ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

May 10, 2008

Tasers pose potentially fatal health risks that studies proving their safety don’t take into account, a U.S. doctor told the B.C. taser inquiry yesterday.

San Francisco cardiologist and electrophysiologist Zian Tseng became interested in the use and effects of tasers after a taser-related death in San Francisco in January, 2005. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Dr. Tseng suggested tasers could induce cardiac arrhythmia.

Continue Reading �

Benn gives go-ahead for new GM potato trial

By Geoffrey Lean
Sunday, 11 May 2008

Ministers have given permission for thousands of GM potatoes to be grown in Britain, a decision that is bound to provoke a new confrontation with environmentalists.

Continue Reading �

No surprises in the market, gold rampage, yen strengthening, what to do with worthless paper, Bush remains in denial about the Economy, What Ted Kennedy told Obama

Bob Chapman
May 10 2008

Gold goes up, and the stock markets come down. At the risk of sounding like Jim Nabors’ character, USMC Private Gomer Pyle, we comment on this latest development by exclaiming: “Surprise, surprise, surprise! Shazam!” Yes, that severe case of yellow fever that the stock markets don’t seem to be able to shake is back with a vengeance as super-yen keeps jumping out of the Japanese bankers’ closets to fight against truth, justice and the American way by creating a carry trade liquidity drain to force liquidations of metals positions held mainly by large specs many of which have yet to wean themselves off of their carry trade crack addictions, although we might add that those protective derivatives we have been recommending for almost a year now must be helping.

Continue Reading �

(I don’t know how you tens of thousands of our readers view this…But, it disturbes the “Livin’ Crap” out of me…Paul…)

Sarah-Kate Templeton
May 11, 2008

Scientists have created what is believed to be the first genetically modified (GM) human embryo.

Continue Reading �

PART 1 of 2

By Steven Yates
May 11, 2008

Today—May 11, 2008—is not just Mother’s Day but REAL ID D-Day, so to speak: the day citizens of states not granted extensions to comply with the REAL ID Act of 2005 would find themselves unable to board planes, enter federal buildings, etc.

Continue Reading �

By Tom DeWeese
May 11, 2008

The Bush Administration has directly defied, not only the will and intent of Congress, but it is now openly ignoring legislation that the President himself signed into law. As a result a Constitutional crisis is rapidly developing over a project to let Mexican trucks on U.S. roads. As a result, many are now calling for the firing of U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters.

Continue Reading �

PART 1 of 3

Deanna Spingola
May 11, 2008

Property seizures in other countries are considered totalitarian. When they occur at the hands of the corporate-controlled U.S. government they are apparently condoned and even facilitated by the courts whose job it is to reign in this kind of abuse. The monopoly media, including “conservative” talk radio, is an information filtering system masquerading as “news.” They habitually conceal government land grabs and other privatization schemes like the current controversy in southeastern Colorado. The army is attempting to seize property, claiming they need extra land to better prepare the troops. What’s really behind this patriotic-let’s-help-the-troops endeavor? Call it what they will, land seizure is land seizure and violates the public trust.

Continue Reading �

Bible is ‘hate,’ says State Department Office of Global Anti-Semitism

By Rev. Ted Pike

The State Department “Office of Global Anti-Semitism” says the New Testament claim that the Jews had Christ crucified is “classical anti-Semitism”—a historic form of hate. It included as an “anti-Semitic incident” the case of a Polish priest who said Jews killed Christ.

Continue Reading �

By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripe
Sunday, May 11, 2008

TOKYO — The U.S. Navy air wing commander for the USS Kitty Hawk’s strike group was relieved of duty Friday after an admiral said he lost confidence in the commander’s ability, according to a Navy spokeswoman.

Continue Reading �

From Kimberly Dawley
5-10-8

The collapse of ANB Financial National Association is significant.

Population of Bentonville, Arkansas is 19,500 people …. and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Bentonville IS Wal-Mart !

For the past four months, Wal-Mart (Bentonville, Arkansas) has been canceling (Tip of the iceberg:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-norman/wal-mart-cancels-45-super_b_94112.html) almost all of their (major) corporate projects into the future. We know the magnitude of Wal-Mart’s financial dilemma directly from its internal (attorney) legal “dropped project memos” and “Real Estate Committee reapproval memos.”

Continue Reading �

By Barbara Lewis and Peg Mackey - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - From the poorest of Africa to the United States and big business, a breakneck rally that could take oil to $200 a barrel is likely to inflict pain on everyone.

The world was remarkably resilient to a series of record prices in 2007, but a roughly 30 percent rise since the end of last year, with predictions of more to come, is harder to absorb.

