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“In the long and gloomy history of man, more hideous crimes have been committed
 in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion."
  - C.P. Snow, English physicist and novelist. 

MSM: "Uganda Bill Punishes Homosexuality With Life In Prison" [02/08/12] "A Ugandan member of parliament has reintroduced a bill that increases criminal penalties for some homosexual acts, but dropped a provision that allows homosexuals to be executed by the state. Parliamentarian David Bahati on Tuesday reintroduced the so-called “kill the gays” bill that he had first introduced in 2009. It was later shelved in 2011 after an international outcry. Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, but under the original bill, some homosexual acts would have been punishable by death. The latest iteration of the bill increases current punishments for certain acts to life in prison. [...]"  Note: Astounding, isn't it? Related:Documentary: "Uganda: The World’s Worst Place to Be Gay" [12/15/11]   [15:01]   Part 2 [14:20]| Part 3 [15:26]| Part 4 [14:03] "Scott Mills travels to Uganda where the death penalty could soon be introduced for being gay. The gay Radio 1 DJ finds out what it’s like to live in a society which persecutes people like him and meets those who are leading the hate campaign. [...]"  

MSM: "Greece Axing 15K Public Jobs" [02/08/12] "As politicians in the US debate the merits of smaller government, Greece's creditors are forcing it to shrink its public sector. Greece has agreed to cut 15,000 government jobs by the end of this year, and 150,000—a fifth of the total—by the end of 2015. Greece's constitution protects public sector workers from being fired, so the cuts will have to come from forced retirements, and from the shrinking or even elimination of some public sector entities, the New York Times notes.  [...]"  

Commentary: "Prop 8, California's Same-Sex Marriage Ban, Declared Unconstitutional " [02/08/12] "Same-sex marriage moved one step closer to the Supreme Court on Tuesday when a federal appeals court ruled California's ban unconstitutional, saying it serves no purpose other than to "lessen the status and human dignity" of gays. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave opponents of gay marriage time to appeal the 2-1 decision before ordering the state to allow same-sex weddings to resume. [...]"  

Commentary:  "The Economics of Incarceration" [02/07/12] "For anyone paying attention, there is no shortage of issues that fundamentally challenge the underpinning moral infrastructure of American society and the values it claims to uphold. Under the conceptual illusion of liberty, few things are more sobering than the amount of Americans who will spend the rest of their lives in an isolated correctional facility – ostensibly, being corrected. The United States of America has long held the highest incarceration rate in the world, far surpassing any other nation. For every 100,000 Americans, 743 citizens sit behind bars. Presently, the prison population in America consists of more than six million people, a number exceeding the amount of prisoners held in the gulags of the former Soviet Union at any point in its history. While miserable statistics illustrate some measure of the ongoing ethical calamity occurring in the detainment centers inside the land of the free, only a partial picture of the broader situation is painted. While the country faces an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, business is booming in other fields – namely, the private prison industry. Like any other business, these institutions are run for the purpose of turning a profit. State and federal prisons are contracted out to private companies who are paid a fixed amount to house each prisoner per day. Their profits result from spending the minimum amount of state or federal funds on each inmate, only to pocket the remaining capital. For the corrections conglomerates of America, prosperity depends on housing the maximum numbers of inmates for the longest potential time - as inexpensively as possible.  [...]"  Related: Flashback: "Study: 7.3 Million In U.S. Prison System In '07" [03/02/09] "A record number of Americans served time in corrections systems across the country in 2007, according to a report released Monday by the Pew Center on the States. The U.S. correctional population -- those in jail, prison, on probation or on parole -- totaled 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 adults. The Pew Center on the States compiled the information from Justice Department and Census Bureau statistics. America's prison population has skyrocketed over the past quarter century. In 1982, 1 in 77 adults were in the correctional system in one form or another, totaling 2.2 million people. The United States has 5 percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the world's prison inmates, the center said. [...]"  

MSM: "FBI Enlists Internet Café Owners To Spy On Customers" [02/07/12] "The US government has developed massive surveillance capabilities to monitor communications, travel and financial transactions in this country and abroad. But, even the government cannot monitor everything Americans do—not directly, anyway. Thus, it created the Communities Against Terrorism (CAT) program to enlist your friendly local businesses as spies for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). [...] The government’s flyer designates people as suspicious if they “always pay cash” at an internet café. That’s a jaw-dropping assumption considering that we’re talking about businesses that sell $2 cups of joe, not $600 airline tickets. Good luck paying with a credit card for a purchase under $10. [...]" 

MSM: "New Wave Of Job Losses In Australia" [02/07/12] "Backed by the Gillard government, the corporate elite is using the economic crisis to carry through wholesale cost-cutting to match the austerity measures being imposed on workers internationally. [...]"  

Commentary: "US Unemployment Rate At A Staggering 22.5%" [02/07/12] "John Williams, of Shadowstats, notes that manipulated government statistics are not changing the fact that the true SGS Unemployment Measure now sits at a staggering 22.5%. Williams can only use comparisons from the Great Depression to put things into proper perspective. Here is what Williams had to say: “The Economy Still Is Not Recovering. Even after the 2011 upside benchmark revisions, the January 2012 payroll employment level remains below the level that preceded the 2001 recession, more than a decade ago.” An unemployment rate above 22% might raise questions in terms of a comparison with the purported peak unemployment in the Great Depression (1933) of 25%. The SGS level likely is about as bad as the peak unemployment seen in the 1973 to 1975 recession. The Great Depression unemployment rate was estimated well after the fact, with 27% of those employed working on farms. Today, less that 2% work on farms. Accordingly, for purposes of Great Depression comparison, I would look at the estimated peak nonfarm unemployment rate in 1933 of 34% to 35%.” [...]"  

Commentary:  "The Surprising Appeal Of Living Alone" [02/06/12] "More people live alone than at any point in human history. But why? Today, a surprisingly high number of people are choosing to go solo because it facilitates the pursuit of good things that are otherwise hard to come by: Control of one's own time and space. Freedom to do what one wants, when one wants to do it. Privacy. Anonymity. Autonomy. And, paradoxically, the chance to reconnect with others. Living alone was once most prevalent in rural areas that attracted migrant workers. Today it's largely an urban phenomenon, because cities make living alone a profoundly social experience. Although many people assume that living alone is an American phenomenon (well, at least I once did), by international standards the United States is a laggard. Going solo is most common in Europe, particularly in the Scandinavian countries that have a robust market and strong welfare states. In recent years it has grown most quickly in countries with booming economies: China, India, and Brazil. I've been studying the rise of solo living for nearly a decade. With the help of a small research team, I interviewed more than 300 people who live alone and analyzed the emerging literature on the social lives of singles. My book, "Going Solo," recounts what I learned, and offers the first comprehensive assessment of this incredible social change. Here are some of the ways that people I interviewed explain the benefits of living alone: [...]"  

Commentary:  "Slab City: Living Off the Grid in California’s Badlands" [02/06/12]   [0:00] "Chicago” Joe Angio and his wife Anna did everything by the book to secure their slice of the American Dream. They earned college degrees, started a small business, bought a house and pair of cars, paid their taxes and credit-card bills on time. But when the economy tanked, so did the dream. Between two jobs they could barely pay their mortgage, reaching a point where they had to choose which creditor to shortchange at the end of the month in order to keep the lights on. With foreclosure no longer a matter of if, but of when, the couple looked on the Internet for the ideal place to lay low, spend less and experiment with solar power to “get more for our buck out of our environment.” They bought a used RV and went off the grid. Way off. Slab City, their home for the past three months, is a squatters’ camp deep in the badlands of California’s poorest county, where the road ends and the sun reigns, about 190 miles southeast of Los Angeles and hour’s drive from the Mexican border. The vast state-owned property gets its name from the concrete slabs spread out across the desert floor, the last remnants of a World War II–era military base. In the decades since it was decommissioned, dropouts and fugitives of all stripes have swelled its winter population to close to a thousand, though no one’s really counting. These days, their numbers are growing thanks to a modest influx of recession refugees like the Angios, attracted by do-it-yourself, rent-free living beyond the reach of electricity, running water and the law. And while the complexion of the Slabs, as the place is locally known, may be changing in some ways, the same old rule applies: respect your neighbor, or stay the hell away. [...]" Related: "New Mexico: Desert Autonomous Zone" | "Off The Grid: Life on the Mesa"

Concepts and Practices: " Imams Issue Fatwa Against Honour Killings, Domestic Violence" [02/06/12] "Ontario, Canada. Controversy surrounding the Shafia murder trial prompted imams from across Canada and the U.S. to issue a moral ruling Saturday officially condemning honour killings, domestic violence and misogyny as "un-Islamic." Thirty-four imams belonging to the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, including a handful of American members, signed the fatwa in an effort to counter misinterpretations of the Qur'an, they said. While it has no legal teeth, the fatwa is "morally binding" for all Muslims, said Syed Soharwardy, a Calgary-based imam who founded the council. The ruling comes after a verdict was delivered last weekend in the Shafia murder trial, in which a Montreal couple and their son were convicted of killing four female relatives. The Crown alleged three teenage Shafia sisters and their father's first wife in a polygamous marriage were killed in an effort to restore the family's honour. The trial captured worldwide attention and cast a shadow over Canada's Islamic community, prompting many religious and community leaders to speak out against domestic violence. [...]" 

MSM: "Scotland: ‘Anti-Social Tenant’ Moves Planned" [02/05/12] "The process of evicting anti-social tenants could be simplified under plans being put forward by the Scottish government. The proposal is among radical changes suggested in a consultation on how 600,000 houses in the social rented sector are allocated and managed. The consultation will ask whether the eviction process should be simplified for the worst offenders.  [...] Under the plans, social landlords could be given greater flexibility over housing allocations, and be allowed to take into account any previous history of anti-social behaviour which may affect the decision on who gets housing. "Feedback suggests that even low-level, persistent anti-social behaviour can harm communities. "The measures we are consulting on will also help good tenants who currently feel powerless to deal with bad neighbours, who make their lives a living hell." 

MSM: "Florida Republican Stripped Of Senate Chairmanship For Opposing Prison Privatization Scheme" [02/05/12] "The biggest critic of a massive prison privatization scheme in Florida was stripped of his chairmanship of the Budget Subcommittee on Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriation for opposing Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) plan to outsource prison oversight to the lowest bidder. Sen. Mike Fasano (R) is one of ten Senate Republicans who opposes the plan to give private, for-profit vendors control over 26 prisons, but his vocal criticism provoked retribution from one of the bill’s biggest supporters, Senate President Mike Haridopolos (R): Amid the mounting tension, Senate President Mike Haridopolos refused to bring up the bill for debate, a sign that it faced defeat. Ten of 28 Senate Republicans have voiced strong reservations or opposition to such a major policy shift, a serious rift in the GOP caucus. The drama intensified as Haridopolos stripped Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, of his chairmanship of a budget subcommittee overseeing prisons, saying Fasano “was not rowing in the same direction” as Senate leaders on budget decisions. “It’s become clear to me that Sen. Fasano was not willing to make these choices,” Haridopolos said. Fasano said Haridopolos told him he was being punished for his anti-privatization comments in an MSNBC interview Monday. [...]" Related: See below.

MSM: "The Cynical World Of America's Private Prisons" [02/04/12] "In 2010, two of the largest private prison companies in America, GEO Group, Inc and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) generated over $4bn dollars in profit between them. Their respective CEOs, George Zoley and Damon Hininger, each earned well in excess of $3m in 2010. Although there have been some concerns that any relaxation of sentencing or drug laws might negatively impact their bottom line (profit), they remain confident in their ability to drum up new ways of generating their taxpayer-funded commodities (also known as inmates): lobbying California for their excess prisoners being one; caging juveniles on trivial charges another. But the favorite, by a long shot, is the accelerated drive to lock up America's immigrants. So far, these strategies seem to be working nicely. ... In a sane society, the purpose of a prison should be to keep the public safe. The goal should not be to encourage criminal behavior or to find new ways to incriminate people, so that certain private individuals can line their pockets. It's an added kick in the face that these corporations which profit from human misery are doing so at the taxpayers' expense and to the detriment of public safety. But until the public cries foul, there will be no stopping them.[...] "  Related: "U.S. Prison Business: Privatize Profits, Socialize Losses" "Well, it's nice work if you can get it. Florida is set to privatize all of its prisons south of Orlando -- 20% of its total -- according to a report issued by Chris Kirkham for Huffington Post. The for-profit prison scheme is a case study in crony capitalism, as it involves private prison corporations donating to the politicians best in position to grant them lucrative contracts. The U.S. prison population continues to explode, as America plunges headlong into becoming a bona fide police state. The federal policies of criminalizing just about everything, offer a built-in growth sector for any corporation that can capture it. No wonder, then, that companies like GE have gotten in on the action, while the nation's largest private contractors, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO (formerly Wackenhut), have combined revenues well into the billion of dollars per year. And they are international in scope. (Source) [...]" | "US Judges Tragic Kickback Greed Exposes Prison System Profiteering"   [4:19] "With well over 2 million people in jail - the U.S. has the world's biggest prison population. But some are seeing the inside of a cell because dodgy judges are getting payback from the private sector. RT's Gayane Chichakyan reports on those dishing out justice for a fee. [...]" | MSM: Feds Steal Children from Illegal Aliens" "The scars of childbirth were still healing on Amelia Reyes Jimenez’s stomach in 2008 when police came to her Phoenix apartment and took her three-month-old daughter from her arms. Three and a half years later, Reyes Jimenez and her four children have become statistics in the U.S. crackdown on illegal immigration. Each year thousands of children of undocumented immigrants, like Amelia’s kids, wind up in foster care when their parents are arrested for immigration violations. Some are even adopted by U.S. citizens while their parents are held in federal detention centers or deported back to their native countries. A new study by the human rights group Applied Research Center estimates that as of summer 2011 there were at least 5,100 children of detained immigrants in foster care in 22 states.[...]" 

