A sharp drop in foreign holdings of US Treasury bonds over the last five weeks has raised concerns that China is quietly withdrawing its funds from the United States, leaving the dollar increasingly vulnerable.
Data released by the New York Federal Reserve shows that foreign central banks have cut their stash of US Treasuries by $48bn since late July, with falls of $32bn in the last two weeks alone.
"This comes as a big surprise and it is definitely worrying," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.
"We won't know if China is behind this until the Treasury releases its TIC data in November, but what it does show is that world central banks are in a hurry to get out of the US. They don't seem to be switching into other currencies, so it is possible they are moving into gold instead. Gold is now gaining momentum across all currencies and has broken through resistance at 500 euros," he said.
While the greenback has been resilient over recent weeks - even regaining something of a 'safe-haven' role as banks scrambled to buy the currency to cover dollar debts - most experts believe that America's $850bn current account deficit will eventually cause the dollar to resume its relentless slide.
David Powell, an economist at IDEAglobal in New York, pointed the finger at Beijing as the main suspect in the sudden bond flight this summer.
In a client note entitled "Has China started to dump US Treasuries?", he said the sales appear to coincide with early moves by Beijing to launch its new $300bn sovereign wealth fund.
The scheme is part of the government's plan to diversify it $1,340bn reserves from bonds (mostly in the US) to a broader portfolio of investments and a better yield.
If so, the switch comes at a very delicate time, just as tempers flair on both sides of the Pacific over China's policy of holding down yuan by currency intervention. A bill in Congress calls for punitive tariff sanctions of 27.5pc against Chinese imports, and there has been a growing outcry over contaminated pet food and lead-tainted toys.
Two top advisers to the Chinese government gave strong hints in August that Beijing should use its estimated $900bn holdings of US Treasuries and agency bonds as a "bargaining chip", words taken as an implicit threat to trigger as US bond crash if provoked.
The Chinese government has since put out an official statement clarifying that it has no intention in taking such an irresponsible step, which would in any case backfire by devaluing China's remaining holding.
Mr Powell said the switch out of Treasuires was a purely commercial decision. "If if turns out that the Chinese are behind this, it is merely an attempt to increase returns on investment. It has nothing to do with settling protectionist scores," he said.
Any evidence that China was pulling out would risk setting off an unstoppable stampede, which is why such a policy would never be announced. It holds the world's biggest pool of resrves, followed by Japan.
Robin Bhar, a metals analyst at UBS, said there was little evidence yet that Asian central banks were switching heavily into gold. Most of the recent buying of gold has been on the COMEX futures markets, the playground of hedge funds.
Central banks tend to buy their bullion in London at the AM and PM fixings, leaving a footprint that is visible to experts. They seem to have been largely absent from the market so far.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Former CIA officers report Bush 'didn't give a fuck about intelligence'
Months before the Iraq invasion, President Bush apparently ignored a 2002 Oval Office briefing in which CIA director George Tenet provided the president with intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, according to former Clinton advisor and Salon columnist Sidney Blumenthal.
Reporting in Salon, Blumenthal writes that according to his sources, two former CIA officers,"Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again."
Blumenthal also adds that the intelligence from that day was left out of the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which definitively stated that had WMD.
"The president had no interest in the intelligence," a CIA officer disclosed. "Bush didn't give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up."
"No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq," Blumenthal writes. "The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD."
Blumenthal's sources confirm a 2006 interview with the CIA's chief of clandestine operations for Europe, Tyler Drumheller, who told CBS's 60 Minutes that the his agency had received intelligence from Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, indicating Iraq possessed no WMD.
"[The two former CIA officers] have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it," Blumenthal reports. "They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell."
Powell would later present US evidence justifying the preemptive invasion of Iraq to the United Nations--without knowledge of the Sabri information.
The former officials instead say that the information was "distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs." That information was in turn passed to British intelligence, who used it in briefing Prime Minister Tony Blair as to validation for going to war.
"Tenet told me he briefed the president personally," one of the former CIA officers informed Blumenthal, referring to the Oval Office briefing session on Sept. 18, 2002. Bush, reportedly, thought the information was 'the same old thing,' insisting it was only what Hussein wished him to think.
Prior to Bush's briefing, CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, although reportedly excited about Sabri's report, was concerned that the information conflicted with a source code-named "Curveball," who was to be revealed later as a former Iraqi taxi drive pretending to be a chemical engineer.
Continuing to believe that the Iraqi foreign minister's information was significant, the officers were told by a Tenet deputy that "You haven't figured this out yet. This isn't about intelligence. It's about regime change."
"In the congressional debate over the Authorization for the Use of Military Force," Blumenthal writes that "even those voting against it gave credence to the notion that Saddam possessed WMD...Not a single senator contested otherwise...none of them had an inkling of the Sabri intelligence."
As war approached , the officers on Sabri's case attempted to set up a defection for the foreign minister in order to help show that he stood behind his information. "He dithered," said one officer, and the war began before anything could come of the plan.
