Archive
‘War on terror’ set to surpass cost of Second World War.
Thursday, 30th June 2011 By Rupert Cornwell in Washington Find Full Article Here:-
The total cost to America of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the related military operations in Pakistan, is set to exceed $4 trillion – more than three times the sum so far authorised by Congress in the decade since the 9/11 attacks.
Click HERE to view graphic (101 kb)
This staggering sum emerges from a new study by academics at the Ivy-league Brown University that reveals the $1.3 trillion officially appropriated on Capitol Hill is the tip of a spending iceberg. If other Pentagon outlays, interest payments on money borrowed to finance the wars, and the $400bn estimated to have been spent on the domestic “war on terror”, the total cost is already somewhere between $2.3 and $2.7 trillion.
And even though the wars are now winding down, add in future military spending and above all the cost of looking after veterans, disabled and otherwise and the total bill will be somewhere between $3.7 trillion and $4.4 trillion.
Steve Bell’s “IF” – ‘I cannot withdraw at this precise moment’
Steve Bell on the Greek austerity protests
- Steve Bell
- The Guardian, Thursday 30 June 2011
Monsanto trying to take over world seed supply, nation by nation.
Monday, June 27th, 2011 by: Kaitlyn Moore Full Article Here:-
He who controls the seed controls the food supply; and he who controls the food supply controls the world. There is no question that Monsanto is on a mission to monopolize the conventional seed market. In fact, they are steadfastly working towards the goal of creating a world where 100% of all commercial seeds are genetically modified and patented- basically a world where natural seeds are extinct.(http://www.naturalnews.com/029325_M…)
Unfortunately for the global community Monsanto is accomplishing their purpose. They currently own 90% of the world’s patents for GMO seed including cotton, soybeans, corn, sugar beets and canola. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environme…)
Yep, the creators of chemicals that will go down in history for their toxicity and horrific side effects, is attempting to take over the world’s seed supply. Ask yourself- do you really want companies such as BASF, Bayer, DuPont, Syngenta, and Dow involved with your food? Sadly, to a large extent they already are. These Monsanto chemical and GMO cronies all share genetically engineered traits and create the patented herbicides and pesticides that GMO crops require to thrive.
Monsanto is infamous for taking advantage of small farmers, and with the advent of MoU’s they are doing so with governmental license. Countries like India, Pakistan, Australia, and New Zealand have all executed MoU’s with Monsanto. MoU’s or memorandum’s of understanding permit Monsanto to use publicly owned lands to create so called demonstration farms (GMO breeding camps) which in turn -at least in the case of Rajasthan – are subsidized by the government.
Monsanto literally takes farmer seeds, creates genetically engineered copycat versions, and then retains all intellectual property rights. Dr. Vandana Shiva, Executive Director of the Navdanya Trust, an Indian organization committed to organic biodiversity, states that “the MoU’s will in effect, facilitate bio-piracy of Rajasthan’s rich biodiversity of draught -resilient crops …. by failing to have any clauses that respect the Biodiversity Act and the Farmers’ Rights Act, the MoU’s promote bio-piracy and legalize the great seed robbery.” (http://www.deccanchronicle.com/edit…).
It is common knowledge that GMO seeds are much worse than conventional ones. As with all of their agreements, Monsanto shields itself from any liability- so when the Monsanto’s promises of higher yields with less work ring hollow, when farmers crops fail, or when mass suicides are committed because of crop failure and spirit crushing debt- Monsanto presses on with no worries. (http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/03/0…)
Cinnamon may help prevent Alzheimer’s.
June 27th, 2011 Find Article Here:-
An extract found in cinnamon bark, called CEppt, may be key to Alzheimer’s disease prevention, researchers at Tel Aviv University suggest.
Michael Ovadia says he was inspired to investigate the healing properties of cinnamon by a passage in the Bible. High priests used the spice in a holy ointment, presumably meant to protect them from infectious diseases and after discovering cinnamon extract had anti-viral properties.
Ovadia, Aviad Levin and colleagues isolated CEppt by grinding cinnamon and extracting the substance into an aqueous buffer solution. They fed the solution to genetically engineered mice and fruit flies.
The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found that after four months, the researchers determined the development of Alzheimer’s disease slowed remarkably and the animals’ activity levels and longevity were comparable to that of their healthy counterparts.
However, Ovadia advises not to rush to the kitchen cabinet for cinnamon, because it would take far more than a toxic level of the spice — more than 10 grams of raw cinnamon a day — to reap the therapeutic benefits.
“The medical catch-22 would be to extract the active substance from cinnamon, separating it from the toxic elements,” Ovadia says. “The discovery is extremely exciting. While there are companies developing synthetic Alzheimer’s disease inhibiting substances, our extract would not be a drug with side effects, but a safe, natural substance that human beings have been consuming for millennia.”
New Car Engine Sends Shock Waves Through Auto Industry.
by Nic Halverson Wednesday April 6th, 2011 Find Full Article and Video Here:-
Despite shifting into higher gear within the consumer’s green conscience, hybrid vehicles are still tethered to the gas pump via a fuel-thirsty 100-year-old invention: the internal combustion engine.
