Top Cop

Very interesting articles by a Canadian with a reply from an American (from the "Axis of Logic").

"The United States claims to be a nation of peace lovers and officially it has been at peace since the end of the Second World War. Except, that is, for their attacks on:

China (1945-46)
Korea (1950-53)
Guatemala (1954, 1967-69)
Cuba (1959-60)
Belgian Congo (1964)
Vietnam (1961-73)
Cambodia (1969-70)
Grenada (1983)
Libya (1986)
El Salvador (1980-92)
Nicaragua (1981-90)
Panama (1989)
Iraq (1991)
Somalia (1993)
Bosnia (1995)
Sudan (1998)
Yugoslavia (1999)
Afghanistan (2001-02)
plus a grudge match currently underway in Iraq (since 2003)
Plus "police action" in Colombia re: drugs (ongoing), an insurrection in Chile (1973) and numerous other covert bombings conducted by, or under the direction of, the CIA."

Who Owns The Fed?

You know about the Federal Reserve Bank, don’t you? You know, “the Fed” that raises (or lowers) interest rates every once in a while. The Famous Maestro of Money, Alan Greenspan, goes on TV and bores everyone with phrases filled with hidden meaning. You probably thought the Federal Reserve Bank was a Federal agency of some kind, right?

Wrong.

Peter Kershaw provides the answer in Economic Solutions where he lists the ten primary shareholders in the Federal Reserve banking system:

The Rothschild Family – London
The Rothschild Family – Berlin
The Lazard Brothers – Paris
Israel Seiff – Italy
Kuhn-Loeb Company – Germany
The Warburgs – Amsterdam
The Warburgs - Hamburg
Lehman Brothers - New York
Goldman & Sachs - New York
The Rockefeller Family - New York

So these guys are controlling the printing of all of these excess dollars (backed by nothing) thereby causing the devaluation of our currency, and controlling the interest rates?

In fact, it’s even worse than that. These people have been very prolific over the decades and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are now all over the place and in particular all over the Board of Directors of many major corporations.

This is a fraud so pervasive it amazes even me, and I’ve grown jaded over the years. Read on if you dare….

And to finish off your descent into despair, from the Mogambo Guru,

“So, what is the bad news? Well, first off, the official government number is that annual inflation has averaged - and I hope you have a safety helmet on when you hear this - 4.71 percent since 1968!

This is, in historical context, so horrifically bad that is ranks as one of the longest and worst episodes of inflationary misery in our history. After the paramedics have restarted your heart, tell them to stand by, because next you are going to learn that the Freebuck.com people show, and quite easily, too, that inflation is really running at 5.96 percent.

That six percent inflation is, coincidentally, less than the real, wallet-busting, prices-you-pay type of inflation that is roaring right freaking now! Actually, true inflation is somewhere between 7 percent and 11 percent, as far as I can tell, and I get that from looking at the checks I have to write every damned month. It is the worst in decades, judging by the number of tears that I shed while paying those bills."

Bush Back on the Bottle?

I know its the National Inquirer, but they often get it first and right. It is also very big in the red states. Who could have guessed?

BUSH'S BOOZE CRISIS
By JENNIFER LUCE and DON GENTILE

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal. Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster. His worried wife yelled at him: "Stop, George."

Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against "falling off the wagon" and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.

"When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot," said one insider. "He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: "Stop George!"

"Laura gave him an ultimatum before, 'It's Jim Beam or me.' She doesn't want to replay that nightmare — especially now when it's such tough going for her husband." Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.

A Washington source said: "The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him — but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months. The war in Iraq, the loss of American lives, has deeply affected him. He takes every soldier's life personally. It has left him emotionally drained. The result is he's taking drinks here and there, likely in private, to cope. "

And now with the worst domestic crisis in his administration over Katrina, you pray his drinking doesn't go out of control." Another source said: "I'm only surprised to hear that he hadn't taken a shot sooner. Before Katrina, he was at his wit's end. I've known him for years. He's been a good ol' Texas boy forever. George had a drinking problem for years that most professionals would say needed therapy. He doesn't believe in it [therapy], he never got it. He drank his way through his youth, through college and well into his thirties. Everyone's drinking around him."