"The real tragedy is that they had a good source that they misused," said one of the former CIA officers. "The fact is there was nothing there, no threat. But Bush wanted to hear what he wanted to hear."
Read the full story in Salon here.
Reporting in Salon, Blumenthal writes that according to his sources, two former CIA officers,"Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again."
Blumenthal also adds that the intelligence from that day was left out of the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which definitively stated that had WMD.
"The president had no interest in the intelligence," a CIA officer disclosed. "Bush didn't give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up."
"No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq," Blumenthal writes. "The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD."
Blumenthal's sources confirm a 2006 interview with the CIA's chief of clandestine operations for Europe, Tyler Drumheller, who told CBS's 60 Minutes that the his agency had received intelligence from Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, indicating Iraq possessed no WMD.
"[The two former CIA officers] have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it," Blumenthal reports. "They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell."
Powell would later present US evidence justifying the preemptive invasion of Iraq to the United Nations--without knowledge of the Sabri information.
The former officials instead say that the information was "distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs." That information was in turn passed to British intelligence, who used it in briefing Prime Minister Tony Blair as to validation for going to war.
"Tenet told me he briefed the president personally," one of the former CIA officers informed Blumenthal, referring to the Oval Office briefing session on Sept. 18, 2002. Bush, reportedly, thought the information was 'the same old thing,' insisting it was only what Hussein wished him to think.
Prior to Bush's briefing, CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, although reportedly excited about Sabri's report, was concerned that the information conflicted with a source code-named "Curveball," who was to be revealed later as a former Iraqi taxi drive pretending to be a chemical engineer.
Continuing to believe that the Iraqi foreign minister's information was significant, the officers were told by a Tenet deputy that "You haven't figured this out yet. This isn't about intelligence. It's about regime change."
"In the congressional debate over the Authorization for the Use of Military Force," Blumenthal writes that "even those voting against it gave credence to the notion that Saddam possessed WMD...Not a single senator contested otherwise...none of them had an inkling of the Sabri intelligence."
As war approached , the officers on Sabri's case attempted to set up a defection for the foreign minister in order to help show that he stood behind his information. "He dithered," said one officer, and the war began before anything could come of the plan.
"The real tragedy is that they had a good source that they misused," said one of the former CIA officers. "The fact is there was nothing there, no threat. But Bush wanted to hear what he wanted to hear."
Read the full story in Salon here.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
So, whom is behind this ' Foundation for a Better Life ' anyway?
Uh.... sure guys. Values that make a difference, right? Like lots 'o Oil & Media Control
You might have been all warm and comfy watching those 'Foundation for a Better Life' commercials on TV ; but not after you find out whom is behind them. Would it surprise you to know, a Elite Billionare ; Mr. Philip Anschutz has funded this organization since 2000? Yep, he's worth 7.8 BILLION dollars, and he's also a big contributor to both conservative, and christian causes. It's hard to know anything about the guy, however - since he has not given an interview in over 30 years. Named Fortune's "greediest executive" in 1999, the Denver resident is a generous supporter of anti-gay-rights legislation, intelligent design, the Bush administration and efforts to sanitize television. Anschutz's stake in Hollywood has been growing since 2000, when he began buying the bankrupt Regal, Edwards and United Artists chains and founded two film studios, Walden Media and Bristol Bay. A heavy contributor to the Republican Party for decades, Anschutz helped fund Amendment 2, a ballot initiative to overturn a state law protecting gay rights, and helped stop another initiative promoting the use of medical marijuana. Anschutz also helped fund the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank that mounted a public relations campaign and financed "research" into intelligent design. He is ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 31st Richest American in the USA - so what is he doing with his 'Foundation for a Better Life' ? Like most mysteries, this man's history is the key to this puzzle:
In '70 he bought the 250,000-acre (1,000 km²) Baughman Farms, one of the country's largest farming corporations, in Liberal, Kansas for $10 million. The following year, he acquired 9 million acres (36,000 km²) along the Utah-Wyoming border. This produced his first fortune in the oil business. In the early 1980s, the Anschutz Ranch, with its 1 billion barrel (160,000,000 m³) oil pocket, became the largest oil field discovery in the United States since Prudhoe Bay in Alaska in 1968. He sold a half-interest in it to Mobil Oil for $500 million in 1982. Wake up and smell the crude.
In '84 Anschutz entered the railroad business by purchasing the Rio Grande Railroad's holding company, Rio Grande Industries. Four years later, in 1988, the Rio Grande railroad purchased the Southern Pacific Railroad under his direction. With the merger of the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Corporation in September 1996, Anschutz became Vice-Chairman of Union Pacific. Prior to the merger, he was a Director of Southern Pacific from June 1988 to September 1996, and Non-Executive Chairman of Southern Pacific from 1993 to September 1996. Anschutz was also a Director of Forest Oil Corporation, beginning in 1995. In November 1993 he became Director and Chairman of the Board of Qwest, stepping down as a nonexecutive co-chairman in 2002, but remaining on the board.
