Thursday, June 30, 2011

Athens rioting update

155 Greek Parliamentarians got on their hands and knees and forced Greece to swallow an "economic suicide pill" yesterday.
Naturally, the people weren't too thrilled about that.

Greece entered a new age of austerity last night with central Athens in flames, shops and businesses vandalised and police hunting hooded rioters through ransacked office buildings and the tourist district in the shadow of the Acropolis.
-The Independent

Then the cops used chemical warfare against the people.

Case against DSK might collapse?

“It is a mess, a mess on both sides.”
The case against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn is aparently not going so well. Forensic evidence confirms that there was a sexual encounter between DSK and the Sofitel Hotel housekeeper, but her credibility is eroding.
According to the two officials, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.

That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman’s bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.

According to the two officials, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.

That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman’s bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.
-New York Times

DSK might be freed from house arrest, and the felony charges may be dismissed. Too bad Christine Lagarde already has his old job already.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Ron Paul is pro-bankruptcy


Last week, Ron Paul introduced legislation to allow states to regulate their own marijuana industries. He is pro-decriminalization.
Not surprisingly, he's pro-bankruptcy too.
This week, the Texas Congressman and Presidential Candidate said that the US should stop paying it's debts and default.
Yes he did.
He'd settle for not paying the Fed, whom he wants to audit.
"We owe, like, $1.6 trillion because the Federal Reserve bought that debt, so we have to work hard to pay the interest to the Federal Reserve," Paul said. "We don't, I mean, they're nobody; why do we have to pay them off?"
-CNN

Update from the re-birthplace of democracy

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

Monday, June 27, 2011

Flyover footage of flooded Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant

It's an indefensible industry. The situation is profit vs. public safety. The latter stands no chance over the long term.
-CounterPunch


A floodwall at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant has collapsed under the pressure of the rising waters of the Missouri river.
The 2,000-foot berm collapsed about 1:25 a.m. Sunday due to “onsite activities,” OPPD officials said. The Aqua Dam provided supplemental flood protection and was not required under NRC regulations.

“We put up the aqua-berm as additional protection,” said OPPD spokesman Mike Jones. “(The plant) is in the same situation it would have been in if the berm had not been added. We're still within NRC regulations.”
-Omaha World-Herald

That's the official story.
However, coming the heels of the less-than-acceptable results of a recent investigation into nuclear power plant safety in the US, a de facto mainstream media blackout surrounding the situation at Fort Calhoun, which is only about 19 miles north of Omaha, is to be regarded with the utmost interest and skepticism.
Obviously, people were concerned enough about the flooding that they filled up a 2,000 foot aqua berm...and now that berm has failed.
A second Nulcear Plant in Nebraska that sits on higher ground is also allegedly fine.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Spratly Islands row heating up


"We are determined and committed to supporting the defense of the Philippines."
-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

As tensions in the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea have risen dramatically over the past few weeks, the US has dangled some shiny new (used) baubles to reassert its commitment to its puppet regime in Manila.
This past week, in response to repeated Chinese incursions into waters claimed by China, Vietnam, the Pilippines, Taiwan, and Malaysia, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario was summoned by his real handlers to come begging in Washington for new lease agreements on equipment to upgrade the Philippine military's largely outdated fleet of post-war hand-me-downs from its neo-colonial patron.

Del Rosario, with Mrs Clinton at his side, said: "While we are a small country, we are prepared to do what is necessary to stand up to any aggressive action in our backyard."

The Philippines has announced the deployment in disputed waters of its navy flagship, the Rajah Humabon. One of the world's oldest warships, the Rajah Humabon was a former US Navy frigate that served during World War II.

The Philippines has historically bought second-hand hardware, but del Rosario said that President Benigno Aquino has allocated 11 billion pesos (£157 million) to upgrade the navy.

Shortly ahead of his talks with Mrs Clinton, Mr del Rosario said that the Philippines was asking the United States for "an operational lease so that we can look at fairly new equipment and be able to get our hands on that quickly."

"We need to have the resources to be able to stand and defend ourselves and, I think, to the extent that we can do that, we become a stronger ally for you," he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
-The Telegraph



The Philippines claims that over the past four months, there have been nine intrusions by Chinese warships in its territorial waters off Palawan.
Not only has the US puppet regime sent a WWII-era bucket to the area, but the two imperial bedfellows have also scheduled 11 days worth of naval excercises in the disputed waters as well. The excercises, dubbed Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT), are scheduled to begin this coming week.
Lieutenant Noel Cadigal of the Philippine navy said two U.S. guided missile destroyers and a salvage ship would join four Philippine gunboats for gunnery, patrol and interdiction drills off the southern tip of Palawan island.

"We will also hold anti-piracy and anti-smuggling exercises and test the interoperability and readiness of the two navies in responding to various scenarios, such as security, disaster and humanitarian assistance," Cadigal said.
-News Daily

Sounds like the US Navy is going to train the Philippine Navy on how to ride shotgun along with US missile frigates as the world's largest exporter of democracy asserts itself into some neighborly drama between other, allegedly-sovereign nations.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Empire in collapse

"It was not a home, it was not a block, it was not a neighborhood, it was an entire town..."

When a gypsum mine and drywall factory in Empire, Nevada closed due to the collapse of the fraudflipping industry, so did the entire town. The zip code has been discontinued. Someone stole the town's sign. Done.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Ali Velshi wants cell phone companies to come clean

Good luck with that Ali.
The tobacco companies still haven't come clean to this day, and yes, I am comparing cell phones to tobacco use. So does Ali in this clip.

