – As if sky-high gasoline prices weren’t frustrating enough, many owners of thirsty SUVs, pickups and motor homes who use a credit card at the pump are being blocked from getting a full tank.
That’s because many station operators have a $75 limit on Visa (V) or MasterCard (MA) transactions at the pump.
If motorists hit the limit, they must do a second transaction at the pump to finish filling. Another solution, though inconvenient: Go see the attendant to have the card swiped inside. But this information often is not on the pump, and it can be aggravating even if it is, so customers are venting their ire.
“It’s frustrating to them, and they let us know,” says Tom Robinson, president of Rotten Robbie, a 34-station chain based in Northern California. “There’s always an adjective associated with the pump, and it’s like ‘stupid’ or worse.”
Station owners say they simply are passing through policies of Visa and MasterCard, which won’t reimburse them more than $75 per transaction at the pump if there’s a disputed charge or a fraudulent card is used.
Police are targeting the law-abiding middle classes over minor misdemeanours so they can meet government targets, a report claims.
Officers are having to put Home Office targets before serving the public and are becoming increasingly alienated from ordinary people as a result.
Members of the public find officers to be “rude” and accuse them of neglecting their duties and failing to respond to reports of crime.
The report, by the think-tank Civitas, said political interference meant incidents that might previously have been regarded as innocuous were now treated as crimes.
Police performance is measured in “sanction detections” which means officers have detected or cleared a case by charging someone, issuing a penalty notice or giving a caution. Many officers are expected to complete a certain number each month.
Arresting or fining a normally law-abiding person for a trivial offence is a good way of achieving the target and pleasing the Home Office.
CCTV cameras are bringing more and more public places under surveillance – and passenger aircraft could be next.
A prototype European system uses multiple cameras and “Big Brother” software to try and automatically detect terrorists or other dangers caused by passengers.
The European Union’s Security of Aircraft in the Future European Environment (SAFEE) project uses a camera in every passenger’s seat, with six wide-angle cameras to survey the aisles. Software then analyses the footage to detect developing terrorist activity or “air-rage” incidents, by tracking passengers’ facial expressions.
The system performed well in tests this January that simulated terrorist and unruly passenger behaviour scenarios in a fake Airbus A380 fuselage, say the researchers that built it.
Systems to analyse CCTV footage – for example, to detect violence (with video) or alert CCTV operators to unusual events – have been designed before. But the SAFEE software must cope with the particularly challenging environment of a full aircraft cabin.
Threat indicators
As crew and passengers move around they often obscure one another, causing a risk the computer will lose track of some of the hundreds of people it must monitor. To get around this, the software constantly matches views of people from different cameras to track their movements.
“It looks for running in the cabin, standing near the cockpit for long periods of time, and other predetermined indicators that suggest a developing threat,” says James Ferryman of the University of Reading, UK, one of the system’s developers.
Other behaviours could include a person nervously touching their face, or sweating excessively. One such behaviour won’t trigger the system to alert the crew, only certain combinations of them.
Ferryman is not ready to reveal specifically which behaviours were most likely to trigger the system. Much of the computer’s ability to detect threats relies on sensitive information gleaned from security analysts in the intelligence community, he tells New Scientist.
Losing track
But Mohan Trivedi of the University of California, San Diego, US, is sceptical. He has built systems that he says can track and recognise individual people as they appear and disappear on different floors of his laboratory building.
It correctly identifies people about 70% of the time, and then only under “optimal conditions” that do not exist inside an airplane cabin, he says.
“[Ferryman’s] research shows that a system detects threats in a very limited way. But it’s a very different thing using it day in and day out.” Trivedi says. “Lighting and reflections change in the cabin every time someone turns on a light or closes a window shade. They haven’t shown that they have overcome these challenges.”
Ferryman admits that his system will require thousands of tests on everyday passengers before it can be declared reliable at detecting threats.