Anschutz has also been a Director for Pacific Energy Partners, and served on the boards of the American Petroleum Institute, in Washington, D.C. and the National Petroleum Institute Council, in Washington, D.C.
In May 2001, the Bush administration upheld Anschutz's right to drill an exploratory oil well at Weatherman Draw, in south-central Montana where Native American tribes wanted to preserve sacred rock drawings. Environmental groups, preservationists, and 10 Indian tribes had appealed the decision without success. Reports at the time noted that Anschutz had donated $300,000 to Republican causes in the previous four years. In April 2002, the Anschutz Exploration Corporation gave up its plans to drill for oil in the area. They donated its leases for oil and gas rights to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has pledged to let the leases expire, and the Bureau of Land Management said it had no plans to permit further leases there, and would consider formal withdrawal of the 4,268 acre (17 km²) site from mineral leasing in its 2004 management plan.
But that's not all my readers, Anschutz owns or has major interests in about 100 companies, including the following:
- Anschutz Entertainment Group, which has stakes in three U.S. soccer teams, including the MLS's Los Angeles Galaxy, Chicago Fire, and Houston Dynamo; the NHL's Los Angeles Kings; the AHL's Manchester Monarchs; the ECHL's Reading Royals; the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers; STAPLES Center; Home Depot Center; Major League Lacrosse LA Riptide; the Swedish soccer team Hammarby IF; the German hockey teams Hamburg Freezers and Eisbären Berlin; and the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles; In the UK they own the Manchester Evening News Arena, the London Arena, and the Millennium Dome which is being redeveloped as a multi-purpose arena, and re-launched under the name "The O2".
- Anschutz Film Group (reorganized Crusader Entertainment now known as Bristol Bay Productions and Walden Media). Involved in the production of the movie Atlas Shrugged, and previously involved in the production of the movie Holes in 2003 and the commercially successful The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in 2005.
- Forest Oil
- Pacific Energy Group
- 17% stake in Qwest Communications, which became a Baby Bell upon the purchase of US West
- Regal Entertainment Group, the largest movie theatre chain in the world with approximately 6,000 screens. Anschutz owns more than half of the company, which is a collection of former bankrupt chains.
- Union Pacific Railroad (Anschutz is the company's largest shareholder, with 6%.)
- Clarity Media Group, a newspaper conglomerate which includes:
- The San Francisco Examiner (purchased in 2004)
- The Washington Examiner, which was spun off from a number of D.C. area suburban dailies.
- The Baltimore Examiner, which was launched anew in April 2006. (Anschutz has trademarked the name "Examiner" in more than sixty cities.)
- The Oil & Gas Asset Clearinghouse, which is a auction company designed for the Oil & Gas Business
NRC Broadcasting, which owns a string of radio stations in Colorado. - Anschutz brought David Beckham to the United States. Beckham is now employed by Galaxy Media and plays on an Anschutz-owned soccer team.
Anschutz, a Republican donor and avid supporter of George W. Bush's administration, has been an active patron of a number of religious and right-wing causes:
- Helped fund Amendment 2, a ballot initiative designed to overturn a Colorado state law giving equal rights to gay and lesbian people.[1]
- Helped fund the Discovery Institute, a think tank based in Seattle, Washington that promotes intelligent design and critiques some theories of evolution. [1]
- Supported the Media Research Council, a group responsible for nearly all indecency complaints to the FCC in 2003.[1]
- Financed and distributed Christian-themed films, such as Amazing Grace and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for mass audiences through his two film production companies and ownership of much of the Regal, Edwards and United Artists theater chains. Anschutz has also advocated a desire to censor R-rated Hollywood movies by editing them digitally for re-release as PG-13 in his theaters.[citation needed] In addition, as a producer Anschutz reportedly required the removal of certain material related to drug use and womanizing in the 2004 film Ray because he found it objectionable.[2]
- Anschutz has also funded advertisements for television, billboards, and Regal Cinemas for his "For a Better Life" campaign. The campaign, while not explicitly religious, promotes "faith" and "integrity", using characters such as Shrek and Kermit the Frog. The ads were produced by Bonneville Communications, a Salt Lake City agency connected to the Mormon Church.[2]
More Reading:
....'Citizen Anschutz'
...'The Conservative Hand of Holywood'
...'What is the Foundation for a Better Life?
...'Bush Administration OKs Billionaire's Montana Oil Well'
Jury Selection Begins In Oil-For-Food Trial Of Oilman Wyatt
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Jury selection began Wednesday in the trial of Texas oil man Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. on charges he participated in a scheme to pay secret kickbacks to the Iraqi government in exchange for oil under the United Nations' scandal-ridden oil-for-food program.
The trial of Wyatt, former chairman of Coastal Corp., is expected to last four to six weeks. Coastal Corp. was acquired by El Paso Corp. (EP) in 2001.