Cell phone manufacturers put warnings on their own products. So why is there any controversy over whether or not cell phones are safe? They clearly aren't, otherwise the industry wouldn't be warning us at all, not even in the fine print of their products' owners manuals.
To learn more about cell phone safety, please check out the Environmental Health Trust website.

Iraq reconstruction theft may actually be $18 billion

So about that $6.6 billion "largest theft in US history," apparently it was actually more like $18.7 billion. That's almost ALL of the shrinkwrapped bricks of greenbacks that the Bush administration sent over to Iraq to reconstruct a compliant puppet regime in that country. A 2004 agreement established that the US would be responsible for safeguarding the $20 billion in cash that was allegedly sent over. Not surprisingly, almost all of it has disappeared without a trace. US officials have allegedly audited the money 3 times, but still have no clue where it is.

The cash came from an account at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, and was allegedly a combination of Iraqi oil revenue, surplus from the UN's oil for food programme, and sales of Iraqi assets.
The New York Fed is refusing to tell investigators how many billions of dollars it shipped to Iraq during the early days of the US invasion there, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction told CNBC Tuesday.
The Fed's lack of disclosure is making it difficult for the inspector general to follow the paper trail of billions of dollars that went missing in the chaotic rush to finance the Iraq occupation, and to determine how much of that money was stolen.
-CNBC

The Fed is claiming that the money belonged to the Iraqi people, and therefore, they aren't allowed to let anyone else know how much money actually went over to Iraq for reconstruction. However, since the Iraqi people never got the money, and they're wondering where the hell it went, it's a little hard to believe that the Fed can't get authorization from them to disclose how much of their money it allegedly shipped to them.
Clearly, the Fed just doesn't want anyone to know how much money was sent over, because then we'd know how much of it was stolen.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Chilean students send cops runnin with tails between their legs

Best video EVER.
Riot cops try their best to act tough in the face of an angry mob of students, but as you can clearly see, they are outnumbered and clearly too stupid to figure it out in a timely manner. This is a slow motion train wreck at its slowest and trainwreckiest. Talk about slunking out...wanna get away?

This is way more real than a disagreement in a Whole Foods Parking Lot.
Thanks Collapsenet.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Banksta math versus correct math

"This is what a true sustainable economy should be."

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Scientist makes steak from poo

It's comes from the sewers, but it "tastes like beef."

Tokyo Sewage had more poo than they could handle. They asked Scientist Mitsuyuki Ikeda to think of uses for that poo. He came up with turning it into food.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

ATF agents ordered to let guns walk

"I believe that these firearms will continue to turn up at crimes scenes on both sides of the border for years to come."
-ATF agent Peter Forcelli


Today, 3 federal agents testified before Congress that they were repeatedly ordered to stand down while high-powered assault rifles and other firearms were being purchased in the US by Mexican drug cartels.
Under Operation "Fast and Furious," the 3 ATF agents were supposed to surveil small time gun buyers in Arizona who served as straw men for other major weapons traffickers on both sides of the border.
At a hearing before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which (California Rep. Darrell) Issa chairs, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said hundreds of weapons destined for cartels in Mexico were bought in Arizona gun shops. One agent, John Dodson, who took his complaints to Grassley's office, estimated that 1,800 guns in Fast and Furious were unaccounted for, and about two-thirds are probably in Mexico.

Another of the three investigators, Peter Forcelli, said that "based upon my conversations with agents who assisted in this case, surveillance on individuals who had acquired weapons was often terminated far from the Mexican border." Forcelli said that while case agents believed that weapons were destined for Mexico, "the potential exists that many were sent with cartel drugs to other points within the United States."

"I can't tell you the why" the surveillances were called off, Dodson testified. "Hopefully ... this committee can find out." But the committee did not ask that question of any of the nonagent witnesses Wednesday.
-MSNBC

Of course they didn't.
It is already known that the founders of the Zetas, the most brutal cartel, were trained by the US Military at Fort Bragg. Now, here is news that "someone" is protecting the supply lines for high powered weaponry to fuel the bloody drug war. And Congress isn't interested in who called off the the ATF agents.
Agent Dodson testified that "although my instincts made me want to intervene and interdict these weapons, my supervisors directed me and my colleagues not to make any stop or arrest, but rather, to keep the straw purchaser under surveillance while allowing the guns to walk."

"Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals — this was the plan," said Dodson. "It was so mandated."

In one case, Dodson said, he watched a suspect receive a bag filled with cash from a third party, then proceed to a gun dealer and buy weapons with that cash and deliver them to the same unidentified third party. In that and other circumstances, his instructions were to do nothing.

"Surveillance operations like this were the rule, not the exception," said Dodson. "This was not a matter of weapons getting away from us, or allowing a few to walk so as to follow them to a much larger or more significant target."

The third ATF agent, Olindo James Casa, said that "on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms."

Casa said that "the surveillance team followed straw purchasers to Phoenix area firearms dealers and would observe the straw purchasers buy and then depart with numerous firearms in hand. On many of those occasions, the surveillance team would then follow the straw purchasers either to a residence, a public location or until the surveillance team was spotted by the straw purchasers.