While the documents do, in fact, reveal the word “waterboarding” or some variation, they leave pretty much everything else to the imagination. The pages that haven’t been completely withheld (many of them contain the words “Denied in Full” instead of any actual content) have the clandestine blacked-out look that’s become a sort of trademark of this administration. This is my favorite:
One of the documents is a heavily redacted version of a report (PDF) by the CIA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) on its review of the CIA’s interrogation and detention program. The report includes information about an as-yet-undisclosed Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion from August 2002. Interestingly, this opinion appears to be the same OLC memo authorizing specific interrogations methods for use by the CIA that is being withheld by the CIA as a classified document in the ACLU’s FOIA litigation — but the OIG report refers to this document as “unclassified.”
The CIA continues to withhold many more documents that should not be secret. The incomplete response to the ACLU’s demand for records reflects a complete disregard for the right of the American public to know when and how often the government has employed illegal interrogation methods.
Belgian fishermen have been protesting directly to the EU
Fuel protests triggered by rising oil prices have spread to more countries across Europe, with thousands of fishermen on strike.
Union leaders said Portugal’s entire coastal fleet stayed in port on Friday, while in Spain, 7,000 fishermen held protests at the agriculture ministry.
French fishermen have been protesting for weeks, with Belgian and Italian colleagues also involved.
UK and Dutch lorry drivers held similar protests earlier this week.
The strike reflects anger at the rising cost of fuel, with oil prices above $130 (83.40 euros; £65.80) a barrel.
Trade unions say the cost of diesel has become prohibitively high, after rising 300% over the past five years.
Wholesale fish prices, meanwhile, have been static for 20 years.
Fishermen’s leaders from France, Spain and Italy have been meeting in Paris to co-ordinate strikes and protests over the next three weeks in the run-up to a European Union fisheries ministers’ meeting.
The protesters are calling for direct immediate aid for the fisheries industry, coupled with increased subsidies.
The European Commission said in a statement it was willing to show flexibility towards the industry but it has ruled out subsidies to offset rising fuel costs.
Short-term aid packages were acceptable as long as they were used to address structural deficiencies in the fleets, it said.
‘Ruin for fishermen’
Several thousand fishermen marched on the agriculture ministry in Madrid, where they handed out 20 tonnes of fresh fish to members of the public in an attempt to draw attention to their ailing industry.
Fishermen held protests in Brussels and Madrid
Many blew whistles and klaxons, and let off firecrackers producing red smoke.
The BBC’s Steve Kingstone at the protest said he could see flags from Catalonia, the Basque country and Galicia.
(NaturalNews) Given the fact that just about everything you put on your skin gets absorbed into your bloodstream, it is interesting that there is a complete lack of regulation of cancer-causing ingredients in skin care products. There are over 150 toxic cancer-causing ingredients currently used in cosmetic products alone.According to federal law, products containing cancer-causing substances should carry a written warning. But the FDA does not enforce this law with cosmetics or personal care products. Consumers are left to purchase these products at their own risk, and as a result they are being harmed by them.
Let’s consider a product that’s harming tens of millions of people every day in America alone: sunscreen. Sunscreen products do not block ultraviolet radiation very well unless you apply multiple coats, but there has been a flurry of research lately on the harm caused by sunscreen chemicals. These chemicals actually promote skin cancer. This product is causing the very condition from which it claims to protect people.
The skin is not the only organ that is harmed by sunscreen chemicals. Those chemicals are absorbed by the skin, circulate throughout the body and end up harming the liver, the organ responsible for neutralizing chemicals in the body. The continued use of sunscreen products — especially those with fragrance in them — will inevitably harm the liver and, in my opinion, can lead to organ failure or liver cancer.
Sunscreen is not the only harmful product people put on their skin; consider perfume and cologne. In an effort to smell attractive to others, consumers routinely put toxic chemicals on their bodies that come out of beautifully designed glass bottles. Most people do not realize that these fragrances are often made from toxic substances that are known to cause cancer; the perfume industry gets away with murder. This includes everything from skin cream to moisturizer lotion, not to mention shower soaps and other cleaning products with added fragrance. Unless you are buying the natural forms of these products from truly organic companies, there is no doubt that you are applying a bewildering array of harmful chemicals to your skin. And when you put them on your skin, they are absorbed directly into your bloodstream.
Analysis: Environment Minister Hilary Benn again rebuffed calls this week for WW2-style energy rationing to return to the UK. He was responding to a Select Committee report urging ministers to issue 45 million Britons with an energy trading “credit card” – a mammoth techno-bureaucratic exercise costing several billions of pounds a year to operate.
