Friday, March 31, 2006

Blueprint For Endless War: The Pentagon's New Map!

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original source

This is a large videofile (699 MB) and it is not streamable. I post this, because it's not available through either Google video or any other http sources I know of, but is very, very important. In my opinion, this lecture has received FAR to little attention among the 911 truth seekers. Hopefully this will soon be converted to flash...but until then...

If you never really "got it"...what this war on terror really is all about, then this lecture will spell it out for you. Pentagon is working with Wall Street now. Business is merging with the millitary and the state. Musollini would have been proud of this guy.



From: Prisonplanet.tv

Why would our spooks kill 3000+ Americans in the 9-11 faux-terror event, you ask?

It really comes down to this: without an "enemy," our parasitical "national security" establishment has no reason to exist in its present form, much less continue to grow.



So, incredibly, they're pitching the hapless, near defenseless third world, which they've styled "the Gap" (the shaded region in the map above), as the latest "mortal enemy" of we who dwell in "the Core," their shorthand for the first world (US, Canada, Western Europe, Israel, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa) and all those who toil in the already-globalized (and, therefore, economically subservient) second world (Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and India).

Henceforth, if you happen to live in a society that prefers to order itself according to ancient patterns and are unwilling to exchange your traditional ways of living for abject subservience to the interests of multinational corporations or international finance, you and your kin have been marked for destruction.

If these megalomaniacs get their way, our recent invasions of Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Yugoslavia and Iraq are just the beginning. Watch Pentagon guru Thomas Barnett's presentation on C-SPAN of the globalists' master plan for endless war and you'll begin to get the bigger picture.

But to realize their hellish vision of globe wide war against "the Gap," they need we of "the Core" to willingly yield up to them our blood and treasure, continuously and without interruption, for years, even decades to come. 9-11 was a cynical, spook-sponsored psychological operation designed to manipulate we Americans into doing exactly that.

But we're not the only ones being cynically psy-opsed. The entire "Core" has been targeted. To get Australians and New Zealanders on board, the Bali bombing was staged shortly after 9-11. To get even Old Europe on board, and save Aznar's servile government from the righteous wrath of the Spanish people, the Madrid bombs blew, but then politically backfired, badly. And presently, coordinated airplane downings and the horrors of Beslan are warping the minds and hearts of Russians towards war just as 9-11 warped our own, for a while anyway.

But will we of "the Core" in fact respond as they hoped? Will we give them our sons and daughters? Will we give them the hard-earned fruits of our labors? Will we allow ourselves to become unwitting participants or witting accomplices in monstrous crimes against our fellow man? Or will we resist them and deny them the means they seek to prey upon the poor and the weak of this world?

Only we, the relatively rich and privileged people of "the Core," can restrain this all-devouring beast that purports to act in our name. Only we can make it act less beastly and more human. But will we? Or are we and this awful beast now no longer distinguishable?

***For the computer savy: This is an XviD but the FourCC is set to DX50 for DVD player compatibillity. That means the DivX5 decoder will be used and this file will play back in any MPG4 compatible (KISS) DVD player.***

Name.........: CSPAN-Thomas.Barnett-Pentagons.New.Map.XviD.avi
Filesize.....: 699 MB (or 715,873 KB or 733,054,094 bytes)
Runtime......: 02:42:20 (291,895 fr)
Video Codec..: XviD (DX50)
Video Bitrate: 546 kb/s
Audio Codec..: 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-2 Layer 3
Audio Bitrate: 48 kb/s, monophonic CBR
Frame Size...: 384x288 (1.33:1) [=4:3]


CSPAN - Thomas Barnett - Pentagon's New Map XviD.avi

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006

one womb, one shape, one resolve: liberate this world and release us all

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We often wonder why it is that we are in the situation that we find ourselves in. When I think of this, I wonder what may be the deeper rationale behind all of this. What really causes one to be born into their particular situation and carry certain predispositions; is it genetics, physical environment or something altogether different?

The following is my story; a story which echoes, with great sincerity, my notions of meaning and significance. I hope that some of you will take the time and energy to take it in and, perhaps, evaluate your own views on these concepts. It may take a little bit of patience and understanding for you to wrap your head around these concepts, but it is worth the effort.

Over the course of the last 5 years I endeavoured to uncover this mystery and determine what is beyond the "mainstream" western views of how we arise and become what we are. I didn't do this so that I might be a contrarian; I did this because I felt that the generally accepted explanations were wholly inadequate and that many of the explanations lacked the kind of objectivity that I demand. I didn't expect to find anything notable, having learned little more than endlessly repeated dogma year after year; this was not the case however. I found more than adequate evidence of a deeper, more intuitive plan which, for each of us, spans many lifetimes and takes us far beyond our generally accepted conception of "existence."

Over the years, I found evidence of a universal logos which resides in the very fabric of existence. Within this logos, the most significant aspect is mind, not material, as is commonly believed in the "western" hemisphere of this Earth. Minds, which are regarded with such reverence by this universal entity, do not simply go to "heaven" or "hell" after a term in the material plane, nor do they simply sputter out of existence entirely; these minds actually return to the material plane because one lifetime is, quite simply, not enough to create the complexities that individuals exhibit, nor is it enough to fulfill the principle of oneness that holds all of this together.

Many incarnations are necessary to develop into what we are today and many more are necessary for us to move beyond this and achieve what we are destined to achieve. We start as simple beings and, as we become more aware of the many facets of existence, re-incarnate into more complex beings.

There are many sorts of beings which are more complex and spiritually advanced than ourselves. These higher-dimensional beings lack the need that we have for a heavy chemical body; instead they are more like a pure energetic entity. Once these beings are ready for the transition, they shed more of their chemical bodies and enter another world filled with entities who have endeavoured to do the same.

Where does all of this come from?

These notions certainly didn't arise from my imagination; they were gathered from several different sources. The sources exhibit a remarkable level of consistency in their explantions of these phenomena; each source having an interesting and inspiring way of acquiring the information.

In the interest of time, I am not going to write much more than a paragraph or two about who each of the sources is; I leave that to any who are genuinely interested since there are more than enough resources for studying these individuals. The material does, after all, speak volumes and is well worth an in depth study.

Edgar Cayce

He is arguably the most remarkable and well documented psychic of our current epoch. Mr. Cayce has over 15,000 psychic readings, all transcribed for the use of future researchers. During these readings, he goes into a hypnotically induced trance, this trance allows him to pull information about the health of an individual or their past lives; there are other types of readings as well, but health and life readings were the most commonly done.

The health readings give treatments which have been proven, by the testimony of doctors and the patients, to be effective; many of the treatments were later adopted by practitioners of holistic medicine. The life readings give information about the experiences of an individual during their previous incarnations. Hundreds of books have been written about Cayce, so if this is your first exposure to the man, then you have alot of catching up to do.