Continue Reading �

Robin Pagnamenta and Peter Stiff
May 10, 2008

Oil prices soared to highs above $126 yesterday as the President of Brazil said that the South American country was considering joining Opec.

The latest record, the fifth in as many sessions, was driven by a new round of speculative buying as markets remained jittery about tight global supplies and booming demand. New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for June delivery, touched a high of $126.20 in early afternoon London trading. London’s Brent crude contract hit a record $125.90.

Continue Reading �

by Jacob G. Hornberger

Apparently not having enough to do to keep illegal immigrants from entering the country, U.S. officials are now also spending their time looking for illegal immigrants leaving the country. According to an article entitled “Border Busts Coming and Going in the Los Angeles Times, federal customs and immigration officials are setting up random checkpoints 500 yards from the Mexican border to search vehicles leaving the United States for illegal immigrants, drugs, and other contraband. People who cannot produce their papers are taken into custody and then turned over to the Border Patrol, which then deports them a few hours later.

Continue Reading �

May 10, 2008

There is a view slowly emerging that the worst of the global credit crunch and sharemarket ructions has passed. But there are many reasons to believe predictions that the crisis has reached bottom are prematurely optimistic.

Are we there yet?

Continue Reading �

(Ahhhh…The Death of A Government…This Has Potential…Ed…)

Suzy Jagger
May 10, 2008

Vallejo, California, is notable for many things. It was the state capital, for example, if only briefly, in 1851. It is the home of Boomerang, Kong, ROAR! and V2: Vertical Velocity, evocatively named rollercoasters at the sprawling Six Flags Discovery Kingdom theme park. And, as of this week, it is seeking to declare itself bankrupt.

Continue Reading �

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
10/05/2008

The global free market for food and energy is facing its biggest threat in decades as a host of countries push through draconian measures to hold down prices, raising fears of a new “resource nationalism” that could endanger world food security.

Continue Reading �

Federal regulators close Arkansas bank ANB Financial
Friday May 9
ANB Financial banks closed by federal regulators over ‘unsafe and unsound’ practices

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) — Federal regulators says they’ve closed ANB Financial National Association banks after discovering “unsafe and unsound” business practices there.
David Barr, a spokesman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says many customers served by the bank’s nine locations had accounts under $100,000, which will be fully insured by the government. Barr says customers can continue to write checks and draw money from ATMs through the weekend.

Continue Reading �

By J.H. HUEBERT
Friday, May 9, 2008

How frustrating it must be to be Ron Paul.

The Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate always said there was no justification for war with Iraq – no weapons of mass destruction, no threat to the United States – and his colleagues in Congress and most of the American people ignored him.

Continue Reading �

by J. H. Huebert

Amtrak – America’s socialized passenger rail service – is ever-desperate for passengers to justify its existence. For its latest futile publicity stunt, it wants us all to celebrate “National Train Day” at train stations across America today.

Continue Reading �

Glenn Greenwald
Friday May 9, 2008

The Pentagon has posted to its website the roughly 8,000 pages and audio tapes it was forced to provide to the New York Times regarding its “military analyst” program. Anyone who reads through them, as I’ve now done, can only be left with one conclusion (other than being extremely impressed with David Barstow’s work in putting together this story): if this wasn’t an example of an illegal, systematic “domestic propaganda campaign” by the Pentagon, then nothing is.

Continue Reading �

Contractor under scrutiny in killings

By James Risen
May 10, 2008

WASHINGTON - Last fall, Blackwater Worldwide was in deep peril.

more stories like thisGuards for the security company were involved in a shooting in September that left at least 17 Iraqis dead at a Baghdad intersection. Outrage over the killings prompted the Iraqi government to demand Blackwater’s ouster from the country, a criminal investigation by the FBI, a series of internal investigations by the State Department and the Pentagon, and high-profile congressional hearings.

Continue Reading �

Saturday, May 10, 2008

UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott has warned:

“If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.

Continue Reading �

by Alan Stang
May 9, 2008

What form of government are we supposed to have? The Founders of this country bequeathed us a system we used to call Free Enterprise, in which the government was supposed to leave business alone. Because of that system, endorsed by scripture, we became the greatest nation known to history.

Continue Reading �

by Prof. David Ray Griffin
May 9, 2008

At the core of the official story about 9/11 is the claim that the four airliners that crashed that day had been taken over by a band of al-Qaeda hijackers led by Mohamed Atta. No proof was ever provided for this claim. But various kinds of evidence have been offered, the most important of which was reportedly found in Atta’s luggage after the attacks. The materials in this luggage were said to confirm the suspicion that the planes had been hijacked by Atta and fellow Muslims. As Joel Achenbach wrote in a Washington Post story on September 16, 2001:

Continue Reading �

By Eustice Mullins
5-9-8

Many American conservatives believe as a matter of faith that the Rockefellers and the Council on Foreign Relations exercise absolute control over the government and the people of United States . This thesis can be accepted as a working formula if one remains conscious of the larger issues . Two writers for whom the present writer has great respect, Dr. Emanuel Josephson and Morris Bealle, insisted on focusing on the Rockefellers and excluding all oth! er aspects of the World Order . This severely limited the effect of their otherwise ground breaking work on the Medical Monopoly.