Commentary: "Expendable: Sacrificing Humanity For Corruption In Australia" Updated With Video [02/04/12] "A unique and extraordinary film has been released this week, free of charge, on the internet, via simultaneous upload to networks in territories as diverse as Russia, India, the United States, Japan, China, Vietnam, France, South Africa, and Germany. It is a film, however, which will certainly have long term implications for the state of Australia. 'Expendable', produced under conditions of strict secrecy in the US, demonstrates a lengthy series of corrupt and criminal acts by Australian politicians, sanctioned collectively by an Australian government. These involve not only activities at ministerial level, but central roles for Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers, and a number of prominent corporations. Demonstrate is the operative word, because these are not allegations. Every abuse of power covered in the film is supported by documented proof, usually in the form of cables and correspondence between government ministers. These were pre-published on the Expendable website for public scrutiny. Further, collectively, the movie and supporting dossiers are currently being collated for submission to the United Nations, and the International Criminal Court in The Hague. [...]"  

MSM: "U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built By Chinese Firms" [02/04/12] [2:55] "Cities hire Chinese instead of American workers for building projects.  [...]" 

Commentary:  "USA: Over 1 Million Jobs Were Actually Lost In January, Contrary to Gov't (and Media) Claim of 243,000 Gained" [02/04/12] "While everyone is popping the champagne corks over the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that 243,000 jobs were created in January, the facts are slightly different. The seasonal adjustment fudge that the Gummit adds to the mix grossly overstated what the actual survey data showed. Here’s a picture. The red line is the actual survey numbers. The blue line is the fake seasonally adjusted number. The headline, fake, number was up by 243,000, purportedly the biggest increase since 2006. But what’s this? The actual survey number showed a decrease of 1.1 million jobs. In the world of seasonally adjusted government data, down can be up. [...]"  

MSM: "US Service Industry Growth Surges In January" [02/04/12] "U.S. service companies grew at the fastest pace in 11 months in January as companies started hiring to keep up with rising demand. The Institute for Supply Management said Friday that its index of non-manufacturing activity jumped to 56.8 percent in January from 53 percent in December. The survey's employment index soared to its highest level since February 2006. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion. The trade group of purchasing managers surveys businesses including restaurants, hotels, retailers, financial services firms and construction companies. The service sector has been growing for two straight years. But hiring had stagnated, with the employment index falling below 50 in two of the past four months. Companies overcame their reluctance to hire in January, pushing the employment index up to 57.4 percent from 49.8 percent. [...]"  Note: Without production related companies, creating jobs for the population, there will be no funds to spend on services, at some point, and all will collapse, because the US was changed from a manufacturing and production based economy to a financial services economy, and the let the infrastructure go, deliberately, to suit their master plans, which contained the seeds of its own destruction ... these people, those who think they're 'in control', are conceptually hobbled reincarnated retreads.

MSM: "Canada’s Jobless Rate Rises To Nine-Month High" [02/04/12] "Canada’s unemployment rate rose to a nine-month high in January as the trend of sluggish job creation that began in the second half of last year continued. The jobless rate rose to 7.6 percent from 7.5 percent as employment increased 2,300 last month, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had forecast unemployment to stay at 7.5 percent and 22,000 jobs to be added. Consumers will account for more than half of Canada’s 2 percent economic growth this year, according to the Bank of Canada, as weak global demand and a high dollar curb exports. Most of the past year’s job growth came in the first six months of that period, Statistics Canada said, which suggests consumer spending growth may be restrained. “It will weigh against a Bank of Canada rate increase anytime soon, and suggests the Canadian consumer could continue to pull back, not just in the face of elevated debts but also because of weaker job growth,” said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.  [...]"  

MSM: "Meeting The 'New Homeless' On Greece's Freezing Streets" [02/04/12] [2:12] "In the heart of central Athens, a stone's throw from the city's glorious ancient sites, another face of today's Greece is on show. Hundreds weave their way around the small, bare courtyard of the municipal soup kitchen, queuing patiently. Visitors have gone up by a quarter in the past few months as homelessness here reaches new heights. "This centre was founded years ago to face the problems that exist in every big city - people addicted to drugs, alcohol and so on," says Dimitra Nousi, the director of the project. "But suddenly it became somewhere that has to face the poverty of the crisis. "It's a completely different phenomenon - we're still shocked about it." Homelessness has soared by an estimated 25% since 2009 as Greece spirals further into its worst post-war economic crisis. The country is now in its fifth straight year of recession and the official unemployment rate is nudging 20%, exacerbated by the austerity measures being pushed through in return for more bail-out money.  Greeks now speak of another section of society: the "new homeless". "They don't have the 'traditional profile' of homeless people," says Ms Nousi. "They are well dressed and well educated. Until last year they had a good flat or a nice car - and now they have nothing. "So it's another kind of misery - another kind of poverty. We were not prepared for this poverty, but it exists." [...]" 

MSM: "Homeownership Rates Fall To 66% As Downturn Nears A Bottom" [02/03/12] "The U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday that the nation's homeownership rate fell to 66% in the fourth quarter, continuing a seven-year drop from a fourth-quarter peak of 69.2% in 2004. Falling homeownership — and prices — reflect the worst housing downturn since the Great Depression. And while there are signs that the housing industry's downturn may at least be nearing a bottom, the impact of the collapse will be evident for years to come, economists say. [...]"  

MSM: "Ten Cities Crushed by the Global Recession" [02/01/12] "The global recession officially ended in 2010. Since then many countries have begun experiencing economic growth again. However, North American and Western European nations are recovering at a much slower pace than the rest of the world. In fact, the slowest-growing metropolitan areas are located in the United States, Western Europe and earthquake-damaged Japan, according to Brookings Institute’s Global Metro Monitor 2011. 24/7 Wall St. has examined the Brookings report to identify the world’s largest cities that just cannot seem to recover. Brookings Institute’s Global Metro Monitor 2011 rated the recovery of the 200 largest metropolitan regions in the world. The rankings are based on a combination of the change in income and employment in each city between 2010 and 2011. According to the report, the fastest-growing cities are located outside North America and Western Europe, while all the slowest-growing ones are within those continents. [...]"  

MSM: "North Korea Warns Its Citizens, Cell Phone Users Will Be Treated As ‘War Criminals’" [02/01/12] "North Korea has warned its citizens against use of cell phones inside the country, saying anyone caught talking on mobiles would be branded as “war criminals” and punished accordingly, a media report said. North Korea has long relied on a total restriction of information to maintain control over its isolated citizenry, and in this crucial time of transition between late Kim Jong Il and his successor, Kim Jong Un, the state is clamping down on anyone using mobile phones, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported.  [...]" 

MSM: "Violent Turf War Over Ontario's Donated Clothing Bins" [02/01/12]   "The business of collecting donated clothes, selling them in local thrift stores and shipping them overseas has become so lucrative it has created a cut-throat turf war in Ontario. [...]"

MSM: "20 Signs That Europe Is Plunging Into A Full-Blown Economic Depression" [02/01/12]   "An economic nightmare is descending on Europe. With each passing month, the economic numbers across Europe get even worse. At this point it is becoming extremely difficult for anyone to deny that Europe is plunging into a full-blown economic depression. In fact, some parts of Europe are already there. The frightening thing is that we are just at the beginning of the process for most European nations. If you want to see where nations such as Portugal, Italy and Spain are headed, just take a look at Greece. Greece has been going down this road for several years, and there is still no light at the end of the tunnel for them. [...]" 

MSM: "Eurozone Unemployment: Region's Jobless Rate Highest Since Euro Launched, Spain At 22.9%" [02/01/12] "Unemployment across the 17 countries that use the euro ended 2011 at a record high of one person in every 10, official figures showed Tuesday, a day after EU leaders acknowledged that they would have to boost economic growth with the same urgency that they had shown in combating their nations' debts. Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said the 10.4 per cent unemployment rate in December was unchanged at its highest level since the euro was launched in 1999, as November's was revised upward from a previous estimate of 10.3 per cent. Unemployment has been steadily rising over the past year — in December 2010, it stood at 9.5 per cent — largely because of Europe's debt crisis. [...]" 

MSM: "Japan Faces Crisis As Population Set To Shrink By One-Third" [02/01/12] "Japan's rapid aging means the national population of 128 million will shrink by one-third by 2060 and seniors will account for 40 per cent of people, placing a greater burden on the shrinking work force population to support the social security and tax systems. The population estimate released Monday by the Health and Welfare Ministry paints a grim future. In year 2060, Japan will have 87 million people. The number of people 65 or older will nearly double to 40 per cent, while the national work force of people between ages 15 and 65 will shrink to about half of the total population, according to the estimate, made by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. [...]"  

MSM: "Soaring Beef Prices Force Shoppers To Find Other Foods" [02/01/12] "Beef prices soared more than 10 percent last year according to the Department of Agriculture, and they will likely go up at least another 5 percent this year. “It bumps up a bit, comes down a tiny bit, then it bounces again, and when it bounces, it goes up another dime, 15, 20 cents,” said Crimi, “and sometimes that’s in a week.” A drought across Texas and Oklahoma has made food and water scarce for cattle, which has kept herds small. The Department of Agriculture says there are 91 million cattle nationally, the smallest herd since 1952. Add to that the rising cost of feed and rising beef exports, and the price of beef in the states is surging. [...]"  

MSM: "State Controller: California Is Running Out Of Cash" [02/01/12] "California will run out of cash by early March if the Legislature does not take immediate action, Controller John Chiang told budget leaders at the Capitol in a letter Tuesday. [...]"  Note: It should be interesting to watch ... a trend for other states in the near future.

MSM: "Blockbuster Deals Shake Up Canada's Drug Store Industry" [02/01/12] "Two major U.S. companies are looking to establish a substantial presence in Canada's drug store market. California-based health-care giant McKesson Corp. announced late Monday that it will pay $920 million to buy a big chunk of a retail network belonging to Edmonton pharmacy operator Katz Group of Canada. And discount retailer Target said earlier Monday it plans to have pharmacies in its Canadian stores operated by independent pharmacists under a franchise model when it opens its doors next year in former Zellers locations. In the bigger of the two developments, McKesson will gain control of 850 stores across Canada that operate mainly under the I.D.A. and Guardian brands. It's also buying Katz's franchise business, which provides services to 160 Medicine Shoppe outlets across the country. [...]"  

MSM: "Crédit Municipal de Paris, Cancels The Debts Of Its Poorest Customers" [02/01/12] "A 375-year-old French bank has decided to forgive the debts of its poorest customers, Good.is reports. The Crédit Municipal de Paris, a Parisian institution that offers small, low-interest loans against inexpensive valuables, has announced a one-time cancelation of the debts of some 3,500 customers who owed the bank 150 euros (about $190) or less. The announcement marks the bank's 375th anniversary. A PR stunt? Maybe. But that isn't stopping thousands of customers from celebrating an unexpected windfall. "It was nice, I have recovered it all," Lina, a young mother, told Europe1. In May, Lina had borrowed 120 euros by pawning her jewelry.  [...]" 

MSM: "Greek Court Writes Off Employed Bank Customer's Debt" [02/01/12] "Think filing for bankruptcy is the only way to get debt discharge? Think again, at least in Greece. While previously we have reported that Greek courts had written off "untenable" debts of unemployed Greeks owed to local banks, Kathimerini describes a landmark case which may have profound implications for the indebted country, in which a fully employed woman has had the bulk of her debt written off. From Kathimerini: "In what could turn out to be a significant ruling for Greeks suffering from the economic crisis, a court in Hania, Crete, has become the first in the country to order that the majority of the debt owed to banks by someone still in full employment be wiped out... [...]"  

MSM: "World Lacks Enough Food, Fuel As Population Soars: U.N." [01/31/12] "The world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and to avoid sending up to 3 billion people into poverty, a U.N. report warned on Monday. As the world's population looks set to grow to nearly 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially. Even by 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water, according to U.N. estimates, at a time when a changing environment is creating new limits to supply. And if the world fails to tackle these problems, it risks condemning up to 3 billion people into poverty, the report said.  [...]"  

Concepts and Practices: "Welfare Drug Testing Bill Withdrawn After Amended To Include Testing Lawmakers " [01/30/12] "A Republican member of the Indiana General Assembly withdrew his bill to create a pilot program for drug testing welfare applicants Friday after one of his Democratic colleagues amended the measure to require drug testing for lawmakers. "There was an amendment offered today that required drug testing for legislators as well and it passed, which led me to have to then withdraw the bill," said Rep. Jud McMillin (R-Brookville), sponsor of the original welfare drug testing bill. The Supreme Court ruled drug testing for political candidates unconstitutional in 1997, striking down a Georgia law. McMillin said he withdrew his bill so he could reintroduce it on Monday with a lawmaker drug testing provision that would pass constitutional muster. "I've only withdrawn it temporarily," he told HuffPost, stressing he carefully crafted his original bill so that it could survive a legal challenge. Last year a federal judge, citing the Constitution's ban on unreasonable search and seizure, struck down a Florida law that required blanket drug testing of everyone who applied for welfare. McMillin's bill would overcome constitutional problems, he said, by setting up a tiered screening scheme in which people can opt-out of random testing. Those who decline random tests would only be screened if they arouse "reasonable suspicion," either by their demeanor, by being convicted of a crime, or by missing appointments required by the welfare office. In the past year Republican lawmakers have pursued welfare drug testing in more than 30 states and in Congress, and some bills have even targeted people who claim unemployment insurance and food stamps, despite scanty evidence the poor and jobless are disproportionately on drugs. Democrats in several states have countered with bills to require drug testing elected officials. Indiana state Rep. Ryan Dvorak (D-South Bend) introduced just such an amendment on Friday. "After it passed, Rep. McMillin got pretty upset and pulled his bill," Dvorak said. "If anything, I think it points out some of the hypocrisy. ... If we're going to impose standards on drug testing, then it should apply to everybody who receives government money." Dvorak said McMillin was mistaken to think testing the legislature would be unconstitutional, since the stricken Georgia law targeted candidates and not people already holding office.  [...]"  