Further Research:


Carla L. Rueckert and L.L. Research

Ms. Rueckert was responsible for the channeled "Ra Material." This material explains, in great detail over hundreds of channeled sessions, the logos of the universe and the presence of higher-dimensional beings, some of which seek to liberate us and bring us towards "service to others" and others beings which seek to enslave us and bring us towards "service to self."

The published material explains the steps that were taken in order to achieve a connection with the entity Ra; it also recounts each question/answer session held. I know that this kind of thing is hard for most people to swallow, and many of you probably feel that it isn't worth your time, but I hope that you will at least review a couple of the readings and look into this.

I have read the first of 5 books released full of readings and was awe struck at the many facets explored to a degree that I've not seen before. I have included all of the readings for your enjoyment. More information is available at llresearch.org.

further research:

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Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Rumsfeld: Flight 93 "shot down"

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Every now and then, the government officials lose track of where they are in their various lies. Rumsfeld probably gave up part of the lie regarding 9/11 when he said that flight 93 was "shot down."

Can ya blame him? He is, after all, required to remember where he stands on all of the lies of 9/11, the Afghan Conflict and the Iraq Conflict; not to mention all of the illegal covert ops. that are going on at any given time.

Defense secretary's remark to troops fuels conspiracy theories

From Jamie McIntyre
CNN Washington

Monday, December 27, 2004 Posted: 9:54 PM EST (0254 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers.

But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania."

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

"Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy" asked a posting on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com.

Some people remain skeptical of U.S. government statements that, despite a presidential authorization, no planes were shot down September 11, and rumors still circulate that a U.S. military plane shot the airliner down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A Pentagon spokesman insists Rumsfeld has not changed his opinion that the plane crashed as the result of an onboard struggle between passengers and terrorists.

The independent panel charged with investigating the terrorist attacks concluded that the hijackers intentionally crashed Flight 93, apparently because they feared the passengers would overwhelm them.

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Monday, March 27, 2006

Another Prominent Military Figure Denounces NeoCons, Iraq, War on Terror

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Delta Force founder joins ranks who say there is no real threat to the US and war is based on lies

Steve Watson / Infowars | March 27 2006

Retired Command Sergeant Major Eric Haney, founding member of the military's elite covert counter-terrorist unit, Delta force, has stated publicly for the record that he sees the war in Iraq as an "Utter debacle" based on intentions by the Bush administration that were "not what they stated" and that "there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world".

Haney made the comments in an exclusive interview with David Kronke for the LA Daily News published yesterday.

After Haney retired from the military his book "Inside Delta Force" became the basis for the hit CBS drama "The Unit," where he now assumes technical adviser and executive producer duties.

When questioned on Iraq Haney responded with the following:

Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

We have fomented civil war in Iraq. We have probably fomented internecine war in the Muslim world between the Shias and the Sunnis, and I think Bush may well have started the third world war, all for their own personal policies.

We'd better take it seriously when the founder member of one of the most elite military forces in the world says Bush has fomented a third world war for personal gain.




Haney also described the climate of fear and repression that the NeoCons have brought down upon America and its people, and the rapid shift into authoritarian governance after 9/11:

For the first thing, our credibility is utterly zero. So we destroyed whatever credibility we had. ... And I say "we," because the American public went along with this. They voted for a second Bush administration out of fear, so fear is what they're going to have from now on... this administration has worked overtime to divert the American public's attention from [Iraq]. Their lies are coming home to roost now, and it's gonna fall apart.

On the subject of torture Haney denounced the policies put in place by the NeoCons, and purposefully singled out Dick Cheney as the driving force behind torture. Haney suggested that the only reason torture has become policy is because Cheney LIKES it:

That's Cheney's pursuit. The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It's about vengeance, it's about revenge, or it's about cover-up. You don't gain intelligence that way. Everyone in the world knows that. It's worse than small-minded, and look what it does. I've argued this on Bill O'Reilly and other Fox News shows. I ask, who would you want to pay to be a torturer? Do you want someone that the American public pays to torture? He's an employee of yours. It's worse than ridiculous. It's criminal; it's utterly criminal.

We have exhaustively documented the sick twisted logic behind the policy of torture and how it is being used not as a way to gather intelligence but purely as a fear based psyop, a mass conditioning technique to goad the American public into conformity and acceptance of their criminal government's actions. Haney's comments suggest exactly this.

Anyone who does not go along with the policy of torture is promptly removed from their positions and replaced, as was Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus, who refused to go along with the outright torture at Guantanamo Bay, and often stood in the way of tougher interrogation techniques before being reassigned.

Baccus is another prominent military figure who has since spoken out against such policies, stating that "Those people are the ones who need to be publicly charged. I don't know how high it needs to go."

Another military figure who has denounced the NeoCons is the former General at Abu Ghraib, Janis Karpinski, who says she was deliberately kept out of the loop and scapegoated in the torture scandal in order to protect higher ups.

Back to Eric Haney, who even went as far as saying that although the US armed forces are now completely consumed, there is no real threat to America. Once again another credible figure who has previous high ranking connections inside the Pentagon and with the administration is touting the fact that the perceived threat to the US post 9/11is a complete fraud:

Our military is completely consumed, so were there a real threat - thankfully, there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world, but were there one, we couldn't confront it. Right now, that may not be a bad thing, because that keeps Bush from trying something with Iran or with Venezuela.

Haney's comments tie in with revelations from earlier this month when a Zogby poll indicated that 72% of troops in Iraq want out. It seems that the vast majority of US and British forces are now against the war.



We have seen senior officers quitting in disgust at the lack of government respect and protection for their men, RAF officers facing jail time for refusing to engage in "illegal" actions, and SAS professionals walking away denouncing the war as illegal and the actions of US troops as "sub-human".

The London Independent last week reported that the number of British soldiers going Awol has trebled since the invasion of Iraq.

What more will it take for this madness to end? The people are against the war, the troops are against the war, senior military officials are against the war.

Haney's closing comments reiterate the shift in majority opinion and the awakening of many to the truth of the Neoconservative criminality that we have been relentlessly subjected to in recent years:

... ultimately I believe in the good and the decency of the American people, and they're starting to see what's happening and the lies that have been told. We're seeing this current house of cards start to flutter away. The American people come around. They always do.

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Chinese Military Handed No-Bid Contract On Key US Security Infrastructure

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Media omit fact that Hutchinson Whampoa is an arm of the red dragon

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | March 27 2006

The Associated Press reported last week that Hutchison Whampoa Ltd was given a no-bid contract by the US government to take over radiation detecting security just 65 miles away from Freeport in the Bahamas with no oversight. Hutchinson Whampoa is admittedly a holding of the Chinese navy and the People's Liberation Army.

The US government has handed a no-bid contract directly to the Chinese military machine to handle key security infrastructure right as that country gears up for a future confrontation with America.