What’s interesting is how the normal parliamentary business was turned upside down.
Usually, it’s ministers who propose batty and unworkable legislation, and fail to cost it, while select committees are supposed to scrutinize the proposals: picking apart the logic and bogus cost estimates. But in this case the select committee in question – the “Environmental Audit Committee” – is positively evangelical about a return to rationing. Perhaps not surprisingly, ministers are wary of committing electoral suicide, or at least, not in quite such an obvious fashion.
Benn said his department DEFRA had made its own enquiry, which unlike the watchdog’s investigation, included costs. A rationing scheme would cost between £700m and £2bn to set up, he said, and between £1bn and £2bn a year to operate he said.
“In essence it is ahead of its time,” the minister said Tuesday. “The cost of implementing it would be quite high and there are a lot of practical problems to be overcome.” Front bench Tories are equally wary.
So what are the MPs proposing?
The ration, or “personal carbon allowance” or PCA, is a measure of an individual’s energy usage, either at home or traveling. Such usage is capped, and “further emissions rights will simply not be available,” the Committee says. You may choose between a holiday, and turning on the heating. Points win prizes, however, and frugal individuals would be rewarded financially from the creation of an internal market.
“We could not find or imagine analogues in other fields of human activity for individual carbon trading beyond rationing during and after World War 2,” the authors of the DEFRA-commissioned report “A Rough Guide to Individual Carbon Trading” wrote in 2006.
Six Palestinians demonstrators, who were among thousands peacefully protesting the siege on Gaza, have been injured by Israeli fire.
Thousands of people took to streets to join a rally called by Islamic Hamas movement to demand Israel to lift its crippling blockade on the sliver.
The protesters marched from the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis in southern Gaza towards the Sufa crossing, calling for the end of Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
The demonstrators waving Hamas flags chanted anti-Israeli slogans, condemning the regime for committing a holocaust in Gaza.
May 29 (Bloomberg) — Dow Chemical Co., the largest U.S. chemical maker, may not be the last to raise prices this year because of soaring raw materials costs.
Monsanto Co., Hershey Co., General Mills Inc. and Avery Dennison Corp. may follow suit, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They’re among 11 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index that increased their so-called LIFO reserve, which captures rising inventory costs, by at least 20 percent over the past four quarters.
With oil and commodity prices at record highs, companies will be forced to pass on higher costs, analysts said after Dow Chemical announced yesterday it will raise prices by the most in its 111-year history. That will contribute to inflation, and may prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates for the first time in four years.
“We are going to see a cascading of higher prices through the system,” said Steve Hoedt, who helps manage $34 billion, including Dow Chemical shares, at National City Corp. in Cleveland. “Companies that are able to push prices through to their customers are the ones that are going to be successful.”
A pending New York State Assembly Bill dubbed, the “worst vaccine bill ever” by one activist group, would see all vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made mandatory for all children, including infants and toddlers.
Assembly Bill 10942, introduced at the request of Richard Daines, the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, calls for changes to the law in order to make recommended inoculation compulsory in order for children to attend school.
The bill would also permit the administration of vaccines for sexually transmitted infections to minors without parental consent.
Separate sections of the bill would come into effect next year with others becoming law in 2010.
A-CHAMP, a national, non-partisan political action organization formed by parents in support of children with neurodevelopmental and communication disorders, has called for rejection of the bill and is demanding the passage of A5468/S3031, a bill that would give individuals a right to a philosophical exemption from vaccine mandates.
The group’s press release highlights the key points in the bill:
Our elected New York representatives would no longer determine the mandatory schedule of vaccines to attend school; decisions made by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices would automatically become mandatory.
All children, infants and toddlers included, in New York would be required to get all vaccines recommended by the ACIP according to the ACIP schedule
All children in New York up to age 18 would be required to get annual flu shots.
All girls in New York would be required to get a human papilloma virus shot.
All junior high school children and college students would be required to get meningococcal shots.
Doctors would be required to issue certificates for every shot given and parents would be required to maintain the records and provide them to school and other authorities.