Concepts and Practices: "Man Arrested For 'Being Atheist' In Indonesia" [01/30/12] "As the international community sharpens its focus on Burma and its "opening-up" amid the ongoing release of political prisoners, its near neighbors appear to be heading in another direction. Among them is Indonesia, which has enhanced its reputation over recent years through its improved handling of human rights, but has raised more than eyebrows when police arrested a 31-year-old atheist for blasphemy. [...] This was according to an interpretation by police and irritated district officials that Alexander Aan had committed blasphemy for writing "God does not exist..." on the social networking website, Facebook. The charge also had much to do with mob rule. Local Muslims in the West Sumatra district where Aan lived were typically outraged, and attacked him for his comment while he was going to work. Their anger led to the arrest, with police saying the comment had implied God doesn't exist and that this violated Indonesian laws and highlighted the fact that Aan is indeed an atheist. Apparently Aan, employed as a civil servant, also wrote: "If God exists then why do bad things happen?" And: "There should only be good things if God is merciful." Atheism is also illegal in Indonesia and Aan is looking at a five-year sentence for stating a personal opinion. According to one report, his sins were made all the worse because he had once listed on a job application form that he was a Muslim. [...]"  

MSM: "CIA To Pull Officer From NYPD After Internal Probe" [01/29/12] "A CIA operative’s unusual assignment inside the New York Police Department is being cut short after an internal investigation that criticized how the agency established its unprecedented collaboration with city police, The Associated Press has learned. In its investigation, the CIA’s inspector general faulted the agency for sending an officer to New York with little oversight after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and then leaving him there too long, according to officials who have read or been briefed on the inquiry. [...]"  Related: "LAPD Coordinated With CIA, Former Chief Bratton Tells ‘The Young Turks’" [3:06]  

UK: "Prisons Are Nearly Full, Admits Ministry of Justice" [01/29/12] "Prisons in England and Wales are nearly full, the Ministry of Justice has said, partly due to the "significant rise" in people sent to jail over last summer's riots. Figures published yesterday show the total number of inmates was 87,668, meaning prisons are now filled to 98.1% capacity. Some 407 prisoners were put behind bars in the past week alone. The MoJ said the "usable operational capacity" is 89,399, just 1,731 above the current prison population. According to the ministry, two new prisons due to open this year should ease the strain. But there have been no places activated under their contingency plan Operation Safeguard, when prisoners are held in cells at police stations and courts if numbers are at breaking point. A Prison Service spokesperson said: "We have seen a significant rise in the prison population since the summer, with very strong rises following the public disorder." [...]"  Note: The public disorder they caused by their actions.

MSM: "Feds To Train Cops On How To Deal With "Mentally Ill" Veterans" [01/28/12] "The Justice Department is funding an unusual national training program to help police deal with an increasing number of volatile confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans. Developers of the pilot program, to be launched at 15 U.S. sites this year, said there is an "urgent need" to de-escalate crises in which even SWAT teams may be facing tactical disadvantages against mentally ill suspects who also happen to be trained in modern warfare. "We just can't use the blazing-guns approach anymore when dealing with disturbed individuals who are highly trained in all kinds of tactical operations, including guerrilla warfare," said Dennis Cusick, executive director of the Upper Midwest Community Policing Institute. "That goes beyond the experience of SWAT teams." [...]" 

MSM: "Spain's Unemployment Total Passes Five Million" [01/28/12] "Spain's unemployment figure passed the five million mark in the last quarter of 2011, official figures show. The National Statistics Institute said 5.3 million people were out of work at the end of December, up from 4.9 million in the third quarter. The rate rose from 21.5% in the third quarter to 22.8% - the highest rate in nearly 17 years. Spain already has the highest jobless rate in the 17-nation eurozone and is expected to slide back into recession. The 22.8% rate is more than twice the average unemployment rate of the eurozone, which stood at 10.3% in November, according to data released earlier this month. The Spanish figures show almost half of all 16-24 year-olds in the country are jobless - 48.6% compared with 45.8% before.[...]"  

MSM: "Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked To Prejudice" [01/27/12] "There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy. The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience. "Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood," he said.  [...]"  

UK: "Technological And Scientific Degrees Axed In Favour Of Media Studies" [01/27/12] "Universities are axing science and technology degrees to make way for media studies, research has revealed. The figures, likely to prove a blow for the government, show that the number of universities offering media studies as a degree has trebled in the the past 10 years, while physics has seen a steady downfall by nearly a third.  [...] "There have clearly been major changes in the balance of subject provision of undergraduate courses, notably a decline in Science and Technology subjects, alongside a significant increase in Creative and Performing Arts, Media Studies (Propaganda) and Politics," the report observed."  Note: Now that the 'necessity' for society is waning (since they now know they've LOST the game), they're winding down the means for the progression of knowledge, since it won't be required. That's the bottom line here.

UK: "Dramatic Cuts In Police Numbers" [01/27/12] "The Home Office earlier reported that police numbers are at their lowest level for 10 years after budget cuts forced constabularies around the country to make reductions in staff. There were 135,838 officers in the 43 police forces at the end of September last year, the Home Office said - more than 6,000 fewer than the previous year and fewer than at any point since 2002. [...]"  Related: "Police Numbers At 'Lowest Level In A Decade"   

MSM: "UK Retail Sales Fall In January, More Job Losses Forecast" [01/27/12] "Retail sales fell back in January, the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) said, as the malaise on Britain's high streets continued. There is typically a post-Christmas slump in retail, but this year it was even deeper than usual, the CBI said - with the sector seeing the biggest aggregate fall in sales volumes since March 2009, when the economy was in recession. Respondents to the CBI survey said that their sales were disappointing, with orders also down. Retailers expect volumes to fall again in February. [...]" 

Commentary:  "The Caging of America: Six Million People Are Under Correctional Supervision in the U.S.—More Than Were in Stalin’s Gulags" [01/26/12]   "For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States. [...] What prisoners try to convey to the free is how the presence of time as something being done to you, instead of something you do things with, alters the mind at every moment. For American prisoners, huge numbers of whom are serving sentences much longer than those given for similar crimes anywhere else in the civilized world—Texas alone has sentenced more than four hundred teen-agers to life imprisonment—time becomes in every sense this thing you serve. [...] Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States. [...] " 

MSM: "And Now… Precrime Red Spot Lights" [01/26/12] [3:04] "The police department in the city of East Orange, New Jersey is installing red spotlights to remotely shine on those police believe are about to commit a crime. [...]"  

MSM: "LAPD Joining In “Multi-Agency Tactical Exercises” In Los Angeles" [01/26/12] "According to Daily Breeze, part of the massive MediaNews Group (MNG) and the LA.com network, joint military training exercises are going to be held in the evening in downtown Los Angeles and “other portions of the greater Los Angeles area” through Thursday of this week. They cite the Los Angeles Police Department without giving a precise name of a source, and they do not say when exactly the drills will begin, although the article was posted in the morning of January 24. However, upon visiting the Los Angeles Police Department website, I realized that they had actually released a news item about it on January 23, which says, “Multi-agency tactical exercises are to be conducted during evening hours around the downtown area January 22-26, 2012.” [...]"  Related: "LAPD Coordinated With CIA, Former Chief Bratton Tells ‘The Young Turks’" [3:06] "Former New York City police commissioner and LAPD chief William Bratton joins Cenk to talk about his new book, “Collaborate or Perish!” Despite recent criticism of the NYPD for unauthorized coordination with the CIA, Bratton says that communication can be an important strategy. “In dealing with information intelligence as it relates to terrorism, the CIA has a lot of information that is appropriate for use by American police forces,” Bratton says. At the LAPD, “We had interactions with the CIA in the sense of meeting from them from time to time, certainly, just in order to make them aware of our capabilities and our needs. There is nothing that precludes that.”  [...]"  

MSM: "Judge Tightens Rules On Oakland Police Oversight" [01/26/12] "Frustrated and "in disbelief" by what he called the slow pace of reform, a federal judge on Tuesday ordered Oakland's top cop to notify an expert overseeing the Police Department about anything that could affect a federal consent decree, including promoting or disciplining officers and changing policies or tactics. In ordering interim Police Chief Howard Jordan to "regularly consult" with independent monitor Robert Warshaw, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson acknowledged that he was giving considerably more responsibility to Warshaw. But the judge again stated that he was skeptical that city and police officials would "be able to fulfill their promises from nine years ago," when the city agreed to pay a $10.5 million civil settlement in the wake of the "Riders" police misconduct scandal. In that case, a group of officers was accused of framing or beating suspects in West Oakland, but was never criminally convicted. The city entered into a consent decree, overseen by Henderson, and promised to reform the department. The judge said he could still order the department into federal receivership if things don't improve. [...] "  

MSM: "USDA To Close 259 Offices" [01/26/12] "The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday that it will close nearly 260 offices nationwide, a move that won praise for cutting costs but raised concerns about the possible effect on food safety. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the goal was to save $150 million a year in the department's $145 billion budget. About $90 million had already been saved by reducing travel and supplies, and the closings were expected to save another $60 million, he said. The plan calls for 259 offices, labs and other facilities to be closed, affecting the USDA headquarters in Washington and operations in 46 states. Seven foreign offices also will be closed. Some of the closings had been previously announced. The USDA said last year it would shut down 10 agricultural research stations, including the only one in Alaska, where scientists were seeking ways to use the vast waste generated by the largest wild fishery in the nation to make everything from gel caps to fish meal for livestock feed. [...]"  

Commentary: "Subculture of Americans Prepares for Civilization's Collapse" [01/25/12] "When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon. "In an instant, anything can happen," she told Reuters. "And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared." Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as "preppers." Some are driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm. They are following in the footsteps of hippies in the 1960s who set up communes to separate themselves from what they saw as a materialistic society, and the survivalists in the 1990s who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government. Preppers, though are, worried about no government. Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a "survival center," complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present. She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home. And she thinks that emergency could come soon. "I think this economy is about to fall apart," she said. [...]"  Related: "The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class " Elizabeth Warren [57:38] "Distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School. She is an outspoken critic of America's credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class.  [...]" | UK: "Millions of Elderly 'Fearful' Of Future" "A study by Age UK shows that a third of its respondents are struggling just to buy basic supplies. The charity said that if this was projected nationally, it would equate to 4.5 million people aged over 60 who have to eke out their incomes. Highlighting the "great resilience" of those on the breadline, its study Living on a Low Income in Later Life showed how people are forced to "make do", including going without basic household goods such as a television or an oven. Living standards have been squeezed by the current low rate of returns on savings and rising household costs, particularly fuel bills. The charity reported cases such as a 78-year-old woman living on £120 a week after rent who uses a hob and a microwave rather than replace a broken gas oven which she is concerned is leaking. Other cost-saving examples found by researchers included boiling a kettle for washing rather than heating the water in a boiler, not replacing broken furniture and going without a television, the Press Association reported. Age UK's study of more than 1,000 respondents found that nearly one in seven older people have gone to bed when they are not tired just to keep warm and around the same proportion said they live in just one room to save on heating. [...]"  

Legal Case: "Judge Orders Defendant to Decrypt Laptop" [01/25/12] "A judge on Monday ordered a Colorado woman to decrypt her laptop computer so prosecutors can use the files against her in a criminal case. The defendant, accused of bank fraud, had unsuccessfully argued that being forced to do so violates the Fifth Amendment’s protection against compelled self-incrimination.  [...]"  Related: "Ruling Could Force Americans To Decrypt Laptops"  

Commentary:  "America After Dark: Millions Of Criminal Predators Searching For A New Victim" [01/25/12] "When the sun goes down every night, America becomes a very frightening place. There are communities all over the country where drug dealing, human trafficking and gang violence have gotten so out of control that authorities don't really know what to do about it. In America tonight, thousands of meth heads will break into homes as they desperately search for enough money for another hit. In America tonight, thousands of children will be sold for sex at truck stops and on street corners. In America tonight, millions of criminal predators will be searching for a new victim. From the top levels of the federal government all the way down to the most depraved criminals on the street, America is rotting. Once upon a time our tremendous affluence masked the moral decay that was happening in this nation, but now that the economy is falling apart the damage to the fabric of our society is being revealed. We have become a nation of addicts, junkies, thrill seekers and predators. When we finally see the U.S. economy fully collapse, millions of desperate, angry and depraved monsters will take out their sick frustrations on all the rest of us. [...] "  

MSM: "Italian Truckers, Taxi Drivers Mount National Strike Against Social Cuts" [01/25/12] "Truckers and taxi drivers blocked roads and highways throughout Italy, as protests spread against the social cuts, free market measures, and fuel price increases of Prime Minister Mario Monti. Taxi drivers oppose Monti’s deregulation of their licensed professions, as the economic slump means that there are already too many taxi drivers struggling to find enough passengers. There were parades or assemblies of striking taxis in Bologna, Milan, and Rome, causing transport bottlenecks at Rome’s Fiumicino airport and its Termini train station. The taxi strike follows a bitter confrontation between taxi drivers and union bureaucrats on January 19, when a nationwide assembly of taxi drivers at the Circus Maximus in Rome threw out union officials who had negotiated the cuts with the government. [...] Truckers also parked their rigs across highways yesterday, creating at least 60 major blockades surrounding cities across Italy—including Turin and Milan in the north, Bologna and Rome in the center of the country, and Naples, Foggia, Taranto, and Gioia Tauro in the south. [...] Trasportounito, the truckers’ union, was stunned by the scale of the unauthorized strike that rapidly spread throughout Italy. Its general secretary, Maurizio Longo, said: “The massive participation in the national work stoppage, exceeding all our expectations, shows the gravity of the current crisis. Discontent is real and palpable for companies and families of truckers who are fighting for survival.” The union said that they expected strike action would last until Friday. [...] "  

Commentary:  "George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War" [01/25/12] "For the first time in his 60-year career, Soros, now 81, admits he is not sure what to do. “It’s very hard to know how you can be right, given the damage that was done during the boom years,” Soros says. He won’t discuss his portfolio, lest anyone think he’s talking things down to make a buck. … Has the great short seller gone soft? Well, yes. Sitting in his 33rd-floor corner office high above Seventh Avenue in New York, preparing for his trip to Davos, he is more concerned with surviving than staying rich. “At times like these, survival is the most important thing,” he says, peering through his owlish glasses and brushing wisps of gray hair off his forehead. He doesn’t just mean it’s time to protect your assets. He means it’s time to stave off disaster. As he sees it, the world faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history—a period of “evil.” Europe is confronting a descent into chaos and conflict. In America he predicts riots on the streets that will lead to a brutal clampdown that will dramatically curtail civil liberties. The global economic system could even collapse altogether. … “I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst- case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.” [...]"  