From Newsmax, "According to a 1999 investigative report by the American Foreign Policy Council, "Hutchison Whampoa, through its Hutchison International Terminals [HIT] subsidiary or Panama Ports Company, has substantial links to the Chinese communist government and the People's Liberation Army.

"The Panama Ports Company is 10 percent owned by China Resources Enterprise [CRE], which is the commercial arm of China's Ministry of Trade and Economic Co-operation. In its investigation into China's attempts to influence the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign, the U.S. Senate Government Affairs Committee identified CRE as a conduit for ‘espionage - economic, political and military - for China.’ Committee Chairman Senator Fred Thompson said that CRE has ‘geopolitical purposes. Kind of like a smiling tiger; it might look friendly, but it's very dangerous.’”

Sen. Trent Lott has described the Hong Kong firm as "an arm of the People's Liberation Army."

"The company is headed by a Li Ka-Shing (pictured below) , the chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. Intelligence sources say he has deep connections with the Chinese Communist government."




Hutchison Whampoa owns ports all over the world and many charge that the Chinese are using the company to encircle the world in preparation for retaliation to opposition of China's intended invasion of Taiwan.

In 1997 the Communist Chinese government took over the Long Beach Naval Air Base, the only major deep water port that can take large ships on the west coast. In 2000, the Communist Chinese, Hutchinson Whampoa which is run by the PLA, took over the Panama Canal and has stationed between 15,000 and 30,000 troops at the facility.

In 1997 the Chinese were caught bringing in heroin, RPG's and 3,000 AK-47's via Long Beach.

We remind our readers that top Chinese generals continue to threaten nuclear attacks on America.

Alex Jones' first documentary film America: Destroyed By Design, made in 1997, warned Americans that the sell-out to the Chinese was the first step on the road to the sacking of the American economy and pulling the plug on key US infrastructure.

Click here to view a segment where Alex Jones discusses the Chinese sell-out.

It is a stated goal of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission and the CFR to promote what they call 'interdependence' and to lobby governments to sell off key infrastructure such as roads, lakes, ports, and highways to international corporations so that corporations can grow to be bigger in size than government.

As a country we are not just being robbed of our ability to create wealth, we are being robbed of our infrastructure, our land and our capacity to work the land. Your currency, your future and your sovereignty is systematically being dismantled, looted and sold to the highest bidder.

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Saturday, March 25, 2006

Artwork for the new Tool album: 10,000 Days

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The album is due to be released on May 2, 2006 with the following tracks:

  1. Vicarious
  2. Jambi
  3. Wings For Marie (Pt 1)
  4. 10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)
  5. The Pot
  6. Lipan Conjuring
  7. Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)
  8. Rosetta Stoned
  9. Intension
  10. Right In Two
  11. Viginti Tres

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Friday, March 24, 2006

Alex Jones is interviewed on CNN

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Alex Jones, one of the greatest champions of the campaign against tyrrany, made his way into the lives of millions of americans when he appeared on CNN's Showbiz Tonight on the 23rd of March, 2006.

>> see the Alex Jones CNN Interview <<

Maybe it will, one day, be popular to be a patriot; a champion of human rights. I think that we are about to see some major changes as the sheeple who watch only mainstream media have gotten an earfull.

Sheen is set to appear on Jones' show again tonight, so we should see a bit more controversy stirred over the next couple of weeks. One can only hope that the sleeping giant will awake to its own insanity. Even if this leads to some level of social breakdown, it will be worth it; the neocons have run rampant with their lies and deception for long enough, it is time that we all, as human beings, take a stand against goverment tyrrany!!!

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Thursday, March 23, 2006

Charlie Sheen speaks out on the 9/11 coverup

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Charlie Sheen has recently demonstrated what it is to be a true patriot. Dispite all of the criticism which he knew was coming his way, he spoke up about his discontent regarding the official story of 9/11; the whitewash investigation propagated by the government and the mainstream media in order to sheild the perpetrators from punishment.

This is a great 1 hour interview with Charlie. He really opens up and does an excellent refutation of the government sponsored B.S.

>> hear Charlie's Interview with Alex Jones <<

This CNN Tonight clip reacts to some of the material spoken of by Mr. Sheen, in addition an imbecile from National Geographic comes onto the air and speaks about how the fireproofing was "blown off" of the buildings which allowed them to collapse at freefall speeds.

Little did Ms. official story know, however, that the 9/11 Truth representative would bring up building 7. It would have been interesting to hear how the fireproofing got "blown off" building 7 too. I think it is fairly safe to say, at this point, that National Geographic is involved in this coverup every bit as much as Popular Science and other organizations who published explanations which were PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

>> see the mainstream media's reaction on CNN Tonight <<

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Wednesday, March 22, 2006

In July 2001, Alex Jones Warned of Globalist Plan to Use Bin Laden to Attack America

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During the months of July and August 2001, Alex Jones ran a campaign which he dubbed 'Expose the Government Terrorists' on both his TV and radio shows. He encouraged people to call the White House and tell them not to go ahead and launched the staged terror attack that would become the foundation of their push for martial law.

On Wednesday July 25th 2001, during a taping of Alex's local cable access TV show in Austin, Texas, he elaborated on how the Globalists were set to use their operative Osama bin Laden and that the preparations for a terror attack were in their final stages.

Alex didn't have a crystal ball, he merely studied the elite's propaganda and was able to connect the dots and make a prediction that would materialize on September 11, 2001.

>>> see the video here <<<

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Little we know about what our lifestyle causes...

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I urge everyone to watch the following 12 minute video, which shows the horrors caused by the consumption of meat. The animals involved in the process are often put through a lifetime of torture, confinement and disease.

There is nothing that exposes the evil heart of mankind better than the modern-day methodology of producing animals, slaughtering animals and producing animal products.

Whether or not you agree with me, please take 12 minutes to review this video, if only so that you might understand the impact each of us has on the world; the kind of hell that we are creating for animals and, when we contract diseases from the animals, a hell for ourselves.

>>> see the video here <<<

"If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth -- beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals -- would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals?"
George Bernard Shaw, playwright, Nobel Prize 1925

"In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought."
Isaac Bashevis Singer, author, Nobel Prize 1978

"Our task must be to free ourselves . . . by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel Prize 1921

"While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?"
"Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research."
George Bernard Shaw

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
Thomas Edison, inventor

"Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rates of coronary disease of any group in the country....Some people scoff at vegetarians, but they have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate. They outlive other men by about six years now."
Dr.William Castelli

"If man is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals."
Immanuel Kant

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Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Death raises concern at police tactics

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By Matthew Davis
BBC News, Washington

The recent killing of an unarmed Virginia doctor has raised concerns about what some say is an explosion in the use of military-style police Swat teams in the United States.