The rules committee claims that the new laws would have no fiscal impact on the state despite the necessity of the state to spend tens of millions on purchasing new vaccines, a vast increase in mandatory record keeping and enforcement for schools, and a huge increase that could be expected in the number of cases of neurological damage, Guillian Barré syndrome and other vaccine-caused injuries.
Besides certain laws that apply only to government medical specialists – there is no law that enforces the mandatory use of any vaccine in the United States. Waiver forms for personal or religious exemptions are freely available. Enforced medical treatment is an assault and a violation of the 14th amendment.
However, some lawmakers seem determined to ignore the Constitution and to make some vaccinations (usually the most profitable ones) mandatory.
There has recently been a spate of cases where officials, with the assistance of directed media propaganda, have attempted to cajole parents into believing that laws require vaccination.
In February 2006 one such media hoax fooled parents in Texas and other areas of the country into believing that the HPV vaccine, which experts have slammed as untested and has continued to be linked to dangerous side-effects, is now required by law and that young girls must take it. Merck Pharmaceuticals hit the headlines after it was revealed that the company was set to capitalize on this fraud by making obscene profits from a crony deal with Governor Rick Perry, while children were put at risk.
Last November we reported on a case in Prince George’s County, Maryland, where parents of more than 1600 children were told they could be put in jail for failing to get their kids vaccinated. At the time a local Fox News affiliate reported, “A new law was passed last year requiring children from 5th through to 10th grade to have the vaccine,” which was a total lie.
The non-complying parents were not charged not under vaccination laws (because there aren’t any) but under truancy, neglect or child in need of supervision laws, which state that the parent is culpable after 30 days of a child’s unexplained absence from school.
The school itself triggered the truancy violation by unfairly kicking the kids out of school, and failing to inform parents about vaccine waiver forms. A state prosecutor involved in the case then admitted that there is no law that mandates any vaccine.
If New York State lawmakers get their way, this could change.
As in the case of all other vaccines, executive orders and court mandates merely state that the vaccine is “recommended,” yet the mass media drumbeat constantly conditions people to believe that if they don’t take their shots they will be kicked out of school, arrested and thrown in jail. This trick will continue to hoodwink Americans into taking all manner of dangerous and untested vaccines, the number of which rises every year, until they realize that there is no law that forces them to take any vaccine.
There is a plethora of examples where vaccines containing mercury, live HIV virus, live cancer and other horrors have wrought misery after victims were bullied into taking them by government mandates that they were deluded into thinking was the law.
The flu vaccine for example, which continues to be manufactured with thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, is recommended for all pregnant women, infants and children despite the fact that the Institute of Medicine in 2001 recommended against the policy of exposing these same sensitive groups to thimerosal containing vaccines.
Studies have shown a direct relationship between mercury in children’s vaccines and autism. Further studies have shown a decline in neurodevelopmental disorders after the removal of thimerosal-containing vaccines. The preservative has been banned or limited in Europe, Japan, England and Russia. Furthermore, there are no reported instances of autism amongst religious groups such as the Amish community and very few instances are reported in the third world.
Autism was a practically unknown affliction some decades back, but now one in every 150 children is affected.
Mercury is the second most toxic metal known to man behind Uranium. Thimerosal is used in vaccines not because it is good for you, but purely because it prevents vaccine contamination. Yet some have questioned why thimerosal is even considered for vaccines because there are obviously safer alternatives to preventing contamination.
Many believe the only reason it is still in vaccines is that it allows substantial savings for pharmaceutical companies. Questions also remain about how those companies conduct vaccine research and how the government regulates them.
Last October President Bush vetoed a bill that would have banned mercury in flu vaccines for children despite the fact that he pledged in 2004 to support such a move when campaigning for re-election.
During Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004 he stated:
“I support the removal of Thimerosal from vaccines on the childhood national vaccine schedule. During a second term as President, I will continue to support increased funding to support a wide variety of research initiatives aimed at seeking definitive causes and/or triggers of autism. It is important to note that while there are many possible theories about causes or triggers of autism, no one material has been definitely included or excluded.”
Despite this he vetoed the bill that would have removed thimerosal, citing “costs”. What costs would these be? Do the costs of big pharmaceutical companies and fat government kickbacks outweigh the costs of the healthy brains of every child in America? Seemingly so.