Commentary:  "Money Insider: US Will See Violent Civil Unrest In 2012" [01/24/12] "Money insider Charles Ortel has warned that a worsening economic picture across the globe will see civil unrest hit the streets of America, not on behalf of leftist OWS types, but by an armed, “irascible and vocal Majority”. Ortel, a managing partner with Newport Value Partners, LLC in New York City, predicts that a failure of the so-called financial recovery will precipitate “A painful re-calibration of economic strength and geo-political standing during 2012 in the midst of widespread civil insurrection and cross-border war.” Noting that Americans’ access to firearms will cause such riots to be bloodier than anything seen in Europe, Ortel predicts that a contented and silent Majority will be turned into “an irascible and vocal Majority,” as a result of numerous macro-economic and geo-political threats facing the country, including the collapse of the euro, the bursting of the financial bubble in China, and the looming debt crisis, all of which will contribute to weak economic growth. “Some will manage to contain their activities to peaceful protests. However, we believe the far more likely scenario is that violence will result, especially in the United States where the wider population has more ready access to weaponry and where mobs have proven impossible to restrain,” Ortel writes. [...]"  

Trends: "Washington State Legislature Has Enough Votes To Legalize Same-Sex Marriage " [01/24/12] "As lawmakers held their first public hearing on legalizing same-sex marriage, a previously undecided Democratic senator on Monday announced her support for the measure, all but ensuring that Washington will become the seventh state to allow gay and lesbian couples to get married. [...]"  

Legal Case: "Supreme Court: Warrants Needed In GPS Tracking" [01/24/12] "The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must obtain a search warrant before using a GPS device to track criminal suspects. But the justices left for another day larger questions about how technology has altered a person’s expectation of privacy. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the government needed a valid warrant before attaching a GPS device to the Jeep used by D.C. drug kingpin Antoine Jones, who was convicted in part because police tracked his movements on public roads for 28 days. “We hold that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search’ ” under the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, Scalia wrote. [...]" 

MSM: "Maid Chased Down For Walking Through Luxury Community: Servants 'Forbidden To Move At Will'" [01/24/12] "Felicita Pinto arrived early at the gates of the luxurious community where she labors as a maid, but the minibus to her employer's home was late. So she decided to walk six blocks to work, on streets lined with broad lawns and imposing homes. Security guards quickly chased her down and forced the 57-year-old widow back to the gate. Pinto's employer protested, as he had before, against the community bylaws that forbid servants to move at will. Pinto's simple stroll helped set off national soul-searching over discrimination and mistreatment of domestic workers across Chile, where leaders ache to be accepted as representing an enlightened, developed nation. Local news media heard of the case and outrage followed when another homeowner in the El Algarrobal II development sought to justify the restrictions. "Can you imagine what it would be like here if all the maids were walking outside, all the workers walking in the street and their children on bicycles?" neighbor Ines Perez told a local television channel. Her comments prompted such a wave of insults and threats that Perez was forced to close her Facebook page. Discrimination toward domestic workers is among the more entrenched social ills in Latin America and beyond. In luxury complexes just south of Peru's capital, maids can't swim in the ocean until their employers have left the water. In Mexico City, some luxury restaurants prohibit maids from sitting down to eat and some high-rises force workers to take the service elevators. [...]" 

Commentary: "U.S. Beef Cattle Herd in "Liquidation Mode: Can't Sustain Domestic Supply" [01/19/12] "The process of liquidation of the U.S. beef cow herd — underway due to combined reasons of drought, expense hyperinflation, cartel monopolization of processing and marketing, and Obama/London opposition to remedies — has reached the stage where the numbers will not provide needed beef supply-levels to the population. Where's the beef? It disappeared. The last (confirmed) number for total cattle in the U.S. (beef, dairy, calves, etc.) was 94,521,000 for 2009, which was way down from past years' numbers of over 100 million head. The 2009 supplies of beef from domestic production, worked out to 61.4 pounds per capita for the year, also way down from past supplies of at least 75 pounds (retail weight). Since then it's worse. The new numbers for 2010 and 2011 will be issued next week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which "officially" projects a 3.5- to 4-percent drop of U.S. beef output in 2012 from 2011, and continuing drop in cattle numbers. With any supportive intervention, ranchers would hang on and rebuild herds and resume production. They know how to do it. But the Obama Administration, in line with London, remains hands- off, as food supply capacity shuts down. A few comparative features of the crisis:  [...] In 2012, we are going to see a drop in production of about 3.5 to 4 percent year on year. "That's a sign that this industry has reached a point that we cannot maintain production...with the level of animals that we have in this industry." The drought in the Southern Plains — for which Obama Administration has done zilch — has been "particularly devastating," Dr. Peel said, adding that U.S. beef production is falling backwards to the tonnage level of the early 1960s."  

MSM: "Indiana Unveils Its First License Plate For Gay Youths" [01/19/12] "Indiana’s first specialty license plate that benefits gay causes is now available for purchase. Bureau of Motor Vehicles spokesman Graig Lubsen said the Indiana Youth Group plate has been available since Dec. 28. The plate bears a logo with hands in rainbow colors reaching up. Some $25 from sales of each $40 plate goes to the group serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth.  [...]"  Note: That way, people raised by wolves will know who to harass and target. 'Brilliant' concept ...

UK: "Doctors Threaten Strike Action Over Pension Changes" [01/19/12] "Two out of three doctors are prepared to strike over the government's planned changes to pensions, the British Medical Association (BMA) said on Wednesday. The union rejected the government's final offer on public sector pensions on Wednesday afternoon, after a preliminary ballot of their members. The BMA, which has more than 130,00 members, has not taken industrial action since the 1970s when there was a dispute over junior doctors' working conditions, including hours. However, the results of the survey cast the real spectre of unrest unless a compromise can be reached. In a statement, the BMA council said that it would meet on 25 February to consider balloting for industrial action unless there is a "significant" change in the Government's position. Two-thirds of the 46,000 doctors and medical students surveyed by the BMA said they were prepared to strike and 84% rejected the changes. Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of BMA Council said doctors felt "let down and betrayed", adding "for many this is the final straw". "Doctors are at the forefront of attempts to save the NHS £20 billion, while trying to protect patient care, are in the midst of huge system reform in England, which is causing chaos in many areas, and are about to enter a fourth successive year of a pay freeze," he said. "Now on top of this, they are facing wholesale changes to their pension scheme, which was radically overhauled less than four years ago and is actually delivering a positive cashflow to the Treasury. “Forcing doctors to work to almost 70 is one of our most serious concerns as it could put pressure on doctors to work beyond the age at which they feel competent and safe. [...]"  

MSM: "Homeless Rate Ready To Rise As Stimulus Cash Runs Out: Study" [01/19/12] "All in all, the conditions are right for national homeless rates to start rising soon, according to a new report that examines many of the large-scale economic factors that force people out of their homes. The report, published Tuesday by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, suggests that a delayed wave of pain may be coming for low-earning renters and homeowners. [...] For homelessness to start climbing just as the unemployment rate begins to deflate might seem counterintuitive. But such is the nature of homelessness, which tends to lag behind other macroeconomic trends.  [...] There just aren't enough units for the number of people who need them," Roman told HuffPost. The lack of affordable housing, she said, is the nation's "other housing crisis." This aspect of the housing problem is likely to grow more pronounced in 2012 and 2013, as the number of foreclosures is expected to swell. By the end of next year, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently predicted, there could be as many as 5.6 million homes in foreclosure. [...]" Related: "HUD Secretary: Government, Banks 'Very Close' To Reaching Foreclosure Deal " "The government and banks are "very close" to reaching a legal settlement over alleged foreclosure abuses that could help about 1 million underwater borrowers get mortgage relief, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said on Wednesday. "We're very close to a settlement that would both fix the servicing problems, but also help over a million families around the country stay in their homes and get help," Donovan said in response to a question during a forum at the Winter Meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington. Talks between federal and state officials and major lenders aimed at resolving allegations of illegal foreclosure practices have dragged into their second year. [...]"  Note: Too little, much too late. The population is not a priority for these maniacs, no one is really 'in charge' of anything.

MSM: "NYPD, Feds Testing Terahertz Gun-Scanning Technology, But Civil Liberties Groups Up In Arms" [01/18/12] [2:11] "The NYPD is stepping up their war against illegal guns, with a new tool that could detect weapons on someone as they walk down the street. It’s called Terahertz Imaging Detection. It measures the energy radiating from a body up to 16 feet away, and can detect anything blocking it, like a gun. Police Commissioner Kelly said the scanner would only be used in reasonably suspicious circumstances and could cut down on the number of stop-and-frisks on the street. But the New York Civil Liberties Union is raising a red flag. “It’s worrisome. It implicates privacy, the right to walk down the street without being subjected to a virtual pat-down by the Police Department when you’re doing nothing wrong,” the NYCLU’s Donna Lieberman said. [...]"  

UK: "Mod Unveils Second Round Of Cuts" [01/17/12] "The Ministry of Defence is to announce its plans for a second round of redundancies in the armed forces later. The job losses will account for some of the cuts already announced under the government's defence review. The Army is expected to announce up to 3,000 redundancies, the RAF up to 1,000 and the Royal Navy 500. The Gurkhas are expected to lose up to 400 personnel. The MoD said difficult decisions had to be taken to deal with the "black hole" in its budget. Under the terms of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, the navy and the RAF have to cut 5,000 jobs each by 2015.  [...]"  

MSM: "Gov. Jerry Brown Plans $1 Billion In Prison Cuts" [01/17/12] "Gov. Jerry Brown wants to cut state prison spending next fiscal year for the first time in nearly a decade, a departure from the goals of recent administrations, which consistently increased corrections spending and pushed for prison expansion. Brown's budget would save California $1.1 billion on housing inmates and hundreds of millions more by allowing the state to halt some prison construction - savings largely due to his administration's recent overhaul of the state's criminal justice system. General fund spending on prisons nearly doubled under Brown's Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, from $5.2 billion in 2004 to $9.5 billion in 2011, when Brown, a Democrat, took office. The increase in spending was largely caused by an exploding inmate population and a court order to improve medical care in prisons.  [...]"  

RT Interview: "2012 RNC/DNC Host Cities Will Be Set Up Like Police States" [01/17/12]   [8:45] Note: $50 million is being provided to all the cities where political events will be held.

Commentary:  "10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The “Land Of The Free" [01/17/12] "Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture. Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider un-free, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves? [...]"  Note: Top constitutional law expert Jon Turley. Related: "Objective Comparison Of The U.S. To Regimes That Everyone Labels Repressive"    

MSM: "Private Company Hoarding License-Plate Data On US Drivers" [01/16/12] "Capitalizing on one of the fastest-growing trends in law enforcement, a private California- based company has compiled a database bulging with more than 550 million license-plate records on both innocent and criminal drivers that can be searched by police. The technology has raised alarms among civil libertarians, who say it threatens the privacy of drivers. It's also evidence that 21st-century technology may be evolving too quickly for the courts and public opinion to keep up. The U.S. Supreme Court is only now addressing whether investigators can secretly attach a GPS monitoring device to cars without a warrant. A ruling in that case has yet to be handed down, but a telling exchange occurred during oral arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts asked lawyers for the government if even he and other members of the court could feasibly be tracked by GPS without a warrant. Yes, came the answer. [...]"  

UK: "Unpaid Student Debts Could Cost Taxpayer £9bn A Year" [01/16/12] "Unpaid student debts could cost the taxpayer around £9bn a year, a report released on Sunday revealed. According to research by investment managers Skandia, unless students immediately earn a £50,000 salary upon leaving university, a "significant amount" of their debt will be written off. The report estimates that if the number of university applicants remains the same, this will cost the Government £8.7 billion in 2045. The figure is dependent on interest rates and the number of students, but it could rise to £9.6 billion. [...]"  Note: The government is too stupid to forgive student loans and do the right thing, both in the UK and the US.