But the end result was always the same: the surveillance was terminated" by others up the chain of command.
-MSNBC

The re-birthplace of democracy



Greek Prime Minister George Papandreu offered to step down as a leader of the nation with the world's lowest credit rating. This, a day after two Parliamentarians from the PASOK ruling party, Kozani Alekos Athanasiadis and Giorgos Lianis, said they wouldn't support the austerity program that Papandreu desperately wants the Greek Parliament to pass. Lianis even went so far as to defect from the ruling party because he wanted to be able to safely "walk the streets."
“Mr. President, we have humiliated, hurt and wronged the Greek people. A proud people, full of fighting spirit. That’s why the people humiliate us now. We have hurt and wronged Florina. I feel the urge to apologize to the Greeks and my compatriots. We have taken human dignity away from them”, he includes in his statement.
-Protothema

Wednesday evening, Papandreu flip-flopped during a live, televised speech, saying that he was indeed staying. No unity government. No power sharing. No hope.
Well, he did promise to shake up his cabinet.

Greece has to pass a 3 year austerity program worth $40.5 billion by the end of June or their banksta creditors will face being cut off from bailout funds from European countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The austerity program includes a five-year campaign of tax hikes, spending cuts, and sell-offs of state property such as the Acropolis and some pretty nice islands.
Naturally, the Greek people aren't too happy about it.
Debate over the mid-term agreement of the program was scheduled to start today, and a large union rally was scheduled in Syntagma square, the site of a now three-week old mass protest.
When the Prime Minister drove by, his convoy was pelted with eggs, bitter oranges and water bottles.
Throughout the day, protestors have been clashing with 5,000-strong riot police force. The situation escalated as the day dragged on, and many of the peaceful protestors left the chaos and tear gas.
Some of the protestors attacked/defended themselves from riot police with sticks.
However, in fact, here is footage of undercovers organizing sticks for distribution to protestors...in front of a bunch of cops in uniforms.


Obviously, the police want a violent confrontation that they will then have to violently suppress...and it worked. Well, they didn't really need to distribute sticks, since protestors hurled molotov cocktails, rocks, water bottles, and anything they could get their hands on at police.
Even riot dog Loukanikos got in on the action.

By nightfall, official tallies had 16 arrests and 25 detentions, 36 injured cops, and at least several dozens of injured protestors.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Water Writes

People like this make me very proud of Oakland.

Keiser Report - Flag day edition


Economic melt-through.
We need an evil plan to foil our own leaders.
America's "Cairo" moment.
"Ben Bernanke, if he had a spine, if he had a pair, he would've bitch-slapped Jamie Dimon."
Buy silver, buy silver, buy silver, buy silver, buy silver, and rice.
Utah has passed legislation allowing voluntary gold and silver transactions.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Greece is lowest...and US is worse

Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece's credit rating by three notches today, making it the world's lowest rated country. They're apparently bullish on a Greek default.
A restructuring of Greece's debt — either with a bond swap or by extending maturities on existing bonds — looks increasingly likely to be imposed by European policymakers as a means of sharing the burden of Greece's crisis with the private sector, S&P said in a statement.

"In our view, any such transactions would likely be on terms less favorable than the debt being refinanced, which we, in turn, would view as a de facto default according to Standard & Poor's published criteria," the agency said.
-CNBC

On Wednesday, there will be a general strike, and the general assembly will vote on the "mid-term" agreement with the Troika. And the protestors, some of whom have been camped out in Syntagma square for three weeks now, are threatening to blockade the parliament if they vote away Greece's future to the bankstas. Not surprisingly, Greek officials are cleaning out the underground tunnel from the Greek parliament to Lykavitos and the sea port of Piraeus.

Seriously.
Greek politicans are actually preparing to have to scurry away from an unpopular vote through a tunnel, fearing for their lives.
The Greeks have an excellent opportunity to become the re-birthplace of democracy.
How cool is that?

Meanwhile, over in the #1 exporter of democracy, PIMCO founder and co-CIO, Bill Gross, told CNBC that the United States is actually worse off than Greece.
Much of the public focus is on the nation's public debt, which is $14.3 trillion. But that doesn't include money guaranteed for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which comes close to $50 trillion, according to government figures.

The government also is on the hook for other debts such as the programs related to the bailout of the financial system following the crisis of 2008 and 2009, government figures show.

Taken together, Gross puts the total at "nearly $100 trillion," that while perhaps a bit on the high side, places the country in a highly unenviable fiscal position that he said won't find a solution overnight.
-CNBC













(sigh)

Which begs the question: What will it take to get the American people to surround congressional hill?

"Is this an act of war, gentlemen?"

So last week, Spanish police detained 3 alleged members of the Anonymous hacktivist collective. Then this weekend, someone hacked the IMF's website, and Operation Empire State Rebellion reiterated their demand that the Bernank resign with the release of this video.

This morning, LulzSec posted info on their website proving that they infiltrated the US Senate website.
A cursory investigation does not reveal the exposition of any sensitive data.... This time. Yet one thing LulzSec most certainly acquired was the user/pass combinations of all individuals affiliated with the Senate, and are likely currently actively downloading all their emails.
-Zero Hedge

Oh, and by the way, tomorrow is Flag day, and OpESR has been promising protests/actions nationwide to celebrate.
"Occupy a public space."

Stay tuned, if you can.

$6.6 billion in Iraqi reconstruction funds unaccounted for

Surprise, surprise. Another $6.6 billion of US reconstruction money has disappeared in Iraq.
Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.
This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.

For the first time, federal auditors are suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an office created by Congress, said the missing $6.6 billion may be "the largest theft of funds in national history."