Peak Oil - The Future

If you've been pondering the "Peak Oil" issue you have undoubtedly spent some time thinking about the future. Here (click on title) is a unique document exploring how the United States could be shaken from the current "5% use 25%" piggy position. Its a 48-page fictional projection with a happy ending (for some). Let me know what you think with your comments.

Gold Breaks Out

gold

Golden Opportunity

I am not offering financial advice, but if you've ever thought about buying gold or silver, now might be a good time to do it. Some of technicians believe that now that gold has broken the $450 barrier, it is going up to $505. Time will tell.

Find out how at:

www.goldmoney.com
www.lewrockwell.com
www.gata.org
www.kitco.com

Bush Promises

Last night in his "New Orleans" speech, Mr. Bush promised "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen." We'll put this promise in the same category as the January 2004 promise to send a manned space flight to Mars.

BS

Preparedness - by Howard Paul

I received this in an email and pass it along in the hopes that some will take heed.

The American Red Cross and others have been telling you how to prepare for a disaster, for years. Have you listened? Their advice is commonly ignored because people tell themselves "it will not happen to me."

I'm sending this to my relatives and friends, in the hope that my experiences in search and rescue (whoa -- 20 years now!!) will lend some credence to the absolute necessity to prepare to take care of yourself and your family.

In mountain and wilderness search and rescue we depend very little upon outside assistance. Small teams - two to four of us - carry what we need on our backs, prepared for 12-48 hours without support. But hardly anyone else is so prepared. Because of that when local services are severely delayed - or destroyed - such as in the enormous area of devastation on the Gulf Coast, most folks are desperate for aid, any aid from anywhere. Our societal norms are stretched and frequently break, resulting in chaotic danger.

As you have seen in the news this week, even with the best preplans and best efforts possible to respond to a disaster it will takes days for help to reach you; while the affected people and local officials are pleading for help from their state and federal government (and with my"insider" knowledge of the emergency services community I know that the response is actually working well, better than most folks understand). Because of this I want all of you to understand that you must be ready to take care of yourself.

In search and rescue we actually teach this to the public; with more"gadgets" out there (GPS receivers, cell phones) we work constantly to make folks understand they must learn to NOT depend upon them, as they fail, batteries die and the like. They MUST know how to survive in the backcountry until help arrives.

This happens time and time again because everyone believes "it will never happen to me, it is always someone else." Guess what- it does and YOU are the "someone else" of countless others.
There are now hundreds of thousands of people on the Gulf Coast who are your, and my,"someone else" in an urban wilderness.

I can survive out of my little Subaru for quite some time, on the equipment and supplies I carry for SAR work. Without the car I can carry it in my backpack and can care for a couple of others at the same time.

Here is some basic information about what you MUST do if your Michigan town is destroyed by a tornado; your New Mexico/Colorado border community is evacuated because of a forest fire, or several Ohio counties surrounding you are flooded, your California city is destroyed by an earthquake or your Colorado town is entirely isolated by a 200 year blizzard- or a "non-natural" catastrophe such as a terrorist strike or industrial accident/explosion.

The mountain men of the 1800s carried a "possibles bag." Even today mountain hikers (and SAR team members) carry the "10 Essentials," both are kits to survive. Your modern, civilized "possibles kit" comprises items you will need but without access to a bank or ATM, pharmacy, grocery or hardware store.

You must be ready, both physical and emotionally, to take care of yourself. You and your neighbors can become a remarkably strong unit, accomplishing quite a lot to survive! You should have available (and ready to move) your "possibles kit" (*are essential):

* Water (1 gal/person/day)
* Battery powered radio and batteries
* Easy to use food (breakfast bars, granola bars, etc).
* Pet food!
* GOOD SHOES!
* Flashlight (that uses the same batteries as radio!)
* Essential medications for a week or more (pharmacies may be destroyed)
* First aid kit
* Spare eyeglasses
* Cash (for until you can reach a functioning bank or ATM!)
* List of phone numbers and addresses
* Pocket knife ("Swiss Army" type is great)
Non-perishable food AND manual can opener
Deck of cards (remember "manual" solitaire?)
Small games for the kids
Blankets or sleeping bags
Baby food and supplies
Plastic garbage bags

As an outdoors person I would add my own camping stove and tent, but that may be a "luxury."

Before you ever have to evacuate:

-You should predetermine a local meeting place to await help; also a not-to-distant relative's or friend's home to where you can travel on your own, if it is possible.