The following video from the University of Calgary highlights how mercury causes brain neuron degeneration:
While the media continues to hype reports that contend the evidence for links between mercury laden vaccines and autism are not concrete, there are scores of studies and testimony from credible figures asserting the exact opposite.
Starting in the early nineties, government regulators dramatically increased the amount of Thimerosal exposure to babies by adding two new vaccines to the roster of mandatory immunizations children must have before enrolling in school. The combination of the Hepatitis B vaccine and the HiB vaccine more than doubled the amount of mercury children.
Mercury expert Dr. Boyd Haley of the University of Kentucky has testified before Congress and the Pentagon as well as the FDA as one of the nation’s leading experts on Thimerosal and mercury poisoning, revealing that his research leads him to believe that some children are genetically predisposed to storing mercury in their brains, leading to neurological disorders, including autism.
The combination of the Hepatitis B vaccine and the HiB vaccine more than doubled the amount of mercury children in the 90s. “If you take a ten-pound baby in, and it gets four shots on that one day, which is a common practice – that’s equivalent to giving a 100-pound person forty shots in one day,” said Haley.
Haley has also proposed that Thimerosal in infant vaccines was also the most likely toxic agent involved in Gulf War syndrome and autistic spectrum disorders. Think about this, they are injecting into babies something that is breaking down the bodies of full grown combat veterans.
While the FDA questioned thimerosal’s safety in the 80s, noting that it was “not safe for ‘over-the-counter’ topical use because of its potential for cell damage”, and while it was removed from animal vaccines for the same reason, the government regulatory committees did nothing to question its use in childhood vaccines.
It’s too dangerous for cats and dogs but the government is happy for our babies to be pumped full of the stuff on a regular basis.
Dr Haley has also pointed out that it is also well known by any good biochemist that thimerosal and aluminum react dangerously when combined together. Given that Aluminum is a compound added to many vaccines as a catalyst you would think the government would have heeded this warning, yet it has still done nothing.
Despite the continued reports doubting the link between Thimerosal and autism, more studies have continued to verify the link. As reported in the Capitol Times last year:
A study done at the University of Washington in 2006 showed that baby primates exposed to injected thimerosal (50 percent mercury), at a rate equal to the 1990s childhood vaccine schedule, retained twice as much inorganic mercury in their brains as primates exposed to equal amounts of ingested methylmercury. We know from autometallographic determination that inorganic mercury present in the brain, following the dealkylation of organic mercury, is the toxic agent responsible for changes in the microglial population and leads to neuroinflammation.
In other words thimerosal, inorganic mercury, leads to neuroinflammatory disease which is proven to be the underlying medical condition of autism.
Furthermore In a study done at the University of Arkansas last year, autistic children were found to have significantly lower levels of the antioxidant glutathione. Glutathione is the major antioxidant needed for the elimination of mercury at the cellular level.
Moreover, Professor Philippe Grandjean, from Harvard University and the University of Southern Denmark, considered the foremost scientific authority on the development of children’s brains, has recently claimed that the average human IQ is plummeting primarily due to IQ points in the population being chemically destroyed via low level mercury exposure in children.
The links between the ingestion of mercury and neurological breakdown are clear and proven. Professors all over the world are telling us outright that it is literally destroying people’s brains. Even if you choose to believe, in the face of all the evidence, that the links are still somewhat questionable, the solution is still obvious. GET IT OUT OF THE VACCINES NOW.
According to the EPA, one in every six women of childbearing age already has blood levels of mercury high enough to cause neurological damage to their unborn children due to environmental exposures alone.
“Injecting even more mercury into the bodies of pregnant women, infants and children when it is not a necessary component of vaccines is just bad medicine,” said Lyn Redwood, president of Safe Minds and parent of a mercury-injured child. “It defies logic that a flu vaccine must be disposed of as a hazardous waste if it is not used, but somehow injecting the same mercury-containing vaccine into a baby is safe.”
Yes it defies logic to someone who believes in the unabated progression of the entirety of the human race, however, to an elite devoid of all morality and interested only in the endgame pursuit of their own biological, spiritual and financial monopoly over the whole planet, it makes perfect sense.