The mystery is a growing embarrassment to the Pentagon, and an irritant to Washington's relations with Baghdad. Iraqi officials are threatening to go to court to reclaim the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, seized Iraqi assets and surplus funds from the United Nations' oil-for-food program.
-LA Times

$61 billion of US taxpayer money has already been spent on reconstructing Iraq, a country that the US government bombed for over a decade prior to the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation.
Since both the Iraqi puppet regime and the private contractors hired by the Pentagon to reconstruct the bombed-out nation are both corrupt and criminally incompetent, it is hard to say for sure who exactly stole all the money.
But even though we don't know where the money went, we know where all of that paper came from.
The White House decided to use the money in the so-called Development Fund for Iraq, which was created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to hold money amassed during the years when Hussein's regime was under crippling economic and trade sanctions.

The cash was carried by tractor-trailer trucks from the fortress-like Federal Reserve currency repository in East Rutherford, N.J., to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, then flown to Baghdad. U.S. officials there stored the hoard in a basement vault at one of Hussein's former palaces, and at U.S. military bases, and eventually distributed the money to Iraqi ministries and contractors.
-LA Times

Well, we can’t even honestly say that half of the money was distributed to Iraqi ministries and contractors, because no one can account for it.

Murderer Mehserle is a free man



Oscar Grant is still dead.
OAKLAND -- Former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle was released from jail early Monday morning after serving just over 11 months of a two-year-prison term given to the 29-year-old after he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for killing Oscar Grant III.

Mehserle's release at 12:01 a.m. was confirmed by a Los Angeles County Men's Jail automated notification system which sent out alerts as soon as the former Napa resident was allowed to walk free.

Although Mehserle was sentenced to state prison for his conviction, he was never handed over to the California Department of Corrections because of safety concerns. Mehserle's attorney Michael Rains successfully argued to keep Mehserle in Los Angeles County jail where he was held in his own cell and apart from other inmates.

Mehserle also did not serve the entire two-year sentence given by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry because of credits he received for time served. Mehserle was put in jail immediately after a Los Angeles jury found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter on July 8, 2010.
-Inside Bay Area

Yesterday, a protest march and two large rallies were held in Oakland. People are upset at the lenient sentence, and the fact that Mehserle didn't even have to serve his entire sentence.
And now he gets to start a new life with the help of his connections through the brotherhood of racist cops.
Rains said Mehserle was hopeful to find a job in retail.
He's had retail type work for a long time and sales jobs,” Rains said. “He also has technical knowledge on computers."
"He's gotten a couple of offers," Mehserle's attorney told KTVU.
-KTVU

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Keeping up with the Bilderbergs

Angry crows dive-bombing cops


Is the revolution starting in Everett, Washington?
Crows have been attacking police in the parking lot of an Everett Police Department precinct station. They've been swooping down and dive-bombing the officers as they walk to and from their cars.

Lt. Bob Johns said he recently was flanked by the aggressive birds and "got zinged."

"They're like velociraptors," Johns said.

One officer used his siren to try to scare away the crows, but it didn't work. The birds responded by decorating his car with droppings, The Daily Herald reported.
-Inside Bay ARea

Rapture predictor suffers stroke


Harold Camping, the Alameda man who has unsuccessfully predicted the rapture not once, but twice (and he has revised his May 21 prediction to October 21 after the rapture didn't occur on that date), has suffered a stroke.
The 89-year-old radio evangelist and president of the Oakland nonprofit Family Radio was taken by ambulance from his house Thursday night, a neighbor said, but his well-known, gravelly voice that led many believers to donate millions of dollars to his cause may never be the same.

"He had a stroke, it was on his right side," said the neighbor, who declined to give her name but said she and her husband helped and comforted Camping's wife, Shirley, as the drama unfolded Thursday night.

Her husband spoke again with Shirley Camping on Friday. "His speech appears to be a little bit slurred but otherwise he's OK," the neighbor said. "(Shirley) said he was doing good "... and the only thing that's affected is his speech."
-Inside Bay Area

As May 21 approached, Camping had to leave his house and check into a hotel with his wife because his phone was ringing off the hook and people were constantly knocking on his front door. So in addition to bringing in lots of money, his doomsaying also brought in a lot of unwelcome attention that apparently took a physical toll on him.

Friday, June 10, 2011

35% spike in infant deaths in Northwestern US

Infant deaths in Northwestern US cities have spiked 35% over the past 10 weeks, and physician Janette D. Sherman, M. D. and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano blame the Fukushima nuclear accident.
The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:

4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)

This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate.
-Counterpunch

Similar issues afflicted the region surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear reactor when it exploded and melted down.

We need to measure the actual levels of isotopes in the environment and in the bodies of people exposed to determine if the fallout is killing our most vulnerable. The research is not technically difficult – the political and economic barriers may be greater.
-Counterpunch

Considering how the government doens't really want to know how much radioactivity is making its way across the pacific, it's safe to assume that they don't want to know whether or not such radioactive substances are causing problems in our newborn babies.
Thanks George Washington.

3 alleged "Anonymous" hacktivists arrested in Spain



A week after NATO officially took up the hacktivist group "Anonymous" on their invitation to "the first infowar ever fought," Spanish police arrested 3 alleged members of the de-centralized, unstructured, anarchist "group."
MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish police arrested three suspected members of the so-called Anonymous group on Friday on charges of cyber-attacks against targets including Sony Corp's PlayStation Network, governments, businesses and banks.

Police alleged the three arrested "hacktivists" had been involved in a recent attack on Sony's PlayStation Network, as well as cyber-attacks on Spanish banks BBVA and Bankia and Italian energy group Enel SpA.