-You should predetermine someone to act as a hub to pass messages among family, friends and co-workers (one or two distant persons to call to advise you are OK and where you are).

-If you must evacuate let them know you are leaving and where you plan to go. Remember, everyone else will take the same routes, so unless your local officials order you to use designated routes, you should know the area well enough to travel lesser routes.

-If you must be relocated (such as New Orleans to Houston) remember to take your important papers (insurance, prescriptions or list of medications, identification, etc.) With all these items... well, it won't be pretty but survival will be "possible."

One last thought about preparation: if you or a family member is disabled or dependent upon oxygen, contact your local police department, fire department or EMS service and tell them. Call them today on a NON-EMERGENCY line so they can "flag" your address as one that may require special assistance in case of an evacuation. They will be glad to know this!

What else can you do? Find out if your community has a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). CERT teams are specially trained local volunteers that will fill in until outside help arrives. Why not join yours today? For more information go to these web sites right now - because your area's disaster might occur tomorrow:

http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/http://www.ready.gov/

http://www.ready.gov/> http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/CERT/

Howard Paul is a rescue member of the Alpine Rescue Team, the president of the Colorado Search and Rescue Board and the executive director of the Emergency Medical Services Association of Colorado.

(c) 2005 Howard M. Paul
Permission granted for non commercial publication and distribution. Please forward to your friends and coworkers.

Dr. Dave Goes Global

I’m guessing you’ve heard about downloading music from peer-to-peer sites, lawsuits attempting to stop the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, and Steve Jobs capture of the process by making it legal for those willing to pay 99 cents per song. Jobs again demonstrated his brilliance by doing what no one else had been able to do: licensing the majors and packaging it in a cute hardware form called an iPod.

I bought my first mp3 player 4 or 5 years ago when it was new. What a great device – the Rio. No moving parts and tons of good music for your ears while you jogged or traveled. I even invested in the company – I think I lost money. The early adapters either ripped (copied) the CDs they owned or downloaded from Napster. Millions ignored the illegality issues until the music industry began to sue its customers. Kazaa(lite)++ made it less likely that you would be caught, but the threat was still there.

So Jobs came along and scooped up the entire process and made it one of Apple’s major successes. Now enterprising gearheads have begun to use the platform for the rebirth of internet radio – podcasting. Podcasts are really nothing more that audio (mp3) files, but through the use of aggregator websites, users can automatically gather and download their favorite tunes/shows and listen to their own custom-built radio while on the move. iTunes makes this even easier.

My good friend, psychologist Dr. David Van Nuys, is an early adapter, and has started his own podcast series – Shrink Rap Radio. Once you are there, Click on "Shows" to hear Dr. Dave interviewing other psychologists. He provides the listener with an inside look into the current state of the art (or science) of the psyche. "Its all in your mind" is his tag.

As a physiological psychology research scientist in my former life, I was interviewed recently for his show. We talked about “The Death of Psychology”. You won’t need an iPod (or anything else starting with that incessant little “i”) to be able to listen. Assuming your computer is sound enabled (and most are) just click on the link and see what you think about this new medium, podcasting and Dr. Dave.

Fed Stock Market Manipulation

Many have suspected, but few have proven that our Federal Government routinely manipulates the stock market.

The Sprott report concludes:"Given the available information, we do not believe there can be any doubt that the U.S. government has intervened to support the stock market. Too much credible information exists to deny this. Yet virtually no one ever mentions government intervention publicly, preferring instead to pretend as if such activities have never taken place and never would."

It is time that market participants, the media and, most of all, the government acknowledge what should be blatantly obvious to anyone who reviews the public record on the matter: These markets have been interfered with on numerous occasions. Our primary concern is that what apparently started as a stopgap measure may have morphed into a serious moral hazard situation, with market manipulation an endemic feature of the U.S. stock market.

"We have not taken a position on the wisdom of intervention in this paper, largely because exceptional circumstances could argue for it. In many respects, for instance, the apparent rescue after the 1987 crash and the planned intervention in the wake of September 11 were very defensible. Administered in extremely small doses and with the most stringent safeguards and transparency, market stabilization could be justified."

But a policy enacted in secret and knowingly withheld from the body politic has created a huge disconnect between those knowledgeable about such activities and the majority of the public, who have no clue whatsoever.