Amazingly, despite all of these facts, sickening reports such as the one below continue to make out that injecting the second most poisonous substance in the world into babies is actually GOOD for their health:
Despite moves to ban mercury in childhood flu vaccines in many states including Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah and Washington, the FDA continues to reject outright bans or new limits on mercury in vaccines. Where such legislation has passed, in New York, California and Iowa it does not constitute a total ban, only a limiting of the preservative and only in children’s vaccines.
Such limitations may be seen as a step in the right direction but many fear irreversible damage has already been done. In addition to the now well documented mercury containing vaccines, a more recent worry has been that a combination vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, also has dangerous side effects and can lead to brain disorders.
Concerned parents across the U.S. are leading a nationwide revolt against unnecessary, untested and dangerous vaccines as CDC records show a growing amount of religious exemptions on vaccine forms. Adults too are turning away from personal vaccination.
The Court of Federal Claims is currently hearing the second in a series of three high profile cases concerning vaccine-autism links. So far more than 5,300 cases have been filed by parents who believe vaccines may have caused autism in their children.
More parents across the country should rally to denounce the latest developments in New York, which sets the pretext for the state to dictate the health of their children, as well as moving us closer to legislation which would allow Americans to be forcibly vaccinated at gunpoint against their will during a time of manufactured crisis, such as in the case of a human to human bird flu pandemic.
New York State residents: take Action, via the A-CHAMP website, contact your elected representatives concerning Assembly Bill 10942, the worst vaccine bill ever in New York.
Families in Fallujah are calling for an investigation into the rise of birth defects after the US used phosphorus over the Iraqi city in 2004.
They have raised concerns about the weapons used by American forces in 2004, including constant bombardment with uranium depleted artillery shells and other depleted uranium ammunition- when Fallujah suffered the heaviest blitze following the overthrow of the Saddam regime of the entire war in Iraq.
Hikmat Tawfeeq, deputy chairman of the Fallujah-based human rights group Al-akhiyar said: “We have around 200 cases of deformities recorded by our society. Most of these cases are birth deformities which have arisen after the bombing of Fallujah.”
Campaigners say officials are reluctant to speak out publicly because of US pressure but at Fallujah’s children’s hospital one doctor told Sky News in the past month she has seen one or two cases of birth deformities every day.
An opthalmologist said he deals with four or five cases of newborn babies every week suffering from some form of eye deformity.
At one of the cemeteries in Fallujah, undertaker Mahmoud Hummadi said he usually buries four to five bodies of newborns every day and most of them are deformed.
Fallujah today still bears the scars of a time when it represented the backbone of the Sunni insurgency – a power-base America decided it had to break.
April and November 2004 saw some of the heaviest bombardments of the war in Iraq, including the controversial use of white phosphorous.
Phosphorus over Fallujah in 2004
It is a highly flammable material which ignites when it comes into contact with oxygen, causing severe burns.
In a statement to Sky News the US military said it had used white phosphorus in Fallujah but primarily as a smokescreen and not as an incendiary weapon.
The families say doctors have raised concerns to them about what kinds of materials were used by the Americans in order to achieve their military goals.
Fatima Ahmed is three years old. Small and lifeless she barely moves, burdened by two heads on her tiny frame.
Her mother Shukriya says doctors have been unable to diagnose exactly what has caused Fatima’s condition.
But her father Jassim, when asked who he held responsible for his daughter’s condition, said: “It’s because of the war – it’s the flagrant aggression they launched against us. What they dropped in Fallujah God knows.”
Cheney Tells New York’s G.O.P. He Sees Success in Iraq War
At a Midtown hotel ballroom, the vice president declared that the U.S. was “succeeding brilliantly” in Iraq and assailed Democrats on taxes, gas prices and national security.
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: May 30, 2008
Source: The New York Times
Here is a (small) listing of what Cheney calls successes:
Over 70,000 deaths, and over 1 million disabilities among American soldiers attributed to Iraq Wars says U.S. government data
”More than 1,820 tons (3-million, 640 thousand pounds) of radioactive nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armour piercing rounds and bunker busters, representing the worlds worst man made ecological disaster ever.“
U.S. investigative researchers have discovered an official U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs official, but not well publicized count, of 73,846 U.S. soldiers who have perished as an apparent result of Depleted Uranium based bio-chemical warfare exposure. This exceeds an estimate of 58,000 U.S. soldiers who had been killed in relation to the Vietnam War.