MSM: "The Staggering Cost Of Youth Unemployment Across Europe" [01/16/12] "As countries across Europe race to take on austerity measures and cut their debt burden, its getting harder and harder for people to find jobs. And the under-25 age group is being hit the hardest. The latest data shows that youth unemployment in the EU is staggeringly high at 22.7% and this is clearly taking a toll on the economy. The total unemployment rate in the EU is a more modest, albeit high, 9.8%. Now, a report by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), a tripartite body of the Union, has released a new report that shows how much youth without education, employment or training (NEET) costs their respective countries. The NEET costs to the 21 EU countries included in this report is approximately €2 billion per week, a yearly total of about €100 billion, or 1% of aggregate GDP. Note: The study has data for 21 countries. Public finance costs include welfare schemes like unemployment benefits child benefits, housing benefits, education- related allowances and others) as well as additional health, welfare and criminal justice expenditure. Public finance costs measures excess transfer - the difference between the total amount of benefits received by the NEET and the benefits received by those in employment. Resource costs include foregone earnings. [...]"  

Commentary: "Many Americans Gave Up Hope Last Year – 2012 Will Be Worse" [01/15/12] "The year 2011 will be remembered as the time when many ever-optimistic Americans began to give up hope. President John F Kennedy once said that a rising tide lifts all boats. But now, in the receding tide, Americans are beginning to see not only that those with taller masts had been lifted far higher, but also that many of the smaller boats had been dashed to pieces in their wake. In that brief moment when the tide was indeed rising, millions of people believed that they might have a fair chance of realising the "American Dream". Now those dreams, too, are receding. By 2011, the savings of those who had lost their jobs in 2008 or 2009 had been spent. Unemployment cheques had run out. Headlines announcing new hiring – still not enough to keep pace with the number of those who would normally have entered the labour force – meant little to the 50-year-olds with little hope of ever holding a job again. Indeed, middle-aged people who thought that they would be unemployed for a few months have now realised that they were, in fact, forcibly retired. Young people who graduated from college with tens of thousands of dollars of education debt cannot find any jobs at all. People who moved in with friends and relatives have become homeless. Houses bought during the property boom are still on the market or have been sold at a loss. More than seven million American families have lost their homes. The dark underbelly of the previous decade's financial boom has been fully exposed in Europe as well. [...]"  

Commentary: "China’s Skyscraper Craze May Herald Economic Crash" [01/15/12] "China could be the next country to go bust, if its headlong rush to build ever-taller skyscrapers is a guide to its future economic health. According to a study by Barclays Capital, the mania for skyscrapers over the last 140 years is a sure indicator of an imminent crash. It points out that the construction boom that threw up New York's Chrysler and Empire State buildings preceded the New York crash of 1929 and Great Depression. More recently, Dubai built a forest of skyscraping offices, hotels and apartment buildings, including the world's tallest, the Burj Khalifa, before it got into terrible financial difficulties. In 2010 Dubai had to be bailed out by its neighbour, Abu Dhabi, to avoid going bankrupt. Bar Cap's report said: "Thankfully for the world economy, there is not currently a skyscraper under construction that is planned to overtake the height of the Burj Khalifa." However, BarCap said the "unhealthy correlation" between construction of the world's tallest buildings and economic crashes was likely to ensnare China, which is home to half of the world's skyscrapers currently under construction. India, which has just two skyscrapers, sometimes defined as buildings over 240 metres (787ft) tall, is also on the radar after giving the go-ahead to its first skyscraper building boom, with 14 under way, including the world's second-tallest tower in the financial capital, Mumbai. Andrew Lawrence, director of property research at Barclays Capital in Hong Kong, said: "Building booms are a sign of excess credit."  [...]"  

MSM: "Social Welfare State, American-Style, Means Relief For The Rich " [01/15/12] "Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has taken to accusing President Barack Obama of trying to turn the United States into a European-style social welfare state. The hyperbole about Obama's actions aside, the United States already is a social welfare state -- almost right up there with the Europeans -- if you measure the total amount of drain on the Treasury caused by spending and subsidies on such things as health care and retirement. The one big difference is that in the American social welfare state, a lot of the benefits go to the rich. "We spend a tremendous amount on private social welfare through tax subsidies," said Christopher Faricy, a political science professor at Washington State University whose forthcoming book is about our divided welfare state. "It just goes to a drastically different population than what we usually associate with welfare programs," Faricy said. Direct government social welfare spending pays for such signature programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment. But there's also a whole other world of social-welfare measures in the tax code -- called tax expenditures -- that benefit individuals and companies. [...]"  

Concepts and Practices: "Carrying A Gun Is A Civilized Act" [01/15/12] "Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it. In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some. When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender. [...] There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly. [...] The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act."  

Commentary: "The Return of System D" [01/14/12] "In a non regulation-sized nutshell, System D refers to the world's unregulated, non state-sanctioned economy. And it is, in many ways, where the real action is. One of our Fellow Reckoners, responding to the above introduction, offered the following observations: "Subcontractors work for cash. This lessens taxes, workmen's comp, insurance, and withholding costs. Many shops run cash sales without sales taxes, like camera shops at the wharves in San Francisco. Farmers' markets sell food without overhead or taxes. This will all be increasing geometrically..." To be sure, this is the real wild west. A kind of frontier market where innovation flourishes and the natural, evolutionary forces of creative destruction are left to sheriff the town, themselves ungoverned by the arbitrary whim of world-improvers and their insufferable ilk. As such, the system is not without its failures. But nor is it without allure. Continues our reader: "More and more people will be tempted to take the risk of government action against them, because it is better than starving, and the more people who work outside the system, the harder it will be for the government to force compliance with the myriad regulations and taxes which are a barrier to entry." Seems a valid point to us. Think of how much more competitive individuals working in the area between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans (say) would be if they were allowed to conduct business with whomsoever they wished and on their own, mutually agreed-upon terms. Millions of job-seekers could be put to work immediately. The state-sponsored unemployment problem would disappear overnight. It's not as if there is no work to be done, after all. [...]"  

MSM: "India Implements First Biometric ID Program For All Of Its 1.2 Billion Residents" [01/13/12] "Recently, India has launched a nationwide program involving the allocation of a Unique Identification Number (UID) to every single one of its 1.2 billion residents. Each of the numbers will be tied to the biometric data of the recipient using three different forms of information – fingerprints, iris scans, and pictures of the face. All ten digits of the hand will be recorded, and both eyes will be scanned. [...]"  

Commentary: "Creating Lifelong Customers: The School-To-Prison Pipeline And The Private Prison Industry" [01/13/12] "As if the United States did not have a bloated enough prison population – which I think nearly every single American realizes is a painful truth – our school systems are being transformed into yet another way to funnel people into the private prison system. School systems around the country, but especially Texas, have begun criminalizing what would otherwise be normal childish behavior. [...]"  Related: See below.

Commentary: "Two Professors Decry Laws That Punish Criminals Indefinitely" [01/12/12] " In 2010, the Chicago Public School system decided not to hire Darrell Langdon, a single father of two, as a boiler-room engineer. Why? Because it found out he'd once been convicted of possessing a half-gram of cocaine—in 1985. Such stories are common these days, both because a whopping 30% of Americans are arrested by age 23, and because a plethora of laws ensure their mistakes haunt them forever, write professors Alfred Blumstein and Kiminori Nakamura of the New York Times. The American Bar Association has identified 38,000 state provisions penalizing convicts, including many so-called "forever rules" that can permanently deprive people of invaluable jobs or job licenses. Yet Blumstein and Nakamura's research indicates that within 10 to 13 years of someone being arrested for the first time, that person has the same likelihood of being arrested as anyone else. And so these rules must expire—or even be replaced with ones that encourage employers to give offenders a second chance. It "would not only help those people, but also our economy and our society." [...]"  

Commentary: "Dead People Voting in New Hampshire – Could Oregon Be Next?" [01/12/12] "Video footage provided exclusively to The Daily Caller shows election workers in New Hampshire giving out ballots in the names of dead voters at multiple voting precincts during the state’s primary election on Tuesday. The bombshell video is the work of conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe and his organization, Project Veritas. Voters in the Granite State are not required to present identification to vote. O’Keefe’s investigators were able to obtain ballots under the names of dead voters at polling locations Tuesday by simply asking for them, he said. [...]" 

Legal Case: "Supreme Court Declines To Make It Harder To Introduce Eyewitness Testimony At Trials" [01/12/12] The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to make it harder to introduce eyewitness testimony at criminal trials, despite a recent proliferation of studies that show mistaken identity is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. In an 8 to 1 decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that there is no reason for the court to change its view that judges on their own cannot throw out eyewitness testimony unless police have manipulated circumstances to produce a desired outcome. The point is to deter police from creating “suggestive circumstances” that point to a specific suspect, Ginsburg said. “When there is no improper police conduct,” Ginsburg said in announcing the decision, “there is nothing to deter.” If the police have not created the suggestive climate, she said, then it is up to the jury to decide whether to evaluate the eyewitness testimony, and for the defendant’s lawyer to try to discredit it.  [...]"  

Commentary: "Police Admit Romney Campaign Illegally Hired them to Arrest US Citizens on Bogus Charges at Campaign Event" [01/12/12] "I asked about his authority to remove me. “We’re working for the Romney campaign,” he said. I asked if he was on-duty; he said he was. My confusion deepened. So was he working for the town of Hudson today, or for the campaign? “Both.” (Later, I think I got it straight: the campaign hired the police for the day, sort of like a private security detail.) At the police station, I was put in a cage and asked to remove my shoes, belt, and sweatshirt. An officer named Manni and another officer processed my paperwork. As they did so, they told me not to go back to “that area” when I was released. I indicated that I understood I wasn’t permitted to be on the company’s land or facilities, but surely I could go back to the street if I so chose – it’s public property, after all. Don’t go back to that area, they said. If you go back, you might cause a disturbance or a riot, and you could be arrested for disorderly conduct. [...]"  

MSM: "Fraud, Waste In DHS Program To Protect High-Risk Urban Areas" [01/12/12] "An example of how this ' innovative program' is failing can be found in a Homeland Security Inspector General report made public this week by the agency’s watchdog. It focuses on $45 million in UASI funds allocated to Chicago’s Cook County in the last few years to enhance public safety. Local authorities called their UASI-funded initiative “Project Shield,” which was supposed to provide municipalities with the equipment to improve response to terrorist attacks and disasters. Under the plan this was supposed to be accomplished, in part, by equipping police in dozens of departments with vehicles capable of mobile data transmission of video, audio and text as well as a tower camera. The information, including feed pictures from fixed mounted cameras, was to be shared among 128 suburban agencies in case of a terrorist attack or other emergency. Instead investigators who compiled the report after conducting a six-month probe found that a lot of the sophisticated electronic equipment didn’t even work, was missing or was never installed. They concluded that the project was “not implemented effectively” and found that “millions of tax dollars may have been wasted on equipment that does not perform as intended.” [...]"  

MSM: "Pennsylvania To Impose Asset Test For Food Stamps" [01/11/12] "Pennsylvania plans to make the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess - an unexpected move that bucks national trends and places the commonwealth among a minority of states. Specifically, the Department of Public Welfare said that as of May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings and other assets would no longer be eligible for food stamps. For people over 60, the limit would be $3,250. Houses and retirement benefits would be exempt from being counted as assets. If a person owns a car, that vehicle also would also be exempt, but any additional vehicle worth more than $4,650 would be considered a countable asset. Anne Bale, a spokeswoman for DPW, said the asset test was a way to ensure that "people with resources are not taking advantage of the food-stamp program," funded by federal money.  [...]" 

MSM: "Child Sexual Abuse Cases In Hollywood Attract Attention" [01/11/12] "At least a dozen child molestation and child pornography prosecutions since 2000 have involved actors, managers, production assistants and others in the entertainment industry. [...]"  Related: "Furor In Greece Over Pedophilia As A Disability" "Greek disability groups expressed anger Monday at a government decision to expand a list of state-recognized disability categories to include pedophiles, exhibitionists and kleptomaniacs. The National Confederation of Disabled People called the action "incomprehensible," and said pedophiles are now awarded a higher government disability pay than some people who have received organ transplants. [...]"  Note:  Great moments in the Welfare State. 

MSM: "Government Set To Sell Foreclosures In Bulk" [01/11/12] "The Obama administration, is very close to announcing a pilot program to sell government- owned foreclosures in bulk to investors as rentals, CNBC has learned. The Obama administration, in conjunction with federal regulators and led by the overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is very close to announcing a pilot program to sell government-owned foreclosures in bulk to investors as rentals, according to administration officials. There currently are about a quarter of a million foreclosed properties on the books of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and millions more are coming. The foreclosure processing delays of last year created a mammoth backlog of properties yet to be processed, which are just now being re-started. One of the initiatives of this program is for the federal government to be in the position to mitigate and manage any new wave of foreclosures, sources say.  [...]"  

MSM: "Young Veterans Without Jobs: Too Many Are Locked Out Of 'Recovery'" [01/11/12] "Young military veterans saw little to celebrate in last week's much cheered unemployment report. Data released the same day by the Department of Labor revealed that one in three young veterans was out of a job in the last quarter of 2011 -- an employment picture even worse than a year earlier, when one in five couldn't find work. This rate is more double that of their civilian peers; the unemployment rate for all Americans age 18-24 actually decreased over the same time period. "I definitely think it's getting worse out there," said Daniel Hutchison, 29, who started a one-man transition assistance group, Ohio Combat Veterans, last May. "Part of that has to do with the economy across the board. The unemployment rate is still high, and with veterans, it's even more complicated." Veterans don't always know how to translate their skills in the battlefield for employers back home. And while they look for work, they're often battling post-traumatic stress disorder, which can be compounded, Hutchison said, by not finding a job. "Veterans will sell themselves short. On their résumés, they'll just say, 'I was field artillery in Iraq for 16 months.'" Hutchison continued. "So I'll say, 'But you have leadership skills. How much training did you do? How many people did you manage?' These are all attributes that these veterans have, but they can't really see it." [...]"  Note: And the Pentagon plans on releasing 500,000 vets ...