"Jury service is one of the most important duties of citizens," said U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who is presiding, to the jury pool as jury selection began Wednesday. "We are grateful for all of you being here."
Jury selection kicked off Wednesday morning with the judge questioning an initial group of 40 potential jurors about their backgrounds, if they were aware of the UN's oil-for-food program and if they felt they could serve impartially.
Opening statements could begin as soon as Thursday or Monday depending upon how quickly a panel is selected.
Prosecutors have alleged that Wyatt and others, from December 2000 to March 2003, caused millions of dollars of illegal surcharges to be paid to Iraq's government in exchange for oil purchased on behalf of Coastal Corp. and two Cyprus companies.
However, Wyatt has claimed in court papers that he was singled out for prosecution because of his "outspoken opposition to government policy towards Iraq," including the past two Iraq wars, a trade embargo against Iraq and the administrations of President George W. Bush and his father.
"I believe that we have a particularly strong defense," said Gerald L. Shargel, Wyatt's lawyer. "The details of that defense will be revealed in my opening."
Wyatt has been charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, engaging in prohibited financial transactions with Iraq and two counts of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. He faces up to 74 years in prison on the charges.
Eight people have either pleaded guilty or been convicted of criminal charges in the case. Criminal charges are pending against six other individuals, including the program's former executive director, Benon V. Sevan.
Last month, David B. Chalmers, the sole shareholder of Houston oil company Bayoil (USA) Inc., and Ludmil Dionissiev separately pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the case.
In February, El Paso Corp. agreed to pay $7.7 million to settle civil and criminal charges that it indirectly paid $5.5 million in illegal surcharges to Iraq through purchases of crude oil from outside parties under the oil-for-food program.
Last week, another oil company, Textron Inc. (TXT), agreed to pay $4.7 million to settle criminal and civil charges in the matter.
Notice they're all TEXAS OIL CO.'s ? Bush 'n Co. -- do you think we're all REALLY that STUPID?
The oil-for-food program was designed to allow the government of Iraq, which was facing international sanctions, to sell oil in exchange for food, medical supplies and other humanitarian needs.
An independent investigation headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker in 2005 found that Saddam Hussein's government was allowed to pocket billions of dollars by manipulating the program, and kickbacks were paid to U.N. officials. The program began in 1996 and ended in 2003.
-By Chad Bray, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-227-2017; chad.bray@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
09-05-07 1218ET
Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Scientists Drug-Test Entire American Cities
SETH BORENSTEIN
Associated Press
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) - Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city's sewer plant.
The test wouldn't be used to finger any single person as a drug user. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, like methamphetamines, across the country.
Oregon State University scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what people are taking.
"It's a community urinalysis," said Caleb Banta-Green, a University of Washington drug abuse researcher who was part of the Oregon State team. The scientists presented their results Tuesday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.
Two federal agencies have taken samples from U.S. waterways to see if drug testing a whole city is doable, but they haven't gotten as far as the Oregon researchers.
One of the early results of the new study showed big differences in methamphetamine use city to city. One urban area with a gambling industry had meth levels more than five times higher than other cities. Yet methamphetamine levels were virtually nonexistent in some smaller Midwestern locales, said Jennifer Field, the lead researcher and a professor of environmental toxicology at Oregon State.
The ingredient Americans consume and excrete the most was caffeine, Field said.
Cities in the experiment ranged from 17,000 to 600,000 in population, but Field declined to identify them, saying that could harm her relationship with the sewage plant operators.
She plans to start a survey for drugs in the wastewater of at least 40 Oregon communities.
The science behind the testing is simple. Nearly every drug - legal and illicit - that people take leaves the body. That waste goes into toilets and then into wastewater treatment plants.
"Wastewater facilities are wonderful places to understand what humans consume and excrete," Field said.
In the study presented Tuesday, one teaspoon of untreated sewage water from each of the cities was tested for 15 different drugs. Field said researchers can't calculate how many people in a town are using drugs.
She said that one fairly affluent community scored low for illicit drugs except for cocaine. Cocaine and ecstasy tended to peak on weekends and drop on weekdays, she said, while methamphetamine and prescription drugs were steady throughout the week.
Field said her study suggests that a key tool currently used by drug abuse researchers - self-reported drug questionnaires - underestimates drug use.
"We have so few indicators of current use," said Jane Maxwell of the Addiction Research Institute at the University of Texas, who wasn't part of the study. "This could be a very interesting new indicator."
David Murray, chief scientist for U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the idea interests his agency.
Murray said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is testing federal wastewater samples just to see if that's a good method for monitoring drug use. But he didn't know how many tests were conducted or where.
The EPA will "flush out the details" on testing, Benjamin Grumbles joked. The EPA assistant administrator said the agency is already looking at the problem of potential harm to rivers and lakes from legal pharmaceuticals.
The idea of testing on a citywide basis for drugs makes sense, as long as it doesn't violate people's privacy, said Tom Angell of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a Washington-based group that wants looser drug laws.