Armed with assault rifles, stun grenades - even armoured personnel carriers - units once used only in highly volatile situations are increasingly being deployed on more routine police missions.

Dr Salvatore Culosi Jr had come out of his townhouse to meet an undercover policeman when he was shot through the chest by a Special Weapons and Tactics force.

It was about 2135 on a chilly January evening. The 37-year-old optometrist was unarmed, he had no history of violence and displayed no threatening behaviour.

But he had been under investigation for illegal gambling and in line with a local police policy on "organised crime" raids, the heavily armed team was there to serve a search warrant.

As officers approached with their weapons drawn, tragedy struck. A handgun was accidentally discharged, fatally wounding Dr Culosi.

Two months on, investigations into the incident are still continuing, a delay which Dr Culosi's family says is compounding the "horror and burden of it all".

Salvatore Culosi Sr, the dead man's father, told the BBC: "I never knew him to carry so much as a pocket knife so it bewilders me how a detective could spend three months investigating my son and not know he is a pussy cat.

"If anything comes out of this it must be that another family does not experience this pain and anguish for absolutely no reason.

"Policy needs to change so these kinds of accidents never occur again."

'Excessive force'

Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year.

"I have no problem with using these paramilitary style squads to go after known violent, armed criminals, but it is an extreme tactic to use against other sorts of suspects," he said.

Mr Kraska believes there has been an explosion of units in smaller towns and cities, where training and operational standards may not be as high as large cities - a growth he attributes to "the hysteria" of the country's war on drugs.

"I get several calls a month from people asking about local incidents - wrong address raids, excessive use of force, wrongful shootings - this stuff is happening all the time," he adds.

Every wrongful death of a civilian, or criminal killing of a police officer, fuels the complex and emotive argument over the way the United States is policed.

Those who reject criticism of the use of Swat teams argue that the presence of the units actually prevents violence through the credible threat of overwhelming force.

John Gnagey, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, told the BBC: "What we find is that when Swat teams go out, shootings go down.

"We don't see it as escalating anything. We see it as reducing violence."

The NTOA rejects Mr Kraska's figures and says the actual number of deployments is far lower, but says there is a need for national training standards.

An NTOA study of 759 Swat team deployments across the US, found half were for warrant service and a third for incidents where suspects had barricaded themselves in a building - 50 were for hostage situations.

When criminology professor David Klinger looked at 12 years of data on Swat teams in 1998, he also found the most common reason for calling out teams was serving warrants, but that the units used deadly force during warrant service only 0.4% of the time.

Recruitment video

Last year the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) commissioned music video director JC Barros to make them a 10-minute film - To Protect and Serve - that would "get young men and women excited" about a career with the force.

More action film than recruitment video, it follows two LAPD officers who - in one day - capture a robbery suspect, are first on the scene when a gun-toting man takes a woman hostage, mediate a fight, and help to find a young kidnap victim.

Along the way they are supported by colleagues from bike patrol, K-9 dog teams, air support and, of course, the Swat team.

But Mr Kraska sees such initiatives as reflecting a changing culture of police work.

"These elite units are highly culturally appealing to certain sections of the police community. They like it, they enjoy it," he says.

"The chance to strap on a vest, grab a semi-automatic weapon and go out on a mission is for some people an exciting reason to join - even if policing as a profession can - and should - be boring for much of the time.

"The problem is that when you talk about the war on this and the war on that, and police officers see themselves as soldiers, then the civilian becomes the enemy."

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Monday, March 20, 2006

Even westerners are finally starting to speak out

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There are a number of things that you can be put into jail for simply saying in the European Union. If, for example, you believe that the Holocaust didn't happen precisely as it was described to have happened in the official version of events, then you are labeled a holocaust-denier and thrown into jail for a few years.

You are, however, still allowed to state your viewpoint in the United States, where the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has yet to abolish freedom of expression. I often wonder why, if it is so cut and dry, that everything happened exactly as stated in the official version of events, that people are locked up for bringing forth research that, in any way, refutes any part of the official story.

If the truth in their version of events were so self-evident, then why should the government of the European Union fear researchers reporting their findings. Personally, my instincts tell me that they are trying to bury a few of the details regarding what occured in Adolf Hitler's camps.

One of the main points that I would like to make, regarding the Holocaust, is the fact that there is little evidence that 6,000,000 Jews were slaughtered during the event. This figure was, basically, pulled out of religious scriptures in order to justify a return to the promised land; it has no basis in reality and was used purely for the political goals of the Zionists who sought to occupy Palestine.

I'm certain that there were camps through the Nazi-occupied territories and many died in these camps, but I am not so certain that it was a "Holocaust," which means "Burnt Offering" when translated, in which the Nazis systematically burned 6 Million Jews.

The question you have to ask yourself is this, "If the Nazis so hated the Jews that they performed a mass slaughter, then why would they have wanted to fulfill the prophecy of a sacrifice involving 6 Million?" It seems as if this would play right into the hands of their enemy, wouldn't it?

These are just a few of the questions that I have regarding these events. I believe events during this time period to have been twisted to fit the agendas of a powerful few. This has lead us to the current sad state of affairs that we are in; were it not for history being represented as it was by western interests, the United States would not have sent over 20,000 per US family to Israel thus far.

It is probably a good idea to ascertain, despite the unpopularity of this, exactly what happened. It is the truth, after all, that will set us free.

Iran report: Kohl denies Holocaust
Semi-official paper quotes former chancellor: 'What Ahmadinejad said … was in our bosoms'


Posted: March 6, 2006
5:25 p.m. Eastern

Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is quoted in a semi-official Iranian newspaper denying the Holocaust.

According to Jomhouri Islami, a Farsi newspaper, Kohl told Iranian businessmen in Germany that he agreed with statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust was a "myth."

The government-owned daily wrote that at a dinner gala with Iranian hoteliers and entrepreneurs, Kohl said that he "heartily agreed" with Ahmadinejad's remarks about the Holocaust, according to a translation by Iran Focus.

"What Ahmadinejad said about the Holocaust was in our bosoms," the former German chancellor was quoted as saying. "For years we wanted to say this, but we did not have the courage to speak out."

Ahmadinejad prompted an international furor in November when he publicly declared the Holocaust a "myth" and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Then in December, he suggested European nations should give up some of their territory if they believed the World War II-era Holocaust took place, noting, "certain European countries would have the world go with their stand that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and have passed laws punishing anyone who says anything to the contrary."

"Granting without accepting that the Holocaust did occur, our question to the Europeans is: 'If innocent Jews were indeed butchered by Hitler, why should Palestinians be made to pay the cost in order to seek redress for the occupiers of Jerusalem?'"

Ahmadinejad continued: "If the killing of Jews in Europe is true and the Zionists are being supported because of this excuse, why should the Palestinian nation pay the price?"

"The Islamic world should give up its policy of passivity and deal with the Palestinian issue more actively," he said.