Well over 200,000 American soldiers could be killed by 2010, as a result of the after effects of exposure to U.S. dirty bombs.
Over One million U.S. soldiers have apparently been disabled from Depleted Uranium based biochemical exposure. Over one million Iraqis have also been documented to have been killed.
The number of troops with new cases of post-traumatic stress disorder jumped by roughly 50 percent in 2007 amid the military buildup in Iraq and increased violence there and in Afghanistan.
Records show roughly 40,000 troops have been diagnosed with the illness, also known as PTSD, since 2003. Officials believe that many more are likely keeping their illness a secret.
Taliban fighters have captured a remote district in central Afghanistan, taking prisoner the police and administration chiefs, officials and the Taliban have said.
The fighters attacked the district of Rashidan in the central province of Ghazni in a night attack, the provincial governor and a Taliban spokesman told the AFP news agency on Friday.
“Last night, Taliban attacked Rashidan district and it fell,” Jan Mohammad Mujahed, a provincial police chief, said.
Mujahed said the plight of the seized officials was unknown.
‘Under control’
Zabihullah Mujahed, a spokesman for the Taliban, confirmed the fighters were in control and said the district chief, acting police chief and eight policemen had been taken prisoner.
“They are alive and we have captured them. The district is totally under our control,” he said.
Rashidan is a small district about 120km southwest of Kabul.
Teresa Bo, reporting for Al Jazeera in Afghanistan, said Ghazni – located along a major highway from Kabul, the capital, to the south – is one of the most complicated areas where fighting between Afghan, US and Taliban forces takes place almost everyday.
She said the Taliban hold power in strategic locations, adding: “Some of the police officers working here say they are afraid they will be the next target.
“Security is one of the major concerns for every one in the area; the soldiers know they can be attacked any minute.”
Vicious circle
Bo said a vicious cricle of violence continues as the Taliban fight for the control of the country and the US-led coaliton struggles between re-construction and war.
The Taliban, in government between 1996 and 2001, last year overran several districts in remote parts of Afghanistan, but in most cases were ejected by government troops and soldiers attached to Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and a separate US-led military coalition are fighting Taliban militants.
Taliban officials say they control a handful of districts, mostly in the south of the country.
Nato military force officials said in December that the Taliban held not more than five districts.
U.S. Marine helicopters will land at the old Eastgate Consumer Mall, Brookside Park and other Indianapolis locations when the city becomes a mock battlefield next week.
About 2,300 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will conduct urban warfare training from Wednesday through June 19 in and around Indianapolis.
Most of the troops will be deployed at the Indiana State Fairgrounds and the Raytheon facility on Holt Road, said Debbi Fletcher of the Indianapolis/Marion County Emergency Management Agency.
“We don’t want anyone thinking that there’s an invasion happening or that we declared martial law or something like that,” Fletcher said.
The Marines have been cleared by state, federal and local authorities, Fletcher said. The unit’s commander promised to try to keep noise to a minimum and give neighbors plenty of warning.
“Our aim in Indianapolis is to expose our Marines to realistic scenarios and stresses posed by operating in an actual urban community, thereby increasing their proficiency in built-up areas,” Col. Mark J. Desens, commander of the 26th MEU, said in a statement. “While some of the activity will take place around Camp Atterbury, residents in many areas can expect to see helicopters flying overhead, military vehicles on the roads and Marines patrolling on foot,” Desens said.
The Marines will practice firing weapons, conducting patrols, running vehicle checkpoints, reacting to ambushes and employing nonlethal weapons, according to a statement.
May 30 (Bloomberg) — China is ordering the evacuation of up to 1.3 million people as a lake formed after the country’s deadliest earthquake in 32 years threatens to burst its banks, flooding a nearby city, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Tangjiashan, the biggest of more than 30 lakes created after landslides caused by the May 12 quake blocked rivers, is in an “extremely dangerous” state, the Ministry of Water Resources said on its Web site today.