"This seems to be less offensive than individualized testing," he said.
While the (idea) behind this is pretty scary (it's more information gathering) :: Do you really think the tests will represent an actual drug test of the entire community? VERY Doubtful. What about that guy whom flushes his shit as the cops are at the door? Does that go into the sewage plant too? Yep. I doubt these tests are even worth the damn paper they're printed on. But they'll use the tests as factual data ; and fuel the "war and drugs".
Associated Press
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) - Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city's sewer plant.
The test wouldn't be used to finger any single person as a drug user. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, like methamphetamines, across the country.
Oregon State University scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what people are taking.
"It's a community urinalysis," said Caleb Banta-Green, a University of Washington drug abuse researcher who was part of the Oregon State team. The scientists presented their results Tuesday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.
Two federal agencies have taken samples from U.S. waterways to see if drug testing a whole city is doable, but they haven't gotten as far as the Oregon researchers.
One of the early results of the new study showed big differences in methamphetamine use city to city. One urban area with a gambling industry had meth levels more than five times higher than other cities. Yet methamphetamine levels were virtually nonexistent in some smaller Midwestern locales, said Jennifer Field, the lead researcher and a professor of environmental toxicology at Oregon State.
The ingredient Americans consume and excrete the most was caffeine, Field said.
Cities in the experiment ranged from 17,000 to 600,000 in population, but Field declined to identify them, saying that could harm her relationship with the sewage plant operators.
She plans to start a survey for drugs in the wastewater of at least 40 Oregon communities.
The science behind the testing is simple. Nearly every drug - legal and illicit - that people take leaves the body. That waste goes into toilets and then into wastewater treatment plants.
"Wastewater facilities are wonderful places to understand what humans consume and excrete," Field said.
In the study presented Tuesday, one teaspoon of untreated sewage water from each of the cities was tested for 15 different drugs. Field said researchers can't calculate how many people in a town are using drugs.
She said that one fairly affluent community scored low for illicit drugs except for cocaine. Cocaine and ecstasy tended to peak on weekends and drop on weekdays, she said, while methamphetamine and prescription drugs were steady throughout the week.
Field said her study suggests that a key tool currently used by drug abuse researchers - self-reported drug questionnaires - underestimates drug use.
"We have so few indicators of current use," said Jane Maxwell of the Addiction Research Institute at the University of Texas, who wasn't part of the study. "This could be a very interesting new indicator."
David Murray, chief scientist for U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the idea interests his agency.
Murray said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is testing federal wastewater samples just to see if that's a good method for monitoring drug use. But he didn't know how many tests were conducted or where.
The EPA will "flush out the details" on testing, Benjamin Grumbles joked. The EPA assistant administrator said the agency is already looking at the problem of potential harm to rivers and lakes from legal pharmaceuticals.
The idea of testing on a citywide basis for drugs makes sense, as long as it doesn't violate people's privacy, said Tom Angell of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a Washington-based group that wants looser drug laws.
"This seems to be less offensive than individualized testing," he said.
While the (idea) behind this is pretty scary (it's more information gathering) :: Do you really think the tests will represent an actual drug test of the entire community? VERY Doubtful. What about that guy whom flushes his shit as the cops are at the door? Does that go into the sewage plant too? Yep. I doubt these tests are even worth the damn paper they're printed on. But they'll use the tests as factual data ; and fuel the "war and drugs".
Monday, August 20, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Are you paying more in property taxes than major corporations?
How much do you pay in property taxes each year ? I know for a fact you pay more than 'the big boys' on your 3 bedroom home, than these guys do. It certainly depends on where you live, but odds are that you are paying far more than Fidelity Investment Corporation is on its enormous 340 acre customer-service operation in Fort Worth, Texas. The property tax should be $319,417 based on it's value, but Fidelity only pays $714.15
How do they get away with this? They easily save millions of dollars a year, by exploiting the state’s agricultural exemption ; which should not even apply to corporations. To qualify, one must show that your land is “used wholly or in part” for raising livestock, growing crops, or preserving wildlife. By sticking a couple bulls on their property (24 longhorn cattle to be exact) Fidelity saves hundreds of thousands in taxes. This program was originally intended to help farmers with large tracts of land and thus huge property taxes back in 1966. As you would expect to be the case, Fidelity is not alone in exploiting this law:
-Michael Dell pays $1,355 in property taxes rather than $580,780 because he keeps 100 birdhouses on his property.
-Exxon Mobile saves millions on its 3,909 acre lot in Texas by growing trees and raising cattle on part of the land. The appraised value of the property is $38 million but Exxon pays taxes on an appraisal value of $1.2 million.
-Samsung pays $135.68 on 54 acres rather than the $21,080 it used to pay after the company put up birdhouses and sprayed for red ants.
- Nokia pays $95 a year in property taxes on a 30 acre repair factory. It used to pay $85,000 before growing hay on a part of the property.