Health: "10 Common Foods That Are Proven To Reduce Stress" [01/10/12] "Eight years ago, journalist Anna Magee came to nutritional therapist Charlotte Watts desperate for a diet and fitness plan that would help relieve stress while shedding excess pounds. Today, Magee and Watts are the authors behind The De-Stress Diet, a lifestyle plan for losing weight by getting rid of chronic stress, released in January.  "The book looks at diet and lifestyle in a modern way that hasn't been covered before," said Watts, who is also a yoga teacher of five years. "It doesn't give you a prescriptive, one-size fits all regimen, but helps you find out what suits you as an individual by helping to investigate your own default lifestyle."  In addition to eating well, Watts says you should pay attention to the way you breathe, keep yourself active, and most importantly, give yourself time to rest. Stress isn't always a bad thing—it can often be motivating—but overwhelming anxiety becomes damaging when we don't give ourselves enough recovery time.  To stay healthy by keeping calm, Magee and Watts helped us compile a list of 10 foods with properties shown to repair and protect your body from the effects of long-term stress. "These foods provide nutrients like B vitamins, zinc, and magnesium that we tend to use up really quickly in response to stress. Many also have therapeutic benefits like balancing blood sugar and staving off stress-induced cravings for sugary foods," said Watts.  [...]"  

MSM: "Proposed Chicago Anti-Protest Laws To Be Permanent" [01/10/12] "Not even a month has passed since Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, requested that the Chicago city council enact what he termed “temporary” and “one-time only” anti-protest measures in advance of the overlapping NATO and G-8 summits that will be held in the city from May 15-22. During a press conference held on January 4, Emanuel claimed that he “misspoke,” and that many of the proposed antidemocratic ordinances will in fact be permanent. Emanuel, who resigned as President Obama’s Chief of Staff in October 2010 to take the position of Chicago mayor, told reporters: “I made a mistake. Real simple, OK? I thought when I answered the question, I was answering the question about contracting, OK? So, if I made a mistake, I bear the responsibility.” According to Emanuel, only the powers given to the mayor for the purpose of concluding contracts in relation to the meetings will be temporary. The new laws will impose drastically increased fines on protesters, increasing the maximum fine assessed against those found to be resisting arrest or “aiding escape” from $500 to $1,000. The maximum duration of demonstrations would also be reduced by 15 minutes, to two hours. In addition, public parks and beaches would “open” at 6 AM, two hours later than they do currently. Loud noise, music or amplified sound would only be legal between 8 AM and 10 PM. Other provisions impose onerous requirements on parade organizers, and allow the city to levy punitive fines when they are violated. For example, one of the new regulations demands as part of the permit application process “a description of any recording equipment, sound amplification equipment, banners, signs, or other attention-getting devices to be used in connection with the parade.” Another regulation requires the presence of one parade marshal per 100 marchers. One notable change gives the police superintendent the power to deputize law enforcement officials from other agencies, including the FBI, DEA, ATF, Illinois State Police, Illinois Attorney General, Department of Justice, Cook County State’s Attorney and other unspecified agencies. Even the temporary measures relating to contracts, referred to in the Chicago Tribune as “blanket spending authority,” have implications for the protesters, as they allow Emanuel to conclude contracts for, among other things, security and logistics [...]" 

MSM: "Strikes Erupt In China’s Sichuan Province" [01/10/12] "Thousands of workers from the state-owned company Pangang Group Chengdu Steel & Vanadium (known as Chengdu Steel) went on strike on January 4 over low wages in Chengdu, the capital of the inland province of Sichuan. The New York-based China Labour Watch put the number of strikers at 2,000, but other reports estimated that 10,000 were involved. Hong Kong’s Mingpao Daily said 1,000 police were sent to block the workers, who marched to a crossroad of the Chengdu-Mianyang Highway near the factory. China Labour Watch reported: “Over several hours, the confrontation paralysed traffic and the police dispelled the crowd by use of pepper spray. Several workers were injured in the ensuing clashes.” Five workers were arrested, but released after the steel company intervened. Witnesses quoted online said workers were holding banners saying, “We want a wage increase” or “We want to survive, we want meals.” Other slogans called on the enterprise to disclose the salaries of the management. [...]"  

UK: "Benefit Cuts To Make 800,000 More UK Homes Unaffordable" [01/10/12] "Welfare cuts will put a further 800,000 homes out of reach of those claiming housing benefit, according to study by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). This month saw the introduction of the capping of housing benefit payments that will leave many low-income families with a stark choice: either to pay the rent by cutting essential spending on food and heating, or move out of the home they are living in. The CIH has found that there will be many more claimants of benefits than available affordable accommodation. The term “benefit ghettoes” is being used to describe areas in the UK, such as the north of England and seaside towns, where many families will end up having to migrate to live because of changes to the benefits system. For a two-bedroom house, housing benefit will pay a maximum of £250 a week, leaving the shortfall to be picked up by the tenant/s. The implications of this will be immediate, with many areas of the UK not having enough affordable properties that will be covered by someone claiming the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) in a given area. In Kensington and Chelsea, two of the richest areas in central London, 35,000 homes will be made out of the reach of those who are currently claiming housing benefit. Those losing their homes will not just be able to move to more affordable parts of London because the other areas will be facing similar problems. In Croydon, for example, there will be 17,000 people chasing 10,000 homes. [...]"  

MSM: "U.S. Debt Is Now Equal To Entire Economy" [01/10/12] "The amount of money the federal government owes to its creditors, combined with IOUs to government retirement and other programs, now tops $15.23 trillion. That's roughly equal to the value of all goods and services the U.S. economy produces in one year: $15.17 trillion as of September, the latest estimate. Private projections show the economy likely grew to about $15.3 trillion by December — a level the debt is likely to surpass this month. [...]"  

MSM: "The US Schools With Their Own Police" Link Fixed [01/10/12] "More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour? Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing "inappropriate" clothes and being late for school. In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later. "We've taken childhood behaviour and made it criminal," said Kady Simpkins, a lawyer who represented Sarah Bustamantes. "They're kids. Disruption of class? Every time I look at this law I think: good lord, I never would have made it in school in the US. I grew up in Australia and it's just rowdy there. I don't know how these kids do it, how they go to school every day without breaking these laws." [...] The British government is studying the American experience in dealing with gangs, unruly young people and juvenile justice in the wake of the riots in England. The UK's justice minister, Crispin Blunt, visited Texas last September to study juvenile courts and prisons, youth gangs and police outreach in schools, among other things. But his trip came at a time when Texas is reassessing its own reaction to fears of feral youth that critics say has created a "school-to-prison pipeline". The Texas supreme court chief justice, Wallace Jefferson, has warned that "charging kids with criminal offences for low-level behavioural issues" is helping to drive many of them to a life in jail. The Texas state legislature last year changed the law to stop the issuing of tickets to 10- and 11-year-olds over classroom behaviour. (In the state, the age of criminal responsibility is 10.) But a broader bill to end the practice entirely – championed by a state senator, John Whitmire, who called the system "ridiculous" – failed to pass and cannot be considered again for another two years. Even the federal government has waded in, with the US attorney general, Eric Holder, saying of criminal citations being used to maintain discipline in schools: "That is something that clearly has to stop.[...] "  

MSM: "Forced Military Testing in America's Schools" [01/10/12] "The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB is the military's entrance exam that is given to fresh recruits to determine their aptitude for various military occupations. The test is also used as a recruiting tool in 12,000 high schools across the country. The 3 hour test is used by military recruiting services to gain sensitive, personal information on more than 660,000 high school students across the country every year, the vast majority of whom are under the age of 18. Students typically are given the test at school without parental knowledge or consent. The school-based ASVAB Career Exploration Program is among the military's most effective recruiting tools. [...]"  Note: Yet, at the same time, the current administration is planning to let more than 500,000 military members go, to cut down 'expenses' .... but will they abandon this 'dossier' program for high school students? No.

Nuts and Boltz: "In Israel, Spate Of Ultra-Orthodox Incidents Rattle The Secular Mainstream" [01/10/12] " If they hadn't been stirred already by the female soldier who was called a "slut" on a public bus, or the 8-year-old girl spit on by neighbors on the way to school, the sight of Jewish protesters dressed up in concentration-camp garb seems to have pushed much of Israeli secular society over the edge. It happened last weekend, during a demonstration against what protesters perceived to be an unholy government incursion into their way of life: several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews staged a rally in Jerusalem, dressed as concentration camp victims. The protesters, part of an ultra-religious group known as Haredim, were dismayed that the government had taken down signs in their communities demanding that women walk on the opposite side of the street. Later, two ultra-Orthodox men were arrested for releasing fliers comparing the government's treatment of Haredim to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. "We made it through Hitler, and we will make it through his successor," one of the fliers read. Israel's top politicians expressed dismay. Elie Wiesel, the Israeli Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, called the whole thing a "vile sight." The protests were just the latest in a string of provocative incidents involving the Haredim, which have rattled Israel's secular mainstream. [...] "Ultra-Orthodox extremism has darkened our lives," Efraim Halevy, the former head of Israel's spy agency, Mossad, recently said. In the same remarks, he also described the Haredim as a greater threat to the nation than Iran. "I would use a different word," said Gideon Levy, a popular liberal columnist at Haaretz, when asked about the apparent anger toward the Haredim. "It's hatred. [...]"  Related: "Video: Israel’s Religious Divide" | "Israel Knesset Member Throws Water In Face Of Colleague" [2:24] "Anastassia Michaeli, a hawkish Israeli lawmaker, got so angry during a routine parliamentary debate Monday that she took a glass of water, tossed it at Labor Party backbencher Raleb Majadele and said "shame on you" before storming out. [...]"  Note: Mental instability abounds.

MSM: "Study Challenges Supreme Court’s Image as Defender of Free Speech" [01/09/12] "The Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the conventional wisdom goes, is exceptionally supportive of free speech. Leading scholars and practitioners have called the Roberts court the most pro-First Amendment court in American history. A recent study challenges that conclusion. It says that a comprehensive look at data from 1953 to 2011 tells a different story, one showing that the court is hearing fewer First Amendment cases and is ruling in favor of free speech at a lower rate than any of the courts led by the three previous chief justices. [...]"  

MSM: "FBI Allowed To Add GPS Device To Cars Without Warrants" [01/08/12] "The Supreme Court will soon weigh in on whether law enforcement agencies can monitor your every move without you knowing — and without a warrant. In Missouri, however, one judge isn’t waiting to find out their word. US Magistrate Judge David Noce ruled last week in favor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and determined that the FBI did not need a warrant in order to affix a GPS device to the car of a St. Louis man. Fred Robinson, 69, was accused of collecting $175,000 in compensation while on the payroll of the St. Louis City Treasurer’s Office. Authorities alleged that Robinson held a position in name only and actually avoided going into the office. To prove this, law enforcement agents didn’t just ask around City Hall or dispatch a few officers to go speak with staffers. Instead, the FBI installed a GPS device on Robinson’s car without ever notifying him or asking permission. The US Supreme Court will decide later this year if such action is allowable without obtaining a warrant. In the interim, Judge Noce says it is just fine. In his ruling, Judge Noce cited an earlier call from the Eighth Circuit Court that determined, “'when police have reasonable suspicion that a particular vehicle is transporting drugs, a warrant is not required when, while the vehicle is parked in a public place, they install a non-invasive GPS tracking device on it for a reasonable period of time.” In the case of Robinson, that is exactly what agents did. Or so they claim. Robinson’s attorneys insisted that their client’s First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated during the sting, but Judge Noce says that the installation of the tracker “was not a search.” Since the GPS device was installed in a way that the officers insist was non-invasive and planted in plain view of public, placing the monitor on Robinson’s Chevy Cavalier was entirely by-the-books.  [...]"  

Interviews: "The Secret History of Education in the United States: The Scientific Destruction of Minds" [01/07/12] [74:41] "Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt served as the head of policy at the Department of Education during the first administration of Ronald Reagan. While working there she discovered a long term strategic plan by the tax exempt foundations to transform America from a nation of rugged individualists and problem solvers to a country of servile, brainwashed minions who simply regurgitate whatever they're told. [...]"  

Trends: "The New American Dream: Rent, Don’t Buy" [01/07/12] "As more people move from owning to renting, apartment vacancy rates have fallen fast, from 8 percent in 2009 to 5.6 percent in third quarter 2011. That’s pushed up rents in all markets by 2.5 percent, including apartments and single-family homes, to an average of $846 nationwide, according to Local Market Monitor, a home price forecaster. For a two-bedroom dwelling, the average rent was at $1,020 in June 2011. Those trends are just the beginning, concludes a July report from investment bank Morgan Stanley: the United States is becoming a nation of renters and home ownership will keep falling. And that, say some experts, could be good for the country. This dramatic change, triggered by the 2008 housing collapse, has shifted people’s views of home ownership. The number of those who consider a home a safe investment fell from 83 percent in 2003 to 66 percent this year, according to a survey by Fannie Mae and two other organizations. In another poll last April, commissioned by real estate data firms RealtyTrac and Trulia, 40 percent of renters questioned said they plan never to buy a home. Another reason—many baby boom retirees don’t want the burden of home repairs, rising property taxes and other responsibilities.  [...]" 