While, so far, no one is disputing the translation of the Iranian report, some German bloggers are questioning whether it was made up for Iran’s own propaganda purposes.

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Friday, March 17, 2006

self-sufficiency: the easiest way to route out corruptive influences

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I've had many a talk on the disasterous effects of the "progression" of our technological and social systems. During these conversations, the other party often shows their dismay and throws up their hands and says, "What the hell can I do about it, I'm just an ordinary little person who would rather concentrate on things that are pleasant and ignore that which is vexing."

I look to this with utter contempt because it ignores the fact that individuals must change themselves in order for the the world to change; nobody is going to enact a piece of legislation, make a proclamation or do anything else to fix this problem that doesn't involve each of us, the change must come from within each of us.

We, quite simply, need to figure out how we can go about our days without reliance upon the central governments and corporations. We have to route out the need for these organizations; which have grown up around us and caused us to believe that we are not capable of survival on our own.

One of the things that keeps people bowing down to the flag and returning to work day after day is the need to "put food on the table." One would rightly question the very validity of that statement; there are far simpler ways to have food for you and your family than working your ass off and then paying, when all is said and done, about half of your income to the government in taxes and most of the other half to corporations in profits.



Unfortunately, however, we have become acustomed to the new and better way of doing things, but is it really any better than the way things were done for thousands of years? Is it really so great to lose a little each day to ghetto pimps and presidents?

What ever happened to the old past-time of using arable land to produce the food and material that you need? Those who are apologists for the new way of things often claim that people simply don't have enough time? The reason we don't have time is because, during most of the good hours of the day, we are trapped at "jobs," many of which do absolutely nothing to contribute to the overall good.

It simply doesn't make any sense to plant grass all over everything and then spend so much time and energy keeping it short. If even 10% of this land were to be tilled and filled with rows of vegetables, instead of grass, there would be enough food to feed everyone!

I often wonder why is it so difficult to figure out that the methods currently employed are here, quite simply, to extract more from individuals than they put in. It all amounts to the elite robber-barons trying to create surpluses for their utilisation; this is the crux of the agrarian, industrial and post-industrial age and the barons are getting better at it every year.

I don't know about all of you, but I'm preparing a sizeable garden this year, it is a shame for anyone to waste arable land. It looks as if the last frost has passed and we are ready for the beautiful growth of spring and the bountiful harvests of summer. I hope that all of you will enjoy this wonderful time of year as much as myself.

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Thursday, March 16, 2006

David Shayler, MI5 Whistleblower, Discusses 9/11 in two part series

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Shayler does an analysis of the activities surrounding the 911 including the US Government's failure to comply with proper procedure with regard to forensic examination of the Pentagon and Trade Center Complex. He also discusses several other important issues.

One of his most important points is that we must open this thing up in more peoples minds so that the corrupt officials who are utilising state terror will not be able to use it in the future.

Shaylor also notes that if we don't do anything about this, then it is likely that, in the future, all avenues of change will be closed by the various legislation which is proposed in the wake of a state sponsored terrorist event.

>> part 1 <<

>> part 2 <<

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Justice Ginsburg Reveals Details of Threat

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Yahoo News
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer Wed Mar 15, 5:32 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor have been the targets of death threats from the "irrational fringe" of society, people apparently spurred by Republican criticism of the high court.

Ginsburg revealed in a speech in South Africa last month that she and O'Connor were threatened a year ago by someone who called on the Internet for the immediate "patriotic" killing of the justices.

Security concerns among judges have been growing.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter joked earlier this year that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. Over the past few months O'Connor has complained that criticism, mainly by Republicans, has threatened judicial independence to deal with difficult issues like gay marriage.

Worry is not limited to the Supreme Court. Three quarters of the nation's 2,200 federal judges have asked for government-paid home security systems, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said this week.

Ginsburg said the Web threat was apparently prompted by proposals in Congress, filed by Republicans, that tell judges to stop relying on foreign laws or court decisions.

"It is disquieting that they have attracted sizable support. And one not-so-small concern ¿ they fuel the irrational fringe," she said in a speech posted online by the court earlier this month and first reported Wednesday by LegalTimes.com.

According to Ginsburg, someone in a Web site chat room wrote: "Okay commandoes, here is your first patriotic assignment ... an easy one. Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor have publicly stated that they use (foreign) laws and rulings to decide how to rule on American cases. This is a huge threat to our Republic and Constitutional freedom. ... If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week."

Rep. Tom Feeney (news, bio, voting record), R-Fla., a sponsor of one of the congressional proposals, wrote about the legislation on his Web site and in bold letters featured a quote from O'Connor predicting the Supreme Court would probably increasingly rely on foreign courts.

Ginsburg pointed out that the legislation was first proposed in 2004, an election year.

According to the legislation's promoters, the Feeney proposal had 82 Republican and 2 Democratic co-sponsors. One supporter was former Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, a lawmaker O'Connor has criticized ¿ although not by name ¿ for harshly denouncing judges.

Justices, in some of their most hotly contested rulings, have looked overseas. Last year, for example, justices barred the executions of juvenile killers on a 5-4 vote. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said then that "it is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty." DeLay called the ruling outrageous. He also suggested that the House consider impeaching some judges.

In an angry dissent to that decision, Justice Antonin Scalia said capital punishment policy should be set by states, not "the subjective views of five members of this court and like-minded foreigners."

Ginsburg said, "Critics in Congress and in the media misperceive how and why U.S. courts refer to foreign and international court decisions." She said those decisions are used for guidance only.

O'Connor said last week during a speech at Georgetown Law School that the justices have received threats. But the Ginsburg remarks at the Constitutional Court of South Africa provide unusual detail.

Ginsburg, who turned 73 Wednesday, told the audience O'Connor "remains alive and well ¿ as for me, you can judge for yourself."

Justice Ginsburg speech:

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/publicinfo/speeches/sp_02-07b-06.html

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Wednesday, March 15, 2006

China seeks reforms that are actually realistic, imagine that

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It looks as if the Chinese are preparing to change their economic/social systems and consequently ours will change in tandem. I find it somewhat relieving that such a large nation has a plan for the conservation of natural resources; this will put an end to the many wasteful processes which were used for the generation of profits, they are also in the process of a reduction in lending.

I think that this is yet another example of why governments, such as those in the United States, can do little to avoid destroying themselves and the environment around them, while the Chinese government is perfectly capable of stringent reforms.

The western world has much to learn from China All of humanity would assuredly benefit from a long time approach like that of China; a realistic approach not concocted by individuals hypnotized by the "land of illusion and confusion" that America has become.

China Visit Report
Simon Hunt Strategic Services
By: Simon Hunt
February/March 2006


SUMMARY

This note combines findings from our discussions in Beijing and plant visits with what we see is emerging from the NPC meeting.