"There can be no doubt that the firms responsible for implementing government interventions enjoy an enviable position unavailable to other investors. Whether they have been indemnified against potential losses or simply made privy to non-public government policy, the major Wall Street firms evidently responsible for preventing plunges no longer must compete on anywhere near a level playing field. It is most unfair that the immensely powerful have been further ensconced in their perched positions and thus effectively insulated from the competitive market forces ostensibly present in our society."

In addition to creating a privileged class, the manipulation also has little democratic legitimacy in the sense that the citizenry has not given its consent. This has tangible ramifications. By not informing the public, successive U.S. administrations have employed a dangerous policy response that is subject to the worst possible abuse. In this regard, the line between national necessity and political expediency has no doubt been perilously blurred.

"We can only urge people to see what the evidence indicates and debate what is and ought to be a very contentious matter. The time for such a public discussion is long overdue."The Sprott report can be found in Adobe Acrobat format at the Sprott Internet site here: (click title)

Truthteller

Cindy Sheehan has a knack for telling the straight forward truth in a way never (rarely) seen in a politician, who is constantly trying to keep from upsetting some subset of voters of the opposite opinion, the "true believers". No so Cindy. Thanks to Buzzflash, in the column to the right.

Dangerous Incompetence

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Cindy Sheehan

George Bush has been an incompetent failure his entire life. Fortunately, for humanity, he was just partying his way through school, running companies into the ground and being an alcoholic and cocaine abuser for most of that time and his incompetence was limited to hurting the people who worked for him and his own family. The people in his life who were hurt by his incompetence probably have been able to "get on" with their lives. Now, though, his incompetence affects the world and is responsible for so many deaths and so much destruction.

How many of us did not foresee the mess he would make of the world when he was selected the first time? We saw what he had done to Texas.

How many of us marveled and were so discouraged and amazed when he was "re-elected" the second time? We saw what he had done to the world.

Dangerous incompetence should never be rewarded, let alone be rewarded so handsomely as in George's case.

Can we survive three more years of this? When the financial "storm surge" hits, all of the "levies" will go down.

Bush Declares His Efforts "Unacceptable"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina have been unacceptable,
President Bush acknowledged on Friday before heading out on a tour of storm-ravaged New Orleans and other areas of the U.S. Gulf Coast....

Faced with victims' urgent pleas for help and mounting criticism that the federal government has been too slow to respond, Bush said many people had been working hard in the five days since the deadly storm struck on Monday morning, but more needed to be done.

In this first instance of self criticism, Bush has declared his efforts so far as "unacceptable" and agreed to .... ooops, I thought I was writing for The Onion. Does this pretend President even know who runs the Federal Government?

As I watch the live feed from Mobile, Alabama, Bush seems to be having a hard time paying attention to the people feeding him information about the situation "on the ground". Staring at the floor, shifting from one foot to another, grinding his teeth from time to time, Bush proclaims "we have a lot to do, its a big job."

"We are going to restore law and order.... Out of the destruction of Trent Lott's house, we are going to see an even better house, and I look forward to sitting on the front porch."

I didn't make that up.

There is a Reason Why ....

There is a reason why a relatively recent Army survey found that 54% of all soldiers in Iraq reported either “low” or “very low” morale.

There is also a reason why, again according to the Army, that 30% of all soldiers returning from Iraq develop mental health problems 3-4 months after their return.

And there is a reason why soldiers like Nicolas Prubyla come home and join organizations like Iraq Veterans Against the War.

“Up until five days ago, I had large amounts of blood in my stool,” he told me recently, “I’ve felt tired all the time, I have had loss of hair…loss of the feeling in my right arm…I’m battling this stuff.”

What he is battling is exposure to uranium munitions in Iraq. He is battling radiation sickness as the result of the most recent nuclear war waged by the United States of America. There is a reason why over 11,000 veterans from the ’91 Gulf War are dead today, and over 250,000 others are on medical disability. That reason (hundreds and hundreds of tons of uranium munitions dropped on Iraq) is the same thing Prubyla is battling today.

“As the years go on this is going to effect a hell of a lot more people than we think…radioactive dust and the clouds of smoke and dust from firing the DU [depleted uranium] is getting to us now,” he said, “And I know I’m not the only person in my unit-my boss got diagnosed with cancer, one of my other buddies who is 23 years-old is getting rashes….every time I do more research on DU-I’m seeing that I have all the side effects.”