The arrests are the first in Spain against members of Anonymous following similar legal proceedings in the United States and Britain. Police told Reuters all three men were Spanish and in their 30s. One worked in the merchant navy.
-Reuters

Interestingly though, someone other than Anonymous also attacked Sony.
Anonymous also recently targeted Sony with a DDoS attack campaign in early April, but called off the assault after receiving backlash from Sony customers who did not appreciate the network downtime. When the network failed again due to the network breach, Anonymous issued a press release on April 22 that sought to dispel any notion that the movement had taken part in the latest PSN outage.
-Infosec Island

World Revolution Update

3 bakery defendants convicted in killing of Chauncey Bailey


Yusuf Bey IV, Devaughndre Broussard, and Antoine Mackey, all of the former Your Black Muslim Bakery, have been convicted in the killing of Oakland Journalist Chauncey Bailey in 2007.
Bey and Mackey were convicted of murder. Broussard was convicted of the lesser sentence of voluntary manslaughter for testifying against Bey and Mackey.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Drone-kill culture

"This 'Playstation' mentality to killing and intelligence gathering..."

Chinese woman lights herself on fire

In the United States, homeowners are protesting fraudclosures by simply squatting and not paying their mortgages at all.
Some 4.2 million mortgage borrowers are either seriously delinquent or have had their cases referred to lawyers to pursue foreclosure auctions, according to LPS Applied Analytics. Of those, two-thirds have made no payments at all for at least a year, and nearly one-third have gone more than two years.

In China, developers/bankstas/local officials are just demolishing the houses of those who won't be lowballed to make room for new developments, and Zhang Shulan set herself on fire to protest the forced demolition of her home.
Unfortunately for Shulan, the "hired thugs" who showed up to evict her intervened in her suicide attempt, and now she looks like this.

Bilderbergs meet


Today, the annual Bilderberg meeting commenced at the Hotel Suvretta in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
The Bilderberg group is one of the world's most famous clubs, it gathers bankers, politicians, industrialists, media moves and shakers, scholars and billionaires in a different location each year, usually in Europe. All the attendees share one condition of membership: discretion.

Created in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of Holland in order to bring together European and American elites, this annual meeting is named after the hotel of the Dutch village Oosterbeek where it took place for the first time.
-Time

The first meeting was to ensure that Europe and the US were BFFs. Every meeting since has basically been about that same subject. It's a bunch of rich white dudes (DSK has attended several) hanging out and keeping secrets.
Because the meetings are shrouded in secrecy, conspiracy theories abound.
The meetings do violate the Logan Act.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The New World Order


China, meet Russia.
Russia, meet China.

So Saudi Arabia is the king of OPEC, and they say they're gonna open up the pumps, but it ain't that easy.
Khalid al Falih, chief executive officer of state-owned Saudi Aramco, recently warned in April that at the country’s current rate of growth in domestic oil consumption, Saudi Arabia would burn a staggering 8.3 million barrels a day of its own oil by 2028. That is almost its current level of production.
-Globe and Mail

So much for OPEC.
Pumps in Russia, on the other hand, have already been flowing freely.
Russia, the one country actually capable of producing 10 million barrels a day, isn’t even at the table at the OPEC meeting. And it’s been Russia that has been adding the most to world exports over the better part of the last decade as OPEC exports have faltered.

Oil production in Russia, the world’s largest producer, rose to a near post-Soviet high of 10.26 million barrels a day in May. Unlike Saudi Arabia, which has been hard pressed to maintain even a nine million barrel a day production level, Russian production has been north of ten million barrels a day since September 2009.
-Globe and Mail

Interesting.
Invading, occupying, and stealing all of the oil out of Russia won't be such an easy task for the United States (the world's largest consumer of oil). Russia actually has a military. Oh yeah, AND a shitload of nuclear missiles. I guess we'll actually have to purchase it.
Speaking of which...
China has become the world's largest consumer of energy, but still uses up only half as much oil as the US. That could certainly change if Russia wanted it to, and why wouldn't they want it to? They know Beijing's new aircraft carriers weren't built to attack Moscow. Oh yeah, and the two countries just opened up a direct oil pipeline between Russia's East Siberia and China's city of Daqing.

So Russia has all the oil, and China owns everyone's debt, but the banking cartel is run by Europeans and Americans.
I'm bearish on the latter two.

UPDATE: Apparently, a couple of Chinese guys were invited to this year's Bilderberg meet.

Arnie Gunderson Fukushima update

CNN's John King interviews Arnie Gundersen about the Hot Particles discovered in Japan and the US. from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Murderer Mehserle to be released this Sunday


Johannes Mehserle, the former BART cop who was caught on multiple video cameras killing Oscar Grant by shooting him in the back while Grant lay facedown on the ground with another officer's knee on the back of his neck, will be released from jail on Sunday, June 12.
A protest has been called for 3pm that day at "Grant station," the site of the New Year's Day 2009 murder.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Today's Keiser Report was a doosy


American wages are too high.
Blame the peasants, not the occupying bankers.
"Forget entrepreneurs, only bankers can create wealth."
QE3 coming.
Sell your kidneys for an ipad.
State-connected banker dudes.
The clasics - leg breaking, thumb flaying, skull fracturing.

Don't be baffled though, Keiser sets us all straight. We don't need to beg for own imprisonment.

NMA Weinergate cartoon

Worst "DM Fail" EVER.

If you don't know anything about this story, sorry, but you still probably don't after watching this.

Robo-signing fraudclosures

"It was a common practice..."