Less attention should be given to the detail and more to the thrust of policy, because this government is embarking on a new course for China's economy. The unwary will be caught by surprise.

Past policies have embraced developments that drove industrialisation at any cost, which enabled GDP to grow by over 9% a year since 1995. There were two elements that allowed this extraordinary growth to take place.

First, key input prices, such as land, electricity and utilities, including water, were kept low through subsidies and controlled pricing.

Second, cheap finance was channeled into industry, particularly to large companies and SOEs, often effectively zero cost capital.

Local governments, over which Beijing had limited control, vied with each other to construct plant and infrastructure even if it made little or no economic sense.

What followed was the world's largest ever fixed asset investment binge.

Not only did these policies, which have been in place since the mid-to-late 1990s, create a gross surplus of capacity in so many industry sectors and throughout the manufacturing chain, but also the consequences were a degradation of the environment and a misuse of the country's natural resources, including energy.

This orgy of investment has resulted in so much capacity that there is no pricing power and with costs, both inland and imported, rising rapidly, margins have become under pressure and the foundations for the next round of NPLs laid. Premier Wen Jiabao addressed this issue in blunt language (see below) in his speech to the NPC.

The policy, introduced by Jiang Zemin, perhaps, arguably the correct one at that time, will now be abandoned. In its place, growth will be given a broader interpretation. It will include environmental issues and a better usage of natural resources, which are now viewed as strategic.

In sum, energy intensity and improving air and land pollution are as important as the quantity of growth in the new policy. In other words, it is not so much the quantity of growth that is important, but its quality.

A start will be made this year, the first year of the new 5-Year Plan. The main thrust will be to stop the continued development of duplicated capacity. It will be achieved by banks denying credit to all but their most credit worthy customers; manufacturing, especially in the private sector, will be hardest hit. This has started, as we have heard from friends.

Second, over 100,000 local government officials come up for re-election both this year and next. The election procedure will be quite different; it will not be based on growth criteria alone, as in the past. It will mean that Beijing will end up having more influence over local governments than hitherto. And the change was probably the reason why there was such a jump in reported disturbances in the rural area last year.

A corollary to this change is that Beijing will come down very hard on corruption.

There will be a structural move away from energy and natural resource intensive industries towards the services sectors and IT industries. This is why government is forecasting electricity demand to grow by an average of 7% a year over the next five years compared with 10% a year over the last five years. Perhaps it also implies an implicit slowdown in the growth of industrial production.

Natural resources, including energy, are now considered to be strategic; their use should not be frittered away on silly projects. Where products are exported, which have a high natural resource content, they will be discriminated against via taxes.

A start has been made by imposing a 10% tax on certain copper and copper alloy semis; we suspect that this will become much broader with consequences for global markets. It will mean that more of China's capacity of primary goods, steel, copper and copper semis, aluminum products etc., will be used domestically with a consequential impact on imported materials and goods. It also means that domestic producers will move up the value added chain to achieve this objective.

The second major thrust in policy is to focus on the rural sector. This is not just because 57% of China's citizens live in the rural areas, nor because the income divide between it and the urban community has reached 3.2 times that of the rural sector, but also, because in the last 20-odd years the coastal cities have received the bulk of central government support. It is now time for the rural sector to become the primary focus of attention and for the richer coastal cities to support this development.

Moreover, urbanisation has run its full course. Its development has been taking around 200,000 hectares of agricultural land each year. If these trends persisted, by 2020 China would lose some 25% of its farming land, something which no sensible government would allow.

And costs of doing business in many of these cities have got out of hand. In fact, some say it is cheaper to relocate back to Singapore for many sectors.

The corollary of slowing down urbanisation is to bring industry to the countryside, though no longer industry that is energy intensive – that trend has finished. This means also that the migration of rural workers will come to an end. China's surplus rural workers, which are probably, anyway, mostly in the age bracket of over 40 years, will stay at home as jobs will come to them.

Farming will be restructured to improve its yield and in so doing labour productivity.

China will persist with its step-by-step approach to the RMB; for the next few years it should appreciate by no more than 2-3% a year against the US$.

Where do these factors leave the economy? Two factors point to a slowdown, apart from the cyclical forces. First, a slowdown in the growth of bank lending will lead to slower growth in many sectors.

In our factory visits, nowhere did we find that business was robust or booming, except for some companies that had niche markets.

Second, Beijing will attack fixed asset investment. Both will be done via the banks; the credit spigots will be stopped for many companies and local governments, as we can attest to after talking with friends.

This will establish the crisis environment from which restructuring will emerge. In the short term, there will be some pain, which will lead to lower output. Bloated inventories, which are seen in some sectors (and remarked upon by Premier Wen Jiabao), such as compressors, electrical appliances etc, will have to be liquidated.

Moreover, government wants to see further price adjustments in the real estate market, especially in Shanghai. Here prices have fallen by some 15-20% since the peak, but need to fall another 20-25%. It is expected that this price adjustment will not be completed until end 2007.

Other parts of the economy should continue to blossom, such as consumption, but not enough to prevent a significant slowdown.

And should the US economy slow in the second half, as we expect, due to issues related to housing, exports of goods will fall more than government is now forecasting.

How much of a slowdown is difficult to forecast. But, in our view, real GDP will fall to under 8% this year and around 7% in 2007; manufacturing will be hit harder as so much of industry will be restructured and this sector accounted for 41% of GDP last year.

Against this background, it is interesting to note that our friends in Shanghai are very positive on China's stock markets.

For the longer term, what we find is worrying is the large increase in costs. Skilled wage rates are rising by 30-40% a year and unskilled by 10-20%, depending on location. But all other cost inputs are rising and are threatening to do so at higher rates – electricity, fuels, water, land etc.

We hear of companies quietly leaving China for other shores, but some like Flextronics, have publicly aired their concerns. A combination of these cost increases together with a modest revaluation of the RMB over the next five years could accelerate this trend out of China.

Once industry has been restructured, say in 3-5 years, pricing power will return. Profitability will be the motto, not critical mass. Then, China will no longer be exporting deflation. And then, the rest of the world will need to watch out for a different set of dynamics, because other countries will not go down the route of creating critical mass at the expense of profits.

Global consumers will find that prices for so much of what they buy now will be rising. 2010 may see the start of this period of rising prices for goods like appliances.

The annual National Peoples Congress is almost half way through its sessions. Enough has been said to know the drift of future policy.

The debate between the conservatives, who want to roll back many of the reforms, blaming them on the growing economic and political divide between the rural and urban communities, and the reformists, who respond by saying that reforms have not yet gone far enough, is all but over.

The reformists have won, despite having to postpone the introduction of the new property law. Premier Wen Jiabao stated, "The decision to implement the reform and opening up policy constitutes a major decision on the destiny of our country...Reform is now going through a very difficult period, and we must strengthen our resolve to accelerate all reforms and continue making progress in major reforms."