The evacuation order was given by Tan Li, the Communist Party Secretary of Mianyang city and the head of the city’s earthquake control and relief headquarters, Xinhua said. People living in the area have been ordered to move to higher ground earmarked by the local government, the report said.
The predicted fMRI images for celery and airplane show significant similarities with the observed images for each word. Red indicates areas of high activity, blue indicates low activity. A computer has been trained to “read” people’s minds by looking at scans of their brains as they thought about specific words, researchers said on Thursday.
REUTERS/Carnegie Mellon University/Handout
__________________________________________________________________________________________
A computer has been trained to “read” people’s minds by looking at scans of their brains as they thought about specific words, researchers said on Thursday.
They hope their study, published in the journal Science, might lead to better understanding of how and where the brain stores information.
This might lead to better treatments for language disorders and learning disabilities, said Tom Mitchell of the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who helped lead the study.
“The question we are trying to get at is one people have been thinking about for centuries, which is: How does the brain organize knowledge?” Mitchell said in a telephone interview.
“It is only in the last 10 or 15 years that we have this way that we can study this question.”
Mitchell’s team used functional magnetic resonance imaging, a type of brain scan that can see real-time brain activity.
They calibrated the computer by having nine student volunteers think of 58 different words, while imaging their brain activity.
Chertoff has recently cleared the way for the completion of nearly 500 miles of a planned barrier fence in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. ________________________________________________________________________________________
JERUSALEM, May 29 (Reuters) – U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday he will seek to adopt novel Israeli methods, like behaviour-detection technologies, to better secure America’s airports.
“That’s a scenario where Israel has a lot of experience,” Chertoff said in an interview with Reuters. “I think that it is of interest to us to see if there is any adaptation there.”
Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport, known for its strict security measures, relies heavily on techniques that detect suspicious behaviour among travellers.
Chertoff said such methods, as well as Israeli technologies that detect explosives, are some of the things that may help protect U.S. airports and other public places against attacks.
Chertoff, at a conference in Jerusalem for public and homeland security ministers from around the world, signed an agreement with Israel to share technology and information on methods to improve homeland security.
One of the new systems presented at the conference, developed by the Israeli technology company WeCU, uses behavioural science, together with biometric sensors, to detect sinister intentions among travellers.
The U.S. homeland security chief said that not all methods developed and used in Israel, such as questioning every passenger, are practical in larger U.S. airports.
Israel’s Ben Gurion handles about 9 million travellers a year while major U.S. hubs, like Chicago O’Hare, see some 76 million passengers.
“Not every technological approach here (in Israel) is necessarily applicable, but we are always open to look for technology from whatever source,” Chertoff said.
Chertoff also said that the U.S. could not adopt border security methods used in Israel, which prevent Palestinian militants from entering its territory, for U.S. efforts to stop illegal immigrants from crossing its frontier with Mexico.
“(It’s) a vastly longer border. It’s not an area where there is much useful experience,” he said.
Chertoff has recently cleared the way for the completion of nearly 500 miles of a planned barrier fence in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
“The challenge will be to keep moving forward. We need to continue to implement the measures we have in place and continue to look for additional things to match what the enemies are doing because they are constantly retooling themselves,” he said.
Chertoff is expected to leave his post when President George W. Bush finishes his term in January 2009. (Editing by Jon Boyle)
“…the VA estimates that 18 veterans a day — or 6,500 a year — take their own lives, but that number includes vets from all wars.” _________________________________________________________________________________________
The number of Army suicides increased again last year, amid the most violent year yet in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
An Army official said Thursday that 115 troops committed suicide in 2007, a nearly 13 percent increase over the previous year’s 102. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because a full report on the deaths wasn’t being released until later Thursday.
About a quarter of the deaths occurred in Iraq.
The 115 confirmed deaths among active duty soldiers and National Guard and Reserve troops that had been activated was a lower number than previously feared. Preliminary figures released in January showed as many as 121 troops might have killed themselves, but a number of the deaths were still being investigated then and have since been attributed to other causes, the officials said.
Suicides have been rising during the five-year-old war in Iraq and nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan.
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