Continue Reading �

By BINOY KAMPMARK
May 8, 2008

“I don’t want to alarm anybody, but maybe it’s time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No this is not a drill.”

–Brett Arends

There is a time for food, and a time for ethical appraisals. This was the case even before Bertolt Brecht gave life to that expression in Die Driegroschen Oper. The time for a reasoned, coherent understanding for the growing food crisis is not just overdue, but seemingly past. Robert Zoellick of the World Bank, an organization often dedicated to flouting, rather than achieving its claimed goal of poverty reduction, stated the problem in Davos in January this year. ‘Hunger and malnutrition are the forgotten Millennium Development Goal.’

Continue Reading �

Brownshirt “community support officer” thugs preying upon law-abiding citizens, turning Britain into a hellhole using justification of insane environmental laws

Continue Reading �

By WILLIAM PETROSKI • REGISTER STAFF WRITER • May 6, 2008

Federal officials have imposed a news blackout at the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, where they have leased almost the entire property through May 25.

Tim Counts, a Midwest spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, declined to say Monday whether an immigration raid is pending that would use the fairgrounds as a detention center.

Continue Reading �

By PAT KINNEY
Courier News Editorand JENS KROGSTAD

Courier Staff Writer

WATERLOO— Normal operations on the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds have been suspended for most of May as the federal government has leased out virtually the entire facility for a training exercise, NCC general manager Doug Miller said Saturday.

Continue Reading �

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil futures rose to a fresh record high of $125.98 a barrel on Friday.

They were trading $2.11 higher at $125.80 by 7:09 a.m. EDT.

Reuters.com

By Steve Goldstein
May 9, 2008

LONDON (MarketWatch) - U.S. stock futures dropped on Friday, with American International Group’s $7.8 billion loss and plan to raise $12.5 billion in capital fueling doubts over whether the worst of the credit crunch is past, and another oil futures surge also weighing on sentiment.

Continue Reading �

Wal-Mart says ’paycheck cycle’ is more pronounced as high fuel and food costs hit Americans in the run up to pay-day

Suzy Jagger

Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, today said that many of its customers were forced to cease spending towards the end of each month as high fuel and food costs left Americans penniless in the run up to pay-day.

Continue Reading �

By Keith Bradsher
May 9, 2008

HONG KONG: After months of startling increases, the prices of rice, wheat, soybeans and several other foods have come down recently, a development that could ease some of the panic in global food markets.

Prices remain volatile and remarkably high by historical standards, and few agricultural experts expect the days of inexpensive food to return soon. There is no sign of a drop steep enough to make food affordable again for the hundreds of millions of people in poor countries who are struggling to maintain adequate diets.

Continue Reading �

by Glenn Greenwald

The following is an excerpt from Glenn Greenwald’s new book, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics. The excerpt is drawn from Chapter Five entitled “Small-Government Tyrants”:

Ever since Ronald Reagan famously declared in his 1980 inaugural address that “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem,” Republicans have masqueraded as the party of limited government. Its leaders reflexively pledge to keep government off the backs of regular, hardworking Americans. Homage is paid to the wisdom and insight of the American people, which, Republicans endlessly insist, is far superior to the judgment of government officials.

Continue Reading �

by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

To the casual eye, Kevin Gutzman has written a scholarly book about Virginian political thought and practice from revolutionary times through 1840. But its scholarly merits do not exhaust the merits of Virginia’s American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840. Readers are also treated to the incidental pleasure of watching the Straussian rendering of American history dismantled piece by piece.

Continue Reading �

by Don Bacon

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, one of the most colorful officers in the Marine Corps, was one of two Marines to receive two Congressional Medals of Honor for separate acts of outstanding heroism. General Butler was born in 1881 and raised as a Quaker. He was still in his teens when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant for the war with Spain and served in the Philippines, China, Puerto Rico, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, France, and, after a stint as Director of Public Safety in Philadelphia, in China again. General Butler died at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia on 21 June 1940. At the time of his death he was the most decorated marine in U.S. history. General Butler has had a naval destroyer, a military base and a chapter of Veterans for Peace (the ‘Smed Butts’) named for him. He is loved and quoted not only in the United States but around the world. We are fortunate to have General Butler with us for this “interview” conducted by Don Bacon, who founded the Smedley Butler Society several years ago to perpetuate the memory of this masterful maverick Marine.