- Janice Squire, a home owner, pays nearly $9000 a year in property taxes on 3 rental homes in the same State as the above corporations.
There is only one way to look at these facts ; and that is the FACT that our government has been run by corporate interests for far too long now. They ALLOW this to happen, and ENCOURAGE it. It's killing America, as we already live in a time when the middle class man pays more than a major corporation. Kinda makes ya sick, don't it ? Remember the loop hole which allowed people to write-off hummers ? This is no different folks, there are pleanty of these out there for rich folks to take advantage of. The funny thing is -- there doesn't seem to be any advantages for the poor to middle class tax payer...
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Bush's Grandfather Planned Fascist Coup In America
New investigation sheds light on clique of powerbrokers, including Prescott Bush, who sought to overthrow U.S. government and implement Hitlerian policies
A BBC Radio 4 investigation sheds new light on a major subject that has received little historical attention, the conspiracy on behalf of a group of influential powerbrokers, led by Prescott Bush, to overthrow FDR and implement a fascist dictatorship in the U.S. based around the ideology of Mussolini and Hitler.
In 1933, Marine Corps Maj.-Gen. Smedley Butler was approached by a wealthy and secretive group of industrialists and bankers, including Prescott Bush the current President's grandfather, who asked him to command a 500,000 strong rogue army of veterans that would help stage a coup to topple then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
According to the BBC (see link) , the plotters intended to impose a fascist takeover and "Adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression."
The conspirators were operating under the umbrella of a front group called the American Liberty League, which included many families that are still household names today, including Heinz, Colgate, Birds Eye and General Motors.
Butler played along with the clique to determine who was involved but later blew the whistle and identified the ringleaders in testimony given to the House Committee on un-American Activities.
However, the Committee refused to even question any of the individuals named by Butler and his testimony was omitted from the record, leading to charges that they were involved in covering the matter up, and the majority of the media blackballed the story.
In 1936, William Dodd, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in which he stated,
"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime.... A prominent executive of one of the largest corporations, told me point blank that he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism into America if President Roosevelt continued his progressive policies. Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there. Propagandists for fascist groups try to dismiss the fascist scare. We should be aware of the symptoms. When industrialists ignore laws designed for social and economic progress they will seek recourse to a fascist state when the institutions of our government compel them to comply with the provisions."
The proven record of Prescott Bush's involvement in financing the Nazi war machine dovetails with the fact that he was part of a criminal cabal that actively sought to impose a fascist coup in America.
Prescott did not succeed but many would argue that two generations down the line the mission has all but been accomplished.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Bill would force "top 25 piracy schools" to adopt anti-P2P technology
By Ken Fisher | Published: July 23, 2007 - 05:06PM CT
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is making waves with a planned amendment to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act being introduced in time for the next school year. Reid's amendment holds select educational funds hostage for US colleges and universities that do not meet a set of criteria meant to bolster the war on file-sharing on college campuses. This is the legislative carrot-and-stick move that many colleges have feared would arise.
The amendment would essentially put US colleges in the business of aggressively policing copyright on their network in order to stay off of a "blacklist" that would be comprised primarily of RIAA and MPAA accusations. More disturbing, the US Secretary of Education would conduct an annual review of the top 25 file-sharing schools according to that "blacklist" and place those schools on "probation" pending their mandatory adoption of technological measures meant to block file-sharing.
According to the most recent version of the amendment, such schools must "provide evidence to the Secretary that the institution has developed a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property."
The amendment does not address how copyright holders or their representatives such as the RIAA or the MPAA collect their data or represent it. It simply assumes that such data constitutes an objective assessment of comparative file-sharing activity at US schools. This is, of course, utter nonsense, because a school with 70,000 students will likely have more notices than one with 2,000 students.
As such, the bill smells like a favor to the anti-P2P tech industry, in that it's basically lining up 25 enormous schools as new customers. Better yet, taxpayers will get to foot the bill, as more than 50 percent of the last RIAA Top 25 was comprised of state schools.
The Digital Freedom Campaign had harsh words for the amendment. "No one supports illegal downloading or file sharing, but the Digital Freedom Campaign and its members believe that Universities have more urgent things to do with their scarce budgets than collect information on their students for the government and for the RIAA," said Jennifer Stoltz, a spokesperson for the Digital Freedom Campaign. "Academic resources would be better spent educating students rather than spying on them at the behest of large corporations." The DFC is behind an attempt to educate college-goers about their rights under the law.
Senator Reid's amendment has undergone several revisions and may be revised again before it is voted on. A major IT officer with a Boston-area university told me that there are concerns that Reid wishes to expand the requirements so that more schools would be required to adopt technology aimed at stifling file-sharing, but that there is no clear method for doing this without making it mandatory for everyone. One option would be to set a threshold of infringement notices per year.
The amendment could be introduced as early as tomorrow, and it is certainly expected to be up for a vote before the close of the week. If this sounds like bad news to you, you should contact your Senators. Remind them that anti-file-sharing technology is not proven to work and is in fact it known to interfere with plenty of legitimate uses, as we have reported earlier.