However, researchers at Michigan State University have built a prototype gasoline engine that requires no transmission, crankshaft, pistons, valves, fuel compression, cooling systems or fluids. Their so-called Wave Disk Generator could greatly improve the efficiency of gas-electric hybrid automobiles and potentially decrease auto emissions up to 90 percent when compared with conventional combustion engines.
The engine has a rotor that’s equipped with wave-like channels that trap and mix oxygen and fuel as the rotor spins. These central inlets are blocked off, building pressure within the chamber, causing a shock wave that ignites the compressed air and fuel to transmit energy.
The Wave Disk Generator uses 60 percent of its fuel for propulsion; standard car engines use just 15 percent. As a result, the generator is 3.5 times more fuel efficient than typical combustion engines.
Researchers estimate the new model could shave almost 1,000 pounds off a car’s weight currently taken up by conventional engine systems.
Last week, the prototype was presented to the energy division of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is backing the Michigan State University Engine Research Laboratory with $2.5 million in funding.
Michigan State’s team of engineers hope to have a car-sized 25-kilowatt version of the prototype ready by the end of the year.
Iceland Declares Independence from International Banks.
By Bill Wilson Wednesday June 29th 2011 Full Article Here:-
Iceland is free. And it will remain so, so long as her people wish to remain autonomous of the foreign domination of her would-be masters — in this case, international bankers.
On April 9, the fiercely independent people of island-nation defeated a referendum that would have bailed out the UK and the Netherlands who had covered the deposits of British and Dutch investors who had lost funds in Icesave bank in 2008.
At the time of the bank’s failure, Iceland refused to cover the losses. But the UK and Netherlands nonetheless have demanded that Iceland repay them for the “loan” as a condition for admission into the European Union.
In response, the Icelandic people have told Europe to go pound sand. The final vote was 103,207 to 69,462, or 58.9 percent to 39.7 percent. “Taxpayers should not be responsible for paying the debts of a private institution,” said Sigriur Andersen, a spokeswoman for the Advice group that opposed the bailout.
A similar referendum in 2009 on the issue, although with harsher terms, found 93.2 percent of the Icelandic electorate rejecting a proposal to guarantee the deposits of foreign investors who had funds in the Icelandic bank. The referendum was invoked when President Olafur Ragnur Grimmson vetoed legislation the Althingi, Iceland’s parliament, had passed to pay back the British and Dutch.
Under the terms of the agreement, Iceland would have had to pay £2.35 billion to the UK, and €1.32 billion to the Netherlands by 2046 at a 3 percent interest rate. Its rejection for the second time by Iceland is a testament to its people, who feel they should bear no responsibility for the losses of foreigners endured in the financial crisis.
That opposition to bailouts led to Iceland’s decision to allow the bank to fail in 2008. Not that the taxpayers there could have afforded to. As noted by Bloomberg News, at the time the crisis hit in 2008, “the banks had debts equal to 10 times Iceland’s $12 billion GDP.”
Cancer Surges In Body Scanner Operators; TSA Launches Cover-Up .
FOIA documents reveal how “large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease”
Paul Joseph Watson Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 Find Full Article and Video Here:-
Fearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, the TSA has been caught covering up a surge in cases of TSA workers developing cancer as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the latest FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.
The documents indicate how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”
“The Department, rather than acting on it, or explaining its position seems to have just dismissed. I don’t think that’s the way most other agencies would have acted in a similar situation if they were confronted with that question,” EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg said.
In an email sent to Heather Callahan (PDF), deputy federal security director at Boston Logan International Airport, union representatives express their concern about “TSA Boston’s growing number of TSOs working here that have thus far been diagnosed with cancer.”
Of course, if TSA workers who are merely standing near the scanners are already developing cancer, frequent flyers are also putting themselves in harm’s way by standing directly inside the radiation-firing machines.
US ‘could withdraw funding from UN if Palestine state is recognised’.
The US could withdraw funding from the United Nations if its members decide to recognise and independent Palestinian state, a close ally of President Barack Obama has warned.
By Jon Swaine, New York and Adrian Blomfield 24th June 2011 Find Full Article Here:-
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian authority, plans to ask the UN general assembly, which comprises all 192 members, to vote on recognition at its annual meeting in New York in September.
The US and Israel are pressing Mr Abbas to drop his plans. Mr Obama has strongly opposed the move, raising the prospect of a veto in the UN Security Council, which is expected to vote on a Palestinian statehood proposal in July.
But Palestinian officials have spoken of their determination to a circumvent a US veto by deploying a rarely used Cold War mechanism known as “Uniting for Peace” under which a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly can override the Security Council.
Although Palestinians believe they are close to securing such a majority, the General Assembly does not have the power to confer UN membership on a new Palestinian state, meaning that a successful vote would represent little more than a symbolic triumph.
Family Guy – Visiting Ground Zero
Peter gets a lesson from Brian about ground zero.
The Truth is Where? 