Continue Reading �

by Rev. Richard Skaff

What do war, Congressmen, Senators, and the defense/offense industry have in common? The answer, if you haven’t already guessed is “profits.”

Conflict makes money for the military industrial complex, and the cronies they place in Congress, the Senate, and the White House.

Continue Reading �

The Water Restoration Act of 2007, along with others, gives the federal government complete control over every waterway, river, stream, lake, aquifer, creek, slew, swamp, underground spring and even the rain that runs off your roof. Why? Well to better protect you from polluters and to ensure water safety, and of course “national security”.

Continue Reading �

By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

It connects you to the world, but your cell phone could also be giving anyone from your boss to your wife a window into your every move. The same technology that lets you stay in touch on-the-go can now let others tap into your private world — without you ever even suspecting something is awry.

Continue Reading �

by Scott A. Hodge

ExxonMobil’s recent announcement of first quarter profits of $10.9 billion has prompted the predictable political demagoguery about “obscene” profits and the need for a new windfall profits tax. Exxon does not need our help to defend itself against such charges but I remain amazed that none of the major news outlets have highlighted the fact that these are net profits, meaning profits after taxes.

Continue Reading �

The White House has repeatedly insisted that the United States has “no desire for permanent bases” in Iraq. Nevertheless, the Bush administration is seeking to leave its footprint on Iraq through other means. The AP reports that the Pentagon is backing a $5 billion dollar plan to “transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone” into a “centerpiece for Baghdad’s future,” resulting in “big paydays for early investors“:

Continue Reading �

(O.K. class…Can You Say “Liberty Is Dead”…Good, I Knew You Could…Ed…)

(AP) — Emotion-detecting robot cars will face off against eavesdropping flying saucers in the English countryside when scientists, academics…

PhsyOrg.com

Lee Rogers

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) along with other government institutions are currently conducting an 8-day anti-terror and disaster exercise from May 1st through May 8th called National Level Exercise 2-08 in the United States. We recently covered this exercise in great detail using press releases from FEMA and U.S. Northern Command as source material. We also raised the prospect of the government using this exercise as cover for a potential false flag terror attack. Considering the historical precedent of the government running drills on the day of the 9/11 attacks as cover for the actual operation, this 8-day long anti-terror and disaster exercise sparked some concern. According to the press releases from both FEMA and U.S. Northern Command, drills are slated to take place in Oregon, Washington State and in the Washington DC or mid-Atlantic area. With this in mind, it is incredibly strange to see reports from the Des Moines Register and the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier indicating that a secretive FEMA exercise is taking place in Waterloo, Iowa. According to these reports, the federal government has leased out the entire National Cattle Congress fairgrounds until May 25th for an exercise. Early reports indicate that a large number of mobile home-size trailers and generators have been moved on to the residence and that both FEMA and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are involved in this exercise. Considering the reported involvement of FEMA and ICE, the trailers and generators being moved in, as well as the secrecy around this particular exercise, this has all the hallmarks of a FEMA camp drill. The purpose of ICE being involved appears to be to round up illegal aliens so they can test the efficiencies of their processing procedures…

Continue Reading �

Thu May 8, 2008

By Jane Merriman - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - Bears are a rare breed, but not yet extinct in an oil market where prices have doubled in the past 12 months and risen by a quarter this year.

History shows price booms do not usually run on uninterrupted.

Continue Reading �

Adrian Ash

“…Now that cheap money’s vanished, where will consumers find enough cash to pay the bills…?”

THE CHEAP MONEY BUBBLE might have gone pop. But everywhere we look, the mischief of cheap money continues to cause mayhem for investors, savers, retirees, even school children.

Continue Reading �

But rice rally a warning sign of things to come

By David Callaway
May 8, 2008

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — John Casey, rice pit chairman at The Chicago Board of Trade and a commodities trader for two decades, has seen worse.
The stunning rally in rice and other agriculture futures lately, in which rice prices on the exchange almost doubled in the past year and rose more than 30% since January, has been a crazy time for the men and women who make a living trading thousands of contracts daily on the future price of food in Chicago’s financial district — but not the craziest.
“On my first day on the floor 20 years ago, the stock market crashed,” Casey said, referring to the “Black Monday” crash in October 1987. “It was my very first day. And to top it off, there was a fire on the escalator out there, and so black smoke started billowing into the trading room. It was like the world was ending.”
Still, for Casey and his crew of about a dozen other colorfully-attired, colorfully-spoken rice futures