Interviews: "Chris Hedges "Brace Yourself! The American Empire Is Over & The Descent Is Going To Be Horrifying" CSPAN [01/06/12] [120:54]    Note: A piece is also read out of one of his books which describes the nature of the reincarnated retreads that are running things.  See time reference 50:36 through 51:44. Hedges gets asked who controls the world and where it's going, absolute destruction of the ecosystem - 60:21 through 63:07. He gets asked about how the US is similar to Germany in the 1930's - 63:18 through 66:01. Hedges is working on a new book entitled "Days of Destruction - Days of Revolt" (June 2012) about 'sacrifice zones' in the US -  and the goal of corporations to convert the US into a state of oligarchic neo-feudalism, where the course of human lives is determined by the dictates of the market place. These 'sacrifice zones' are expanding, and two thirds of the country will be scrambling to survive - 70:09 through 72:43. Hedges is asked 73:21 about what to expect if Iran is attacked, and that it would be a huge mistake, and why (74:45 through 76:08) , leading to a regional conflict because an attack would be interpreted by the Arab world as being an attack on the Shia religion itself. Hedges comments on Ron Paul (112:38) and his pre-industrial ideology, which wants to 'gut government' but doesn't do anything to diminish the power of the corporate state, which is the prevailing problem. Hedges reiterates that people can serve either privilege and power or, justice and truth, but not both. He comments on the 'magical thinking' that pervades elements of society (116:04) which pervades the religious right, new age proponents and even corporatism itself, and how it's a 'myth' that is used to beat up on the poor and reduce society to a subsistence level, while blaming the poor for their condition, and how it is a callous and delusional corporate stance. Note2 : Describing the reincarnated retreads who 'run things', Hedges says: "Our elites - the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street, and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools - do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the education they have received, of how to replace a failed system with a new one. They are petty, timid, and uncreative bureaucrats superbly trained to carry out systems management. They see only piecemeal solutions that will satisfy the corporate structure. Their entire focus is numbers, profits, and personal advancement. They lack a moral and intellectual core. They are as able to deny gravely ill people medical coverage to increase company profits as they are to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly weapon systems to blood-soaked dictatorships. The democratic system, they believe, is a secondary product of the free market - which they lavishly serve." Chris Hedges, "Empire of Illusion - The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle", "Illusion of Wisdom". 

MSM: "U.S. Abandons Renewable Fuels" [01/06/12] "The U.S. government is ending a three-decade-old policy of subsidizing corn ethanol, dating back to the Carter administration, which in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran pushed development of alternative fuels to lessen U.S. dependence on oil from the Middle East. [...]" Note: More evidence that they're letting the infrastructure collapse by limiting the few alterative plans that existed.

Commentary: "Cop Types . . ." Lew Rockwell [01/06/12] "Bad laws attract bad people to enforce them – while pushing out the good (and semi-good) people. It’s a sort of Gresham’s Law as applied to human society. And more, a sort of authoritarian feedback loop that makes the situation progressively worse as time goes by. Consider the position of “law enforcer” in 2012 America. What does it entail? When we had peace officers, it mostly meant going after thugs – people who victimize others by threatening them with violence. Frauds and crooks, too. In brief, it meant going after those who violate the rights of others. It was – generally – an honorable way to earn one’s living. Most citizens therefore respected cops – or at least did not actively dislike and fear cops. Most cops were “ok.” They – generally – could be counted on to leave you alone unless you’d actually done something to warrant not being left alone. It was a quid pro quo that made sense no matter which side of the fence you happened to be on. Today, it is law enforcement that threatens harmless, morally (if not legally) innocent people with violence. The guy who, for example, grows a small batch of pot plants in his backyard (as opposed to the lawful citizen who brews his own beer). Or the seatbelt scofflaw – whose actions threaten harm to none except, perhaps, himself (and even then, only potentially). Or the farmer who sells “unapproved” milk to his neighbors. And the students who dare to exercise their right to peaceable assembly. The driver who declines to be a witness against himself and refuses to submit, sans warrant – and very often, sans probable cause – to a random stop and search of his vehicle and person. [...]"  

MSM: "Arizona Governor's Medical Marijuana Lawsuit Dismissed" [01/06/12] "A federal judge Wednesday threw out a lawsuit filed on behalf of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) that had blocked the implementation of the state's voter-approved medical marijuana dispensary program. Brewer and state health officials had sued to ask the court for clarification about whether the state's medical marijuana law was preempted by federal drug laws, saying they feared going forward would put state employees at risk of federal prosecution... [...]"  

Commentary:  "Senate Bill S 510 Food Safety Modernization Act Vote Imminent: Would Outlaw Gardening And Saving Seeds" [01/06/12] "Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, has been called "the most dangerous bill in the history of the United States of America." It would grant the U.S. government new authority over the public's right to grow, trade and transport any foods. This would give Big brother the power to regulate the tomato plants in your backyard. It would grant them the power to arrest and imprison people selling cucumbers at farmer's markets. It would criminalize the transporting of organic produce if you don't comply with the authoritarian rules of the federal government. [...]"  

MSM: "Seed Shortage Buries Hopes for Record Corn Crop" [01/06/12] "American farmers had been planning the biggest corn planting since World War II this spring, but they're being thwarted by a seed shortage. Drought conditions in the Midwest and Great Plains last year have caused what dealers in the corn belt say is the biggest shortage of top-quality seeds they've ever seen, the Wall Street Journal finds. Corn prices hit a record $8 a bushel last spring, and commodities brokers say another disappointing crop this year could send prices as high as $10. Big seed companies like Monsanto and DuPont downplayed the shortage, saying all it means is that some farmers may not be able to get their first seed choice. Suppliers may turn to South America for extra seed, but drought conditions have hurt the seed corn crop there as well. [...]"  

Commentary:  "The Outlook for the New Year: Tyranny in the Forecast" Paul Craig Roberts [01/05/12] "In March 2010, when I resigned from my column with Creator’s Syndicate and put down my pen, I received so many protests from readers that two months later I began writing again. This renewed activity has resulted in this new year in a website of my own. My columns will first appear on my site. Sites on which readers are accustomed to find my columns are permitted to continue to post my columns as long as they link to my site and indicate my copyright. The site will stay up if reader support justifies it. Otherwise, I will conclude that the cost of the site exceeds the value of what I have to say. This past year has not been a good one for the 99%, and the new year is likely to be even worse. This column deals with the outlook for liberty. The next will deal with the economic outlook. [...]"  

Commentary: "2012: Predictions of a Mad Tin Foiler" [01/05/12] "... The following forecasts are based on trends that are and have been developing for months and years. Some are more likely than others. Some may never come to pass. Others are events that have a high probability of coming to pass, perhaps in 2012 or in the next few years. Whatever the case, they are scenarios that are, in many cases, interrelated . So, if you see one come to fruition, the chance that another will take place grows exponentially. [...]"  

MSM: "US Water Infrastructure Going Down the Tubes" [01/04/12] " Water and sewer systems, among the most basic things needed to keep civilized society going, are in danger of falling apart across America. Around a quarter of drinking water already leaks from pipes before it reaches the faucet, and without urgent repairs to the vast majority of water systems—many of which should have been replaced decades ago—experts warn that water bills will skyrocket, water services in many regions will be routinely disrupted, and contamination caused by sewage bacteria will soar. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that another $9.4 billion needs to be spent every year between now and 2020, but with sewage systems out of sight, it is likely to be hard to sell the public on the need for higher taxes and fees to pay for repairs. "To me it’s the unseen catastrophe," the general manager of the DC Water and Sewer Authority tells the Washington Post. "My humble view is that the industry we’re in is the bedrock of civilization because it’s not just an infrastructure that is a convenience, that allows you to get to work faster or slower. At least with bridges or a road, people have some idea of what it is because they drive on them and see them." [...]"  

Resource: "List Of Cognitive Biases" [01/03/12] "A cognitive bias is a pattern of poor judgment, often triggered by a particular situation. Identifying "poor judgment," or more precisely, a "deviation in judgment," requires a standard for comparison, i.e. "good judgment". In scientific investigations of cognitive bias, the source of "good judgment" is that of people outside the situation hypothesized to cause the poor judgment, or, if possible, a set of independently verifiable facts. The existence of most of the particular cognitive biases listed below has been verified empirically in psychology experiments. Cognitive biases, like many behaviors, are influenced by evolution and natural selection pressure. Some are presumably adaptive and beneficial, for example, because they lead to more effective actions in given contexts or enable faster decisions, when faster decisions are of greater value for reproductive success and survival. Others presumably result from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms, i.e. a general fault in human brain structure, or from the misapplication of a mechanism that is adaptive (beneficial) under different circumstances. Cognitive bias is a general term that is used to describe many distortions in the human mind that are difficult to eliminate and that lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, or illogical interpretation. [...]"  Discussed are: 1 Decision-making and behavioral biases. 2 Biases in probability and belief. 3 Social biases 4 Memory errors and biases 5 Common theoretical causes of some cognitive biases 6 Methods for dealing with cognitive biases. All these constitute complex elements of the social environment. Of course, when we on levels of reality where we are telepathic, none of this exists. Language and other factors introduce these factors into experience at this level. Related: "Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed — How to Foolproof Your Mind" [The Anchoring Trap: Over-Relying on First Thoughts; The Status Quo Trap: Keeping on Keeping On; The Sunk Cost Trap: Protecting Earlier Choices; The Confirmation Trap: Seeing What You Want to See; The Incomplete Information Trap: Review Your Assumptions]   Part 2 [The Conformity Trap: Everybody Else Is Doing It; The Illusion of Control Trap: Shooting in the Dark; The Coincidence Trap: We Suck at Probabilities; The Recall Trap: Not All Memories Are Created Equal; The Superiority Trap: The Average is Above Average.]

UK: "Almost 1,000 Police Officers Have Criminal Records Including A Metropolitan Police Chief Inspector" [01/03/12] "More than 900 serving police officers and community support officers have a criminal record, official figures show. Forces across England and Wales employ policemen and women with convictions including burglary, causing death by careless driving, robbery, supplying drugs, domestic violence, forgery and perverting the course of justice. Those with criminal records include senior officers, among them two detective chief inspectors and one chief inspector working for the Metropolitan Police. At least 944 currently serving officers and police community support officers (PCSOs) have a conviction, according to figures released by 33 of the 43 forces in England and Wales in response to Freedom of Information requests. Many forces could not provide details of criminal records dating from before their staff joined the police, meaning the true figure will be significantly higher. The Metropolitan Police, Britain's largest force, came top with 356 officers and 41 PCSOs with convictions. It was followed by Kent Police (49), Devon and Cornwall Police (44), Essex Police (42), South Yorkshire Police (35), Hampshire Police (31) and West Midlands Police (27), although not all the figures are directly comparable. Most of the convictions are for traffic offences such as speeding and drink-driving, but the records also include a South Yorkshire Police officer convicted of fishing without a licence. Home Office guidelines issued in 2003 say police officers should have "proven integrity" because they are vulnerable to pressure from criminals to reveal information. The guidance says forces should reject potential recruits with convictions for serious offences - including causing actual bodily harm, burglary, dangerous driving and supplying drugs - unless there are "exceptionally compelling circumstances". [...]" 

UK: "Insidious Idleness: Labour Signal Step-Change In Attitude To Welfare" [01/03/12] "Labour have marked a step-change in their attitude to welfare, with shadow cabinet minister Liam Byrne saying it is time for his party to become "radical reformers" again. In an article for the Guardian to mark the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge report, the document that became the basis for the founding of the welfare state, Byrne says Beveridge considered "idleness" " every bit as insidious as disease or squalor". [...]"  Note: How about the insidious 'busywork' of the government politicians .... who feel they have the right to slice and dice 'society' at a whim.

MSM: "The 10 Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2011" [01/02/12] "We've all heard about crazy lawsuits and 2011 was no exception when it came to the filing of frivolous – even ridiculous – lawsuits. A lawsuit by a kidnapper against his victims for not helping him evade police tops the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform’s (ILR) survey of the Top Ten Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2011, released today. "While these lawsuits vary from the outrageous to the humorous, abusive litigation is hardly a laughing matter," said ILR President Lisa Rickard. "ILR's annual poll of ridiculous lawsuits helps to remind us that abusive lawsuits affect real people and real businesses, and can have harmful results to lives, jobs, and even our economic growth." ILR announced the top ten vote-getters from among those chosen throughout the year by visitors to the FacesOfLawsuitAbuse.org website. The lawsuits were selected from those featured in the website's monthly polls for 2011. The Faces of Lawsuit Abuse campaign is ILR's public awareness effort created to highlight the impact of abusive lawsuits on small businesses, communities, and individuals. The top ten Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2011 are: [...]"  

MSM: "Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops" [01/02/12] "A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test. “This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.” [...] New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training. Most Cops Just Above Normal: The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average. "  Note: And we see the result of the policy of using the less astute, who may be more likely to have a desire for power over others, to enforce 'laws' that are imposed on society that often have very little intelligence behind them, creating a burden on society, deliberately. If they're going to give them guns, they ought to give them to the most intelligent and rational, not the disturbed.

UK: "Government Creates £170m Fund To Help Older Patients Leave NHS Hospitals" [01/02/12] "Councils will get £1m each to spend on social care to reduce the number of elderly patients occupying beds longer than needed. The government will announce a further £170m funding for councils on Monday, to help them improve care and support for elderly people coming out of hospital. The boost comes after a healthcare thinktank warned that the NHS stood no chance of hitting its £20bn efficiency savings target unless steps were taken to curb a rise in elderly patients occupying hospital beds longer than necessary. Local government leaders welcome the one-off payment, which is to be spent over the next three months, but warn that the social care funding system cannot go on being patched up without fundamental reform. Of the £170m total, £150m will be divided among the 152 councils with social care responsibilities and will be allocated through NHS primary care trusts, which must agree how the money should best be spent to ease pressure on hospitals. The remaining £20m will be used to top up local funding pots for the disabled facilities grant, a means-tested award administered by councils to help with the cost of adaptations to enable people to continue living at home. All the cash is said to be coming from in-year savings in the Department of Health budget. The £20m extra for the disabled facilities grant is being passed to the Department for Communities and Local Government. [...]" 