P2P arms race, here we come!
Monday, July 23, 2007
Bin Laden: Dead or Alive ? -- and how would we know?
By Henry Schuster
Thursday, December 8, 2005; Posted: 12:39 p.m. EST (17:39 GMT)
Editor's Note: Henry Schuster, a senior producer in CNN's Investigative Unit and author of "Hunting Eric Rudolph," has been covering terrorism for more than a decade. Each week in "Tracking Terror," he reports on people and organizations driving international and domestic terrorism and efforts to combat them.
(CNN) -- We've gone almost a year without hearing from Osama bin Laden.
So, where is he? Is he dead or alive? And, if alive, why can't anyone catch him?
These aren't exactly new questions, but they are certainly worth revisiting. It is now more than four years after 9/11. Four years after Tora Bora, the last place that the U.S. government can say with certainty where bin Laden was.
The last time we heard from bin Laden was late last December, in an audiotape praising Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and designating him as the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Bin Laden had actually been quite prolific in his messages in that period - there was a message earlier that month praising the terrorists who had recently attacked the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Most interestingly, a videotape appeared right before the 2004 U.S. presidential election on which we could actually see bin Laden.
Dead or alive?
But that was last year. It has been so long since a bin Laden message (and we always look in those messages for date markers - does he make reference to a specific event, such as the election, which would tell us he was alive at a certain date?) that I keep getting the same question: how do we know Osama bin Laden is still alive?
We don't have proof of life. Not since that last audiotape.
But the evidence suggests the world's most wanted man is not dead.
First, there is a statement from his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has appeared on videotapes. His frequent messages make it clear that al Qaeda's number two, at least, is alive and mocking the United States.
Al-Zawahiri's remarks come from a videotape that was done in September, though some parts just showed up on the Internet in the past week.
"Al Qaeda for holy war is still, thanks to God, a base for jihad. Its prince Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, still leads the jihad," al-Zawahiri said.
Then there are the recent remarks by CIA Director Porter Goss to ABC's "Good Morning America." He was asked why his agency couldn't find bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.
"They don't want us to find them and they're going to great lengths to make sure we don't find them. And I assure you we're applying a lot of efforts to find out where they are. And I don't want to get into the depth and the details, but we know a good deal more about bin Laden and Zarqawi and Zawahiri than we are able to say publicly," Goss said.
The commander of US forces in Afghanistan was even more explicit about bin Laden Thursday. "Our working assumption is that he is alive today," Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry told Pentagon reporters.
So where are the al Qaeda leaders? The best guess remains that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are hiding somewhere in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Will we ever know?
There were a number of conspiracy theories before the 2004 election that the United States had somehow captured bin Laden and was keeping him on ice until right before the election so President Bush could take political advantage.
If he died, everybody will know.
-- Jamal Khalifa, former close associate of Osama bin Laden
It was obvious nonsense, which bin Laden himself proved with his election eve video. If the United States knew bin Laden was dead, or had been captured, it would be hard to imagine such news remaining secret for long (think about Saddam Hussein's capture).
This paranoia plays on the notion that somehow we won't know. Nonsense, says bin Laden's brother-in-law.
"If he died, everybody will know," was the e-mail answer I got from Jamal Khalifa. He was perhaps bin Laden's closest friend for a decade before the two men parted ways in the late 1980s. Khalifa now lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where many of the bin Laden clan also reside, including bin Laden's mother.
"We don't have any news," he added, except for the video from Ayman al-Zawahiri.
When al-Zawahiri's wife and children were killed in Afghanistan by U.S. bombs, word made it back, apparently via jihadi circles, to Cairo, where his relatives live. Funeral notices appeared in at least one Cairo newspaper and the family observed a period of mourning.
Most of bin Laden's relatives have publicly disavowed him, but his mother has not. As a devout Muslim, she would likely observe the same sort of mourning period if somehow she got the news in some non-public fashion.
Which might be one way we find out.
The al-Zawahiri letter revisited
Ayman al-Zawahiri, from a videotape released in September.
On the subject of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the issue of that alleged letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi won't go away. (Read the letter in English or in Arabic.)
The United States government believes the letter - in which al-Zawahiri lays out a blueprint for jihad that works outward from Iraq, but also criticizes al-Zarqawi for beheadings - is real.
But Jordanian security sources -- who don't want to be identified -- told me recently they believe the letter is a forgery.
Paul Eedle, a London journalist who has studied al Qaeda's various messages for the last several years, has studied the Arabic version of the letter carefully and also has second thoughts about its validity.
He initially believed the letter was legitimate. Now, however, "I'm not convinced this is genuine. I think it could be a forgery by someone who is extremely fluent in Arabic but is not a native Arab educated to a high level in traditional Arabic literature and Muslim texts."