What does this all mean? We set our conclusions out in a brief "In" and "Out" balance sheet.

Out:

  • Economic growth at all and any cost
  • Central government focus on the development of coastal cities growth
  • Degradation of the environment
  • Wasteful use of energy
  • Misallocation of capital.
  • Duplication of capacity
  • Corruption
  • Dependence for growth on trade

In:

  • Growth that adds value to the economy and its people
  • Narrowing disposable income between rural and urban households
  • Deploying funding to the rural sector, not just this year, but over the longer term
  • A focus on the intangibles of growth, such as education, Health careand the creation of a social security network. None of these can be implemented as instant policies but have to be thought through over the next couple of years to produce a coherent set of initiatives.
  • Industry restructuring
  • The environment
  • Husbanding the country's natural resources
  • Profitability, not the creation of critical mass
  • Bank lending to be based on proper risk assessments
  • A balanced economy with greater emphasis on consumption
  • Increasing focus on technology, in the process moving away from low technology industries.

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ONE CONGRESSMAN'S FIGHT TO SAVE M3

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The Capital Spectator

There's less than two weeks of life left for the Fed's M3 series, the broadest measure of money supply. On March 23, the central bank plans to end publishing the data. But if one Congressman has his way, M3 will live on. It's an uphill battle, to be sure, but Ron Paul, a Republican who represents the 14th Congressional district of Texas, has sponsored legislation (H.R. 4892) to keep the data coming. (For the latest version of the legislation, visit Thomas at the Library of Congress and browse under Rep. Paul's bills.)

M3 is arguably all the more relevant these days since its rate of growth has been roughly twice as high as M2, a narrower gauge of money supply. The Fed claims that there's not a lot of difference between the two, although the numbers as reported suggest otherwise. (For previous CS posts on M3, see our February 28 article, with additional links for background information.)

Paul's attempt to keep M3 alive and kicking may be quixotic, but he's not giving up the fight, as becomes clear in an interview we conducted with the Congressman yesterday by phone. Here are some excerpts:

What's the goal of your M3 bill?
My legislation would require that the Fed continue to report M3. It's no more complicated than that.

So you think M3 is valuable as a measure of money supply?
I realize the shortcomings of some of these numbers, and M3 isn't an answer to all the information that we would like. But it's better than not having it. I think it does represent a reflection of Federal Reserve policy. For them to quit reporting it you have to ask, why?

Ok--we'll bite. Why?
I don't know exactly why, but the Fed gives answers. They claim that it costs too much money and they don't use M3 any more. My argument to [Fed Chairman] Bernanke the other day was: some of us like M3, and Congress has a right to this type of information. There are still a few people in the country that think money supply's important, and M3 is a reflection of money supply. I mentioned that there are a few economic schools of thought that are still concerned about M3, although some deny it has any value.

The most interesting thing was when he said it cost too much to collect [the data for compiling M3]. I kid the Fed about that, and say, I don't why you should be concerned about it. If you need to spend money you just print it.

Somehow we can't imagine the folks at the central bank laughing.
Well, the Fed makes a lot of money on interest, and of course it creates a lot of credit in order to buy Treasuries. So, I think the notion that it's costly is preposterous. In fact, the Fed probably has most of the numbers right there anyway.

What's the bigger picture here? What's your thinking on what the impending demise of M3 suggests, if anything, in a broader context when it comes to the Fed?
I think back to what Mises talked about in Human Action: he writes that there's always a deliberate attempt to deflect concern about the money supply so that the common person thinks that inflation is caused by other things.

Arguably, the buck stops at the Fed, literally and figuratively, when it comes to inflation, right?
I see that the real culprit is the increase in the money supply and the distortion of interest rates causing malinvestment, overinvestment, overcapacities and excessive debt. If you don't have the information to indicate that there's something going wrong with the money supply, then we're less likely to blame the Fed for the problem.

A lot of people would agree. How does the Fed see it?
As long as I've been here in Washington, the Fed officials have always blamed Congress because of the deficits. And I agree: the deficits are bad and they create problems. But I think the Fed and Congress work together. When we run up the deficits, there's not enough money in the market without raising interest rates, and so the Fed accommodates. So I see the Fed in collusion with the Congress.

In other words, the Fed is only too happy to print up dollars to clean up the mess of red ink.
I don't know about happy, but the Fed always claims it wishes it didn't have any deficits to deal with. But the Fed never argues [about printing more money]. The Fed says that what it's doing is keeping the economy going by keeping interest rates low. But there's no other way it can do that, other than buying Treasury bills to keep the overnight rates low. It creates its own credit, and that's where I see the problem. I think this denial of the M3 information is just another effort to direct attention to the Congress, or the Arabs charging too much for oil, or the price of education going up too much, or the cost of medical care rising too fast. The Fed wants to direct your attention away from the real culprit: the creation of money and credit.

So, in other words, inflation is only possible if the Fed allows it?
That's what I believe.

What's your take on the fact that M3 is growing at roughly twice the pace of M2 recently? The Fed says that M3's redundant in that M3 and M2 are comparable. But the trend in each series suggests otherwise. We've asked the central bank about this.
I'll be they didn't give you a good answer. I asked the same question to Bernanke, and he totally ignored it. I said, M3's growing twice as fast as M2. And the change in the growth is important too. A couple of years ago M3 wasn't growing quite as fast, and in the last eight or nine months it's accelerated.

Given M3's relatively high rate of growth, and the Fed's intent on killing the series, does it suggest something fishy is going on here, in terms of suppressing monetary information that could be embarrassing for the Fed?
That's the question, and of course the Fed would deny it.

What about your colleagues in Congress? Is anyone else asking questions about M3?
Other members of Congress have no interest in it; there's very little interest in monetary policy. I couldn't get anyone to pay much attention to it. In fact, there are a lot of misconceptions. For example, one day I was talking to Greenspan, and one of the members in Congress came up and asked, "Isn't the dollar backed by gold?" This was a member of Congress! That's when I realized we have a lot of work to do. I argue that Congress, either deliberately or inadvertently, doesn’t think about [monetary policy] because the Fed irons out some of our problems when it comes to deficit spending.

What are the prospects that your M3 legislation will be enacted? Is the bill getting any attention?
It's not going to get attention unless the financial people help. Only if people like you, and all the way to Barron's and the Wall Street Journal and everybody else decided that this is an outrage. So, I make the point, and explain what the correction is, and talk about it when I get the chance. Hopefully, someone will pay attention. But I figure that no one will pay attention until they really ruin the dollar, which I think is on the verge of happening.