Robo-signing, which involves people signing foreclosure-related court documents and swearing to personal knowledge of the contents when they in fact don't have ANY, came to national attention in the fall.
In response, officials in Michigan, Massachusetts and North Carolina have started combing through filings looking for known robo-signers (like the now infamous "Linda Green"), documenting irregularities in signatures and forwarding their findings to law enforcement, federal regulators and attorneys general.
Massachusetts Register of Deeds John O’Brien has now gone so far as to reject foreclosure documents signed by known robo-signers.
O’Brien is one of a handful of officials nationwide who began pulling court documents following a 60 Minutes story on foreclosure fraud that featured a Palm Beach County homeowner.

On Tuesday, Obrien said he rejected two robo-signed documents submitted to his registry for recording and plans to continue doing so.

“My registry will not be a knowing participant in this fraud against homeowners,” O’Brien said in a statement. “From today forward, lenders be on notice, the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds will not record robo-signed documents.”
-Palm Beach Post

IMF open to delayed Greek loan payments if private banks pony up

The IMF is open to giving Greece another bailout and allowing the underwater nation to delay loan payments. Greece has already won a deferred payment plan from it Eurpean Union creditors. The Greek parliament is expected to vote later this month on it's current medium-term austerity plan.
Greek sovereign debt totals €340 billion, or about 150% of GDP.
Details of the new deal to supersede the May, 2010 rescue have yet to be hammered out, but it assumes Greece's funding needs will be covered by a mix of new EU and IMF loans, budget deficit cuts including tax increases and state asset sales, and a "voluntary" participation by private creditors.

One possibility is that creditors would agree to buy new Greek bonds when old ones they hold mature, meaning that Athens would not have to produce the cash up front.

The managing director of ratings agency Moody's sovereign risk group said today it was hard to see how a private sector rollover of Greek debt would be truly voluntary and it would therefore likely constitute a default.
-Irish Times

Monday, June 6, 2011

DSK pleads not guilty

Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn entered a formal not guilty plea this morning to charges of sexually assaulting a Manhattan hotel maid.
The former front-runner French presidential candidate appeared in court for the first time since he was released on $6 million in cash bail and bond last month. He has been under house arrest that includes 24-hour monitors and armed guards, first in a downtown Manhattan apartment and now in the deluxe, $50,000-a-month Tribeca townhouse featured below.

Meanwhile, in a significantly less posh part of town, the housekeeper DSK forcibly sodomized and attempted to rape (allegedly) shares a tiny apartment with her teenage daughter in a building reserved for people with HIV and/or AIDS, and hasn't been able to work since the assault.
The maid's attorney, Kenneth Thompson, said she would testify in court and condemned speculation that she either made up the attack or exaggerated the claims.

"The victim wants you to know that all of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's power, money and influence throughout the world will not keep the truth about what he did to her in that hotel room from coming out," Thompson said.

Thompson said the 32-year-old woman has not worked since the encounter because she is traumatized. And she will not settle the case or back down.

"She is standing up for women around the world sexually assaulted who are too afraid to come forward," he said.
-NBC New York

Mutant rabbit born in Japan

Earless rabbit born just outside of Fukushima "exclusion zone."
Now we'll need a radioactive mutant lizard to save Tokyo from this monster.

Greece paying pensions to dead people while the living continue drawing down their savings


So as the world waits for the latest news on Greece's impending default-by-another-name, two interesting Reuters stories posted this morning.
First, it has come to light that 4500 dead people are still collecting pensions from the Greek government.
(Reuters) - Thousands of Greeks have been receiving pensions despite being long dead, the Labour Minister said on Monday, promising to crack down on social security fraud that is costing the debt-laden country millions each year.

Minister Louka Katseli also said the government is investigating a suspiciously high number of people over the age of 100 and still drawing their pensions.

Data crosschecks had revealed that about 4,500 deceased civil servants continued getting their pension cheques, burdening taxpayers with more than 16 million euros (14 million pounds) each year, Katseli told daily Ta Nea in an interview.

Based on that news, this next piece should be no surprise: There's a slow run on Greek banks that has been going on for quite some time. April deposits shrunk by another 3.5 billion euros.
Deposits have shrunk by about 13 billion euros since the beginning of the year. In 2010, they contracted by 29.1 billion euros or 12.2 percent.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Supply of bullets can't meet demand

To fuel some right-wingers' fire:
With the U.S. at war on two fronts in the Middle East, local law enforcement agencies are feeling the squeeze when they go to order ammunition.

A decrease in supply has led to rising costs and longer wait times for police departments whose tightening budgets already have forced them to make personnel cutbacks.

Experts tell Gannett New Jersey it has yet to become a safety issue. But rising costs and a decreased supply have put a burden on law enforcement to stockpile ammunition, and that can be a problem during lean economic times.
-Associated Press

Scourge of the High Seas, 21st Century Style



Whatever romantic notions we have about the pirates of previous centuries, there shouldn’t be any doubt that modern piracy is a stone-cold business. It’s an unlawful business and one detrimental to shipping interests and international commerce, but nevertheless an operation whose guiding purpose is commercial in nature. That makes Somali and other pirates largely the concern of workaday ships of commerce that ply danger zones, though non-commercial vessels are at risk as well.

Wherever piracy occurs, it’s the result of a confluence of factors (and it’s an age-old problem; early in his life, no less a personage than Julius Caesar was captured by pirates). The recipe for piracy is this: a seafaring but poor people who live near a prosperous trade route, combined with little or no government control of their territory. Somalia is a text book example. The country has not had a functioning government for about 20 years, and is essentially a lawless patchwork of quarreling warlords, tribal entities and terrorist groups lording over a population that gets by on about $500 a year per person.