An interesting twist is that this may not matter. Mohanad Hage Ali of the London-based Arabic al-Hayat newspaper says that the jihadis he's spoken to believe the letter is real. They don't seem to have the same doubts.
Thursday, December 8, 2005; Posted: 12:39 p.m. EST (17:39 GMT)
Editor's Note: Henry Schuster, a senior producer in CNN's Investigative Unit and author of "Hunting Eric Rudolph," has been covering terrorism for more than a decade. Each week in "Tracking Terror," he reports on people and organizations driving international and domestic terrorism and efforts to combat them.
(CNN) -- We've gone almost a year without hearing from Osama bin Laden.
So, where is he? Is he dead or alive? And, if alive, why can't anyone catch him?
These aren't exactly new questions, but they are certainly worth revisiting. It is now more than four years after 9/11. Four years after Tora Bora, the last place that the U.S. government can say with certainty where bin Laden was.
The last time we heard from bin Laden was late last December, in an audiotape praising Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and designating him as the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Bin Laden had actually been quite prolific in his messages in that period - there was a message earlier that month praising the terrorists who had recently attacked the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Most interestingly, a videotape appeared right before the 2004 U.S. presidential election on which we could actually see bin Laden.
Dead or alive?
But that was last year. It has been so long since a bin Laden message (and we always look in those messages for date markers - does he make reference to a specific event, such as the election, which would tell us he was alive at a certain date?) that I keep getting the same question: how do we know Osama bin Laden is still alive?
We don't have proof of life. Not since that last audiotape.
But the evidence suggests the world's most wanted man is not dead.
First, there is a statement from his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has appeared on videotapes. His frequent messages make it clear that al Qaeda's number two, at least, is alive and mocking the United States.
Al-Zawahiri's remarks come from a videotape that was done in September, though some parts just showed up on the Internet in the past week.
"Al Qaeda for holy war is still, thanks to God, a base for jihad. Its prince Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, still leads the jihad," al-Zawahiri said.
Then there are the recent remarks by CIA Director Porter Goss to ABC's "Good Morning America." He was asked why his agency couldn't find bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.
"They don't want us to find them and they're going to great lengths to make sure we don't find them. And I assure you we're applying a lot of efforts to find out where they are. And I don't want to get into the depth and the details, but we know a good deal more about bin Laden and Zarqawi and Zawahiri than we are able to say publicly," Goss said.
The commander of US forces in Afghanistan was even more explicit about bin Laden Thursday. "Our working assumption is that he is alive today," Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry told Pentagon reporters.
So where are the al Qaeda leaders? The best guess remains that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are hiding somewhere in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Will we ever know?
There were a number of conspiracy theories before the 2004 election that the United States had somehow captured bin Laden and was keeping him on ice until right before the election so President Bush could take political advantage.
If he died, everybody will know.
-- Jamal Khalifa, former close associate of Osama bin Laden
It was obvious nonsense, which bin Laden himself proved with his election eve video. If the United States knew bin Laden was dead, or had been captured, it would be hard to imagine such news remaining secret for long (think about Saddam Hussein's capture).
This paranoia plays on the notion that somehow we won't know. Nonsense, says bin Laden's brother-in-law.
"If he died, everybody will know," was the e-mail answer I got from Jamal Khalifa. He was perhaps bin Laden's closest friend for a decade before the two men parted ways in the late 1980s. Khalifa now lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where many of the bin Laden clan also reside, including bin Laden's mother.
"We don't have any news," he added, except for the video from Ayman al-Zawahiri.
When al-Zawahiri's wife and children were killed in Afghanistan by U.S. bombs, word made it back, apparently via jihadi circles, to Cairo, where his relatives live. Funeral notices appeared in at least one Cairo newspaper and the family observed a period of mourning.
Most of bin Laden's relatives have publicly disavowed him, but his mother has not. As a devout Muslim, she would likely observe the same sort of mourning period if somehow she got the news in some non-public fashion.
Which might be one way we find out.
The al-Zawahiri letter revisited
Ayman al-Zawahiri, from a videotape released in September.
On the subject of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the issue of that alleged letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi won't go away. (Read the letter in English or in Arabic.)
The United States government believes the letter - in which al-Zawahiri lays out a blueprint for jihad that works outward from Iraq, but also criticizes al-Zarqawi for beheadings - is real.
But Jordanian security sources -- who don't want to be identified -- told me recently they believe the letter is a forgery.
Paul Eedle, a London journalist who has studied al Qaeda's various messages for the last several years, has studied the Arabic version of the letter carefully and also has second thoughts about its validity.
He initially believed the letter was legitimate. Now, however, "I'm not convinced this is genuine. I think it could be a forgery by someone who is extremely fluent in Arabic but is not a native Arab educated to a high level in traditional Arabic literature and Muslim texts."
An interesting twist is that this may not matter. Mohanad Hage Ali of the London-based Arabic al-Hayat newspaper says that the jihadis he's spoken to believe the letter is real. They don't seem to have the same doubts.
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