But isn't the stated rate of inflation quite low?
That's deceptive. The rate of inflation is actually horrendous, especially for low-to-middle-income people, who spend their money on food and fuel, and clothing and medical care. Even if inflation was as low as stated, it's the same type of deception that occurred in the 1920s. They kept saying there's no inflation. Inflation is measured by the increase in the money and credit. The distortions sometimes lead to higher prices, but many times you can't predict where those higher prices will emerge. Sometimes it's in a stock market bubble, sometimes it's in commodities, sometimes it goes into the consumer price index. So inflation emerges in different ways. Meanwhile, the biggest problem is the deception that interest rates are low, which causes people who save, people who invest, people who spend to do things they otherwise wouldn't do. For example, if interest rates are 2%, you're more likely to overbuild houses than you would if the market rate was 4% or 5%.

To me, it's a moral issue to. What if you're old-fashioned and frugal and you've saved your money, and you don't like stocks, because you know about stock market crashes? And so you put your money in CDs, and they get 2% instead of 5%. The market might have given them 5%. And it just makes it harder for them to live. I brought that up once to Greenspan, and he said, Well, sometimes you just can't take care of everybody at one time. He said, some people do suffer from it; he didn't deny it.

Some people argue that the Fed is forced to make compromises because of the twin mandates imposed on it of minimizing inflation and maximizing employment.
Yes, but that endorses the false concept of central planning, and we all seem to defer to the Fed to be very much involved in central economic planning, whether it's prices or interest rates or full employment, or whatever. Any time you give that much authority you can be sure there's going to be some deception, even in the collection of the numbers. Figures come out, and CPI's up at a rate of, say, 7%. Oh, but the core rate is lower, some respond, and so it's okay, and everyone's reassured. Anything to fool the people for as long as possible.

What do you think the Fed should be doing these days?
Ultimately, I wouldn't even have a Federal Reserve system, because you don't need one. Even Friedman, with his monetarism, thinks we shouldn't have a Federal Reserve manipulating interest rates.

Call us crazy, but we assume the Fed will endure. If so, in this less-than-perfect realm, what advice do you have for the central bank?
In a way, you can't argue with the techniques of Alan Greenspan. He was able to take one problem, and create another bubble and keep things going. Some of us believe that just builds a bigger problem into the system, and the correction will be that much worse. I have to say, if I couldn't get out of the system, I'd have some sort of Friedman-type of approach where we wouldn't manipulate interest rates. Instead we'd increase the money supply at a 2% or 3% rate. That would be entirely unsatisfactory for me, but if that's the only choice....

What should eventually happen is that the Fed shouldn't be able to buy Treasury bills. The Fed should never be able to finance government spending by buying Treasury bills with credit they create out of thin air. That's the high powered money, but when that gets into the banking system you then have the fractional-reserve-banking principle that allows that to expand that credit by six or seven fold. You expand money supply that way, and that's how M3 expands.

So, you think that particular aspect of how the Fed operates should end?
Like I say, it's far from my ideal solution, but, if you had to do something right now, yes. It's the type of thing that Volcker did. He said, we're cutting back, and interest rates went to 21% and he saved the dollar. If we get into a crisis again, that's what they're going to be forced to do. There are some that believe the crisis is going to be much worse than it was in 1979 and 1980.

We already know your answer, but we'll ask the question anyway: Are you worried about inflation?
To me, inflation is printing money. That's going to continue, and it's going to get worse. The conventional definition of inflation is rising prices for consumers. I think we're going to see a lot more of it.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006

US Current Account Defecit hits a quarter trillion

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The USA and the US Dollar are now in trouble. This defecit has been spiraling out of control for awhile and will only get worse until policies are put into place which balance the current account defecit. A drastic drop in the US dollar is soon to ensue.

The current account is a section in a country’s balance of payments (BOP) that records a country's current transactions. The account is divided into four sections: goods, services, income (such as salaries and investment income) and unilateral transfers (for example, worker’s remittances).

A current account deficit occurs when a country has an excess of one or more of the four factors making up the account. When a current transaction enters the account, it is recorded as a credit, and when a value leaves the account, it is marked as a debit. Basically, a current account deficit occurs when more money is being paid out than brought into a country.

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Pentagon loses 2.3 Trillion Dollars

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Rumsfeld's words speak no lie in this speach. The adversary is "closer to home" than it seems. Any organization that cannot find 2.3 trillion dollars has some serious issues with administrative corruption; that organization is the United States of America.

The War On Waste

CBS - LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29, 2002

On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, "the adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy," he said.

He said money wasted by the military poses a serious threat.

"In fact, it could be said it's a matter of life and death," he said.

Rumsfeld promised change but the next day – Sept. 11-- the world changed and in the rush to fund the war on terrorism, the war on waste seems to have been forgotten.

Just last week President Bush announced, "my 2003 budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending."

More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

Minnery, a former Marine turned whistle-blower, is risking his job by speaking out for the first time about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency's balance sheets. Minnery tried to follow the money trail, even crisscrossing the country looking for records.

"The director looked at me and said 'Why do you care about this stuff?' It took me aback, you know? My supervisor asking me why I care about doing a good job," said Minnery.

He was reassigned and says officials then covered up the problem by just writing it off.

"They have to cover it up," he said. "That's where the corruption comes in. They have to cover up the fact that they can't do the job."

The Pentagon's Inspector General "partially substantiated" several of Minnery's allegations but could not prove officials tried "to manipulate the financial statements."

Twenty years ago, Department of Defense Analyst Franklin C. Spinney made headlines exposing what he calls the "accounting games." He's still there, and although he does not speak for the Pentagon, he believes the problem has gotten worse.

"Those numbers are pie in the sky. The books are cooked routinely year after year," he said.

Another critic of Pentagon waste, Retired Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, commanded the Navy's 2nd Fleet the first time Donald Rumsfeld served as Defense Secretary, in 1976.

In his opinion, "With good financial oversight we could find $48 billion in loose change in that building, without having to hit the taxpayers."

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Monday, March 13, 2006

Supreme Court Justice O'Connor warns about intimidation tactics used by lawmakers on judges

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Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day O’Connor no longer faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenge the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. O’Connor’s speech at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast but NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there.

Nina Totenberg: In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, O’Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms. O’Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents or the Congress or governors, as she put it “really, really angry.” But, she continued, if we don’t make them mad some of the time we probably aren’t doing our jobs as judges, and our effectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we won’t be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts. The nation’s founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said O’Connor, as the founding fathers knew statutes and constitutions don’t protect judicial independence, people do.

And then she took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didn’t name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortions, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said O’Connor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress’ onetime only statute about Schiavo as it was written. Not, said O’Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written. This response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said O’Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts.

It gets worse, she said, noting that death threats against judges are increasing. It doesn’t help, she said, when a high-profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with. She didn’t name him, but it was Texas senator John Cornyn who made that statement, after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Illinois murdered in the judge’s home. O’Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she said, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with.

I, said O’Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

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