Moreover, the Somalis have a long history of seafaring, especially as fishermen. As such, they have jealously guarded their fishing grounds for years, using their vessels to drive away foreign trawlers. As the government of Somalia melted into anarchy, this “coast guard” discovered new opportunities as pirates, and as they grew experienced, they started venturing further out and seizing larger vessels such as bulk cargo containers and oil tankers. Somali pirates are now known to strike in an area of roughly 2.5 million square nautical miles off Somalia’s coastline, which is an increase of about one million nautical miles from only two years ago, according to Geopolicity.
-World Trade

Largest Protest in Greece Yet


After 12 consecutive days of protests celebrating the 12 consecutive months since Greece first went begging to the bankstas for a bailout, the biggest gathering in Athens' Syntagma square happened today.
80,000 people (that's what the government is admitting) from many walks of life crowded into the central Athens square to protest government corruption and economic mismanagement. Many many more were stuck unsuccessfully trying to get into the square.
Last year, Greece was granted a bailout of 110 billion euros ($161 billion) and launched a severe austerity plan.
A year later, more of the same:
(Greek Premier George) Papandreou agreed to 78 billion euros in additional austerity measures and asset sales through 2015 to secure the 12 billion-euro bailout payment in July and meet conditions for receiving an additional rescue package. He agreed to make “significant” cuts in public-sector employment and establish an agency to manage accelerated asset sales, according to a statement released in Athens on June 3.
-Bloomberg

By “significant,” he meant about 6.4 billion euros, which would be generated through cuts and increased taxes.
Paying more for less.
So, in the birthplace of democracy, a fairly broad coalition of protestors has been doing the democratic thing by taking to the streets to call attention to the fraud.
I spoke with a retired military officer two days ago, who is now working at a private corporation, even his job is in doubt. He too spoke of revolution. As someone who has written a book on Marx’s Politics and long been interested in revolution, now nonviolent revolution, I was amazed to have powerful conversations with two middle class people (out of three I talked with; the third is also for fundamental change) who had straightforwardly expressed the vision and expectation of violent revolution….
-GlobalResearch.ca


Outside of Greece, not many are optimistic in the present course.
Last week, Moody’s warned that there was a 50 percent chance that the country would default or restructure its debts within the next five years.
“I don’t see how Greece can eventually avoid some kind of default,” said Martin N. Baily, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who served as chairman of Council of Economic Advisers under the Clinton administration. “It’s hard to see how you can avoid the need to finance this over the next five to 10 years.”
His sentiment was echoed widely among economists, politicians and analysts gathered here over the weekend for a conference held by the Council for the United States and Italy.
-New York Times

All of Europe has reason to be concerned about contagion.
Oh Greece, you never should have been in the family in the first place.
You had to lie to kick it.
You truly are the eurozone’s Davey Scatino.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Food plate replaces pyramid


This week, the USDA ditched the iconic food pyramid and unveiled a new graphic: the food plate.
MyPlate is all about balancing the five elements of a healthy meal: fruit, vegetables, protein, grains and small side of dairy. About half of your plate should be fruits and vegetables, according to the new guide, while grains and protein should compliment the other half. The new campaign urges a full-fat dairy side with a lower-fat or fat-free alternative like skim milk.
-Yahoo! News

The move was made to address the national obesity epidemic, and it's goal was clearly to emphasize the importance of balance in our diet.
Sometimes, the right thing happens in the world.

Rest in Power Geronimo "Ji Jaga" Pratt

Elmer Geronimo "Ji Jaga" Pratt, the former Black Panther Party leader who served 27 years in prison for a fraudulent murder conviction that was eventually overturned, died of natural causes this week in a small village in Tanzania where he has lived part time throughout the past decade.
At 63, Pratt had spent almost half of his life in prison after being set up by the FBI as part of the COINTELPRO campaign against the Black Panther Party. He was wrongfully convicted in 1972 for the 1970 robbery and slaying of schoolteacher Caroline Olsen, 27, in Santa Monica, even though he had been in Oakland attending a BPP meeting at the time of the murder. The key witness was later proven to be an ex-felon and police informant who had misrepresented himself, and Pratt was released from prison in 1997.
During his lengthy incarceration, Pratt became a symbol of the turbulent 1960s, and he gained the support of activists and politicians including former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, then-Rep. Ron Dellums (D-Oakland), the NAACP, Amnesty International and many others.

"What happened to him is the horror story of the United States," (Attorney Stuart) Hanlon said Friday. "This became a microcosm of when the government decides what's politically right or wrong. The COINTELPRO program was awful. He became a symbol for what they did."

Pratt was born Sept. 13, 1947, in Morgan City, La., a small town about two hours from New Orleans. The youngest of seven children, Pratt was raised as a Roman Catholic by his mother and his father, who operated a small scrap-metal business.

"He had Southern, rural roots, hardworking parents who sent all of their kids to college," Hanlon said. "He goes to the military, fights and is a decorated soldier in Vietnam, comes back, becomes a football star in college.

"That would be an American hero," Hanlon said of Pratt's life up to that point. "It was different because he was black and he became a Panther and then the road went the wrong way."

Hanlon said Pratt had been spending half his time in the small Tanzanian village of Imbaseni and the other half in Louisiana. When asked why he chose to spend so much of his time on another continent, Hanlon said, "I think he felt he had tasted the worst America could give and it wasn't very good."
-Inside Bay Area

Meanwhile, Johannes Mehserle, the BART cop caught on multiple videos murdering Oscar Grant at an Oakland train station, will be getting out of county jail less than a year after he was convicted of the lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Weekly lawlessness recap

It ain't just Russian king crab. More and more stuff seems to be fallin off of trucks lately, with government estimates ranging from $10 billion to $30 billion a year in cargo theft.
California was the top state for the crime in 2010 with 247, followed by Texas, 91; and Florida, 66. The bureau identified 747 cargo thefts nationwide worth $171 million.

Electronics topped on the list for type of item stolen, followed by “other” and food items.

All three commodities are relatively easy for criminals to sell after they are stolen with many of the goods being resold online, at flea markets, and overseas, the report said.
-Biz Journals

In Massachusetts, thieves took it step further and stole a "gigantic" chunk of railroad track.

A mayor in Columus, Georgia has formed a copper theft task force

World Revolution Update

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Goldman Sachs gets subpoenaed again

Goldman Sachs Group, which made billions of dollars as the worldwide economy was crashing down in 2008, was subpoenaed by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, who is seeking information on the investment bank's role leading into the global financial crisis.
The subpoena is the latest blow for the largest U.S. investment bank, which is reinventing itself as new U.S. financial regulations cut into some of its key businesses (i.e. fraudvestments).
The Department of Justice is also allegedly investigating Goldman Sachs over its involvement in the foreclosure crisis as well.
In both cases, prosecutors are seeking to learn more about documents unearthed by a U.S. Senate subcommittee report about Wall Street's role in the housing market collapse. The Manhattan D.A. is not seeking new documents, the source said.

The subcommittee report said that Goldman offloaded much of its subprime mortgage exposure to unsuspecting clients in late 2006 and 2007 as the market was starting to fall sharply. In some cases, the bank dragged its heels when clients wanted to close out their losing positions, according to the report.

The U.S. government is broadly investigating banks' actions in the years leading up to the financial crisis to determine whether executives' misdeeds made the meltdown worse.

One of the first big cases as part of the government's broad investigations was the Securities and Exchange Commission's civil fraud suit against Goldman last year over the bank's failure to disclose information linked to a complex mortgage security.

Goldman settled those charges in July without admitting or denying charges, but it did express regret for failing to disclose information.
-Reuters

There's a huge difference between getting a subpoena and actually being charged, let alone convicted of anything, but nonetheless, the hassle that these bankstas have to go through is very amusing.
This news, coming closely on the heels of word that Goldman Sachs managed to "lose" almost $1.3 billion of Muammar Gaddafi's money, does signify that there are sharks circling in the water. It's not exactly an air raid by NATO attack helicopters, but more like high level defections to the Libyan resistance, whom we recently learned are "the Al Qaeda."

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Wall Street "baffled" by economic woes

Duh.













Stocks extended losses after the manufacturing fell below expectations in May and the private sector added only 38,000 jobs during the month.

"Interest rates are amazingly low and that, thanks to Ben Bernanke, is driving everything," (Peter) Yastrow said. "We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it.

"We have many, many homeowners that are totally underwater here and cannot get out from under. The technology frontier is limited right now. We definitely have an innovation slowdown and the economy’s gonna suffer."
-CNBC

Gen. Hamid Gul tells US to raise up

Former Pakistani ISI Chief, Gen. Hamid Gul, talks about the irrelevance of bin Laden, saving face in the war on terror, how "the US is supporting the Al-Qaeda now in Libya," and how as long as the US decides to leave,"we must give them a graceful exit, precisely as we gave graceful exit to the Soviet Union."
Oh yeah, and he also says the only other option is world war III.

Murderer Mehserle ready to start a new life

Former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, who murdered Oscar Grant in front a trainload of people on New Year’s Day in 2009, will walk the streets of California a free man sometime this month. It was originally reported that he would go before Judge Robert Perry (the man who helped him get a reduced sentence less than a year ago) today, but that hearing has been rescheduled for June 13.
Unfortunately, Oscar Grant is still dead, and unlike Mehserle, won’t have to go through the tragedy of having to rebuild his life with the help of well-connected colleagues that can get him a job in "either sales or business."
Due to the classification of being a non-violent felon, Mehserle could walk free in the next few weeks after serving less than one calendar year of his prison sentence.

In Oakland and in Los Angeles, where Mehserle’s trial took place and he is currently being held, reaction to the news of Mehserle’s classification was met with shock and anger among activists and observers of the case.

“I don’t know how much more violent you can get than killing someone!” said Tiah Starr, an organizer with the October 22nd Coalition against Police Brutality, one of the founding organizations of the Los Angeles Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant.
“It’s insane that he only did a year in jail and Oscar Grant is dead … it just makes no sense to me,” said Starr.

Sheilagh Polk, a former Los Angeles resident who moved to Oakland four years ago, felt that the charge of involuntary manslaughter never should have been an option. “Mehserle … should have been convicted of second degree murder; he pulled out his gun, cocked it, pulled the trigger and executed an unarmed, young Black man with full confidence that he would get away with it. And he did,” she said.
Davey D, a journalist and 20-year resident of the Bay Area, felt that the non-violent designation was just one more indicator of the justice system’s failure to work for African Americans. “At the end of the day, this is just a repudiation of Black life,” he said. “That’s what this all boils down to – the verdict, the picking of the jury, the sentencing – this is all a refusal to acknowledge and see Black life as something that is valuable.”
-SF Bay View