Trends: "Americans Buy Record Numbers Of Guns For Christmas" [01/02/12] "According to the FBI, over 1.5 million background checks on customers were requested by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in December. Nearly 500,000 of those were in the six days before Christmas. It was the highest number ever in a single month, surpassing the previous record set in November. [...]"  

Trends: "Facebook Cited in 33% of Divorces" [01/02/12] "One-third of divorce filings based on unreasonable behavior are citing Facebook these days, and such filings are up by half over the past two years, says the law firm Divorce-Online. "People contact ex-partners and the messages start as innocent, but lead to trouble," says Mark Keenan, the firm's managing director. "If someone wants to have an affair or flirt with the opposite sex then it’s the easiest place to do it." The most common Facebook-related grievances: spouses writing flirtatious messages or appearing in photos that reveal a breach of marital trust, the Daily Mail reports. "If you are complaining that they have a drinking problem and they have posted statuses about going out on the razzle ... that could be used," one lawyer says. [...]"  Note: Step 1: Convince naive people to reveal their life in public, creating a dossier accessible to anyone. Step 2: There will be fallout.

Commentary: "Is The Fabric Of Industrialized Society Starting To Unravel?" [01/01/12] "This is one of the most important trends you'll see in 2012 and beyond: Global supply lines are breaking down. The just-in-time system of deliveries on tap is deteriorating. Have you noticed how often the products or parts you need are backordered or delayed? That's what I'm talking about. Try to order 3TB hard drives for data storage. You'll discover they're all back-ordered. When you order items from Amazon.com that are shipped by third party companies, they're often delayed due to sourcing problems. Even our own NaturalNews Store has suffered from sourcing challenges, where customer demand is much higher than the available supply, and the suppliers sometimes can't get us products in a timely manner. [...]"  

MSM: "Indiana Statehouse Surprise: Officials Limit Number Who Can Assemble" [01/01/12] "Indiana officials delivered an end-of-year surprise to state residents on Friday, announcing a limit on the number of people who can be inside the statehouse at any one time. Democratic and labor leaders swiftly condemned the move as an attempt to quash dissent and reduce the size of public protests. Effective Jan. 1, only 3,000 people will be allowed inside the building at one time. That number includes the 1,700 state employees who work there, meaning that just over 1,000 others will be able to assemble on a given day. The rule was drafted by the Indiana State Police, the state's homeland security department and the state fire marshal's office. Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) appointed the heads of all those offices. [...]"  

MSM: "Sleep-Deprived Police Endanger Public Safety" [12/31/11] Pg 2 "Nearly half of North American police officers might be suffering from a sleep disorder that could interfere with the safe execution of their duties. A survey of nearly 5,000 officers found that 40.4% of them screened positive for a sleep disorder, most of these undiagnosed. Those officers with a sleep disorder were significantly more likely to commit administrative errors, lose their temper with citizens, and even fall asleep while driving, Shantha M.W. Rajaratnam, Ph.D., and colleagues reported in the Dec. 21 issue of JAMA. [...]"  :

Commentary:  "The Number One Catastrophic Event That Americans Worry About: Economic Collapse" [12/31/11] "Can you guess what the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about is? There are certainly many to choose from. Many Americans are deathly afraid of a major terrorist attack. Others live in constant fear of natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. Still others are incredibly concerned that a massive pandemic will break out at any time or that World War III will erupt in the Middle East. Yes, there are certainly a lot of potential catastrophic events that one can worry about in the times in which we live, but the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about is actually "economic collapse". At least that is what a recent survey (PDF) conducted by Leiflin Inc. for the EcoHealth Alliance found. But this goes along with what so many other polls have found over the past few years. Over and over again, opinion polls have found that the number one issue that American voters are concerned about is the economy. The truth is that average Americans are deeply, deeply concerned about unemployment, debt, the housing crash and the steady decline in the standard of living. It has been years since the U.S. economy has operated at a "normal" level, and many Americans are afraid that things could soon get a whole lot worse. [...]" Note: This side of 2013, I don't see this being the case, largely.

Commentary:  "Daily Deals Sites Offering Cheaper Healthcare For Uninsured Americans" [12/31/11] "... Daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are best known for offering limited-time discounts on a variety of discretionary goods and services including restaurant meals, wine tastings, spa visits and hotel stays. The discounts are paid for upfront and then it's up to the customer to book an appointment and redeem a coupon before it expires. Merchants like the deals because it gives them exposure and a pop in business. Customers use them to try something new, to save money on something they already use, or both. The sites are increasingly moving beyond little luxuries like facials and vacations and offering deals that are helping some people fill holes in their health insurance coverage. Visitors to these sites are finding a growing number of markdowns on health care services such as teeth cleanings, eye exams, chiropractic care and even medical checkups. They're also offering deals on elective procedures not commonly covered by health insurers, such as wrinkle-reducing Botox injections and vision-correcting Lasik eye surgery. About one out of every 11 deals offered online is for a health care service, according to data compiled by DealRadar.com, a site that gathers and lists 20,000 deals a day from different websites. [...]" 

MSM: "Struggling US Cities Turn Off The Lights" [12/31/11] "For a number of cities across the US, troubled local economies have led to dark times—literally. From Oregon to Illinois to California, struggling towns have found themselves forced to turn off, and often completely remove, local streetlights. And with winter shortening daylight hours, citizens are none too pleased by the change. "I don’t go out to get gas at night. I don’t run to any stores. I try to do everything in the daytime and to be back before night falls," says a woman in Highland Park, Mich. Just 500 of 1,600 streetlights remain shining in the town, which sits next to Detroit. The result: "It’s just too dark," says a minister. And while other budget cuts may fly under the radar for many, a lack of light is something everyone notices, the New York Times notes. Officials say it can't be helped. "It’s like your own budget at home—we can’t afford this anymore," says an Illinois town's public works chief. Locals are turning to their own outdoor lamps, from porch lights to Christmas lights. "What happened to our streetlights is what happens when politicians lose hope," adds the minister. "All kinds of crazy decisions get made, and citizens lose faith in the process.” [...]" 

MSM: "ID Errors Put Hundreds In County Jail" [12/30/11] "Hundreds of people have been wrongly imprisoned inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department jails in recent years, with some spending weeks behind bars before authorities realized those arrested were mistaken for wanted criminals, a Times investigation has found. The wrongful incarcerations occurred more than 1,480 times in the last five years. They were the result of a variety of factors, including officials' overlooking fingerprint evidence and working off incomplete records. The errors are so common that in some years people were jailed because of mistaken identity an average of once a day. Many of those wrongly held inside the county's lockups had the same names as criminals or had their identities stolen -- problems that took days or weeks for authorities to sort out. In one case, a mechanic held for nine days in 1989 on a warrant meant for someone else was detained again 20 years later on the same warrant. He was jailed for more than a month the second time before the error was discovered. In another instance, a Nissan customer service supervisor was hauled by authorities from Tennessee to L.A. County on a local sex-crimes warrant meant for someone with a similar name. In a third case, a former construction worker mistaken for a wanted drug offender said he was assaulted by inmates and ignored by jailers.[...]"  

MSM: "Israel: Pay That Cell Phone Bill Or Else" [12/30/11] "You arrive at the airport ready for a flight, but are abruptly pulled aside and detained. A routine traffic stop by the police leaves you stranded by the side of the road without your driver’s license. You whip out your credit card to pay for a restaurant bill, and the maître d’ quietly rejects and confiscates your card. If you are very lucky, a repo man shows up at your house and impassively delivers an injunction: your bank account has a lean on it. Your life insurance has been cashed out and decimated. What’s going on in Israel, where every month, thousands of surprised citizens face these predicaments? A Knesset law passed in mid-2010 has enabled banks and large companies to access previously classified private information relating to debtors’ lives and to enact draconian measures, often unannounced. [...]" 

Trends: "Petitions With Over 350,000 Signatures To Legalize Marijuana Submitted In Washington State" [12/30/11] [0:25]   Note: December 29, 2011 KING 5 News. It doesn't look like this social issue will ever be resolved. There is too much money being made with the status quo. 

MSM: "Homeland Security Grants To Cities Soon To Suffer More Deep Cuts, Leaving Cities On Their Own" [12/30/11] "... Now, a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, deep cuts in funding for the Department of Homeland Security's Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) threaten to leave those cities and dozens of other smaller population centers without the money to maintain programs into which the federal government has already sunk millions of tax dollars. It's already happened in Tucson. In October, the city shut down the reverse 911 notification system paid for with UASI funds. Police have advised residents to check for alerts on Twitter -- even though most don't use the social networking site. Advocates for continued funding warn of a not-too-distant future filled with mothballed, broken and outdated equipment; unemployed and expensively trained intelligence analysts; and fewer training exercises for first responders. A recent report by the UASI managers group argued that the federal government has "an equity stake" in improved local and state radio communications, information sharing, hazardous material response and regional planning and that it is not in the interests of taxpayers to see them "wither and eventually evaporate over time." [...]"  Note: This was predictable, and it is a way of withdrawing support from local law enforcement, which will ultimately mean their inability to 'deal with' events, allowing things to spiral out of control more rapidly, providing an excuse for intervention by the military or contracted mercenaries, which will have a punitive impact on the population. All of this while retaining funds in order to protect those running the control establishment, as they flounder, immaturely trying to construct immortality strategies based on external deference.

MSM: "California Earthquake Records Destroyed: State's Seismic Regulators Erase Electronic Information" [12/30/11] "The office that regulates California school construction routinely destroyed key documents that might have shed light on its lax enforcement of earthquake safety standards – despite a binding agreement it has with the State Archives to preserve public records. For the past five years, the Division of the State Architect has erased the entire computer hard drives and copies of records saved on computer servers within a month of an employee's departure. Those records included all e-mail correspondence, directives, meeting notes and minutes, policy documents, and appointment calendars. Such records help explain how enforcement decisions were developed and carried out. The retention agreement between the two offices shows that state regulators were not allowed to destroy correspondence and meeting minutes from its top managers without clearance from the State Archives. The records should have been saved for at least four years and then transferred to the State Archives, according to the retention documents. The destroyed documents take on greater significance now that the state architect's office has come under scrutiny for its lax enforcement and questionable application of seismic safety standards. In reporting about the state's system of oversight, California Watch was able to obtain some of these documents through other sources – before records were destroyed. But there is no way to know how many records have been forever lost. [...]"  

UK: "Sharp Rise In Social Care Fees A Stealth Tax " [12/30/11] "There has been a sharp rise in the cost of council services for elderly and disabled people, Labour has warned. Data obtained from 93 out of 153 councils in England showed fees for meals on wheels has gone up by 13% this year, while transport has risen by 33%. The survey also found huge regional variations in the charges, which Labour says have become a stealth tax. The government said local authorities were responsible for non-residential care and changes should be affordable. [...] More than 500,000 people receive some form of home help from councils. Some of those will be paying for it while those with savings of below £13,000 get it completely free. The data showed charges for home care, such as helping washing and dressing, now stood at £13.49 an hour - a rise of 6% in two years. It means the average person, which is classed as someone getting 10 hours support a week, pays over £7,000 a year if they do not qualify for state help.[...]"  

Commentary: "The Obama Nation: Even More Debt And Even More Store Closings" [12/29/11] "Well, it is time to raise the debt ceiling again. Right now we are about to hit the current limit of $15.194 trillion and the Obama administration is going to ask that it be raised by another 1.2 trillion dollars. Unfortunately, Congress has already promised not to stand in the way, and so soon the debt limit will be raised to a staggering $16.394 trillion. Considering how much debt we have already placed on the backs of future generations, what is another 1.2 trillion dollars? After all, if we are going to sell our children and our grandchildren into debt slavery, we might as well go all the way, right? Such is the thinking in "the Obama Nation". During "the Obama Nation", the federal government has already accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office. Of course the Bush administration was nearly as bad at piling up government debt. Between Bush and Obama (with a big helping hand from the Federal Reserve), they have done a pretty good job of wiping out the financial future of the United States. If there are future generations of Americans, they will look back and curse those that did this to them. It is absolutely immoral to steal trillions of dollars from future generations. Unfortunately, there are very, very few members of Congress that are even objecting to this madness.  [...] In the middle of this "economic recovery" that Obama keeps talking about a staggering number of retail stores are closing up shop. The following is a list of store closings in 2011 that I recently found. The first number represents the total number of stores being closed for each chain....[...]"  

UK: "Pawn Shop Booming In These Hard Economic Times" [12/29/11] "Albemarle & Bond hailed "the age of the pawnbroker" on Tuesday as it unveiled plans to create 300 jobs by opening 25 new stores in 2012. The group, which has 169 stores and 38 gold-buying "pop-up" shops, said it will take advantage of lower high street rents to open the outlets in 2012. Albemarle said it has benefited as banks tightened their lending criteria, "failing to provide people with straightforward and inexpensive ways to borrow".  [...]" 

MSM: "More Unemployed Turn to Social Security Disability" [12/29/11] "The ranks of Americans collecting Social Security Disability Insurance payments have swelled dramatically in recent years, and that may be because more people are turning to the program when they can’t find work, the Wall Street Journal reports. Some 10.6 million Americans are now on the program, compared to 7.2 million in 2002. And one recent study shows that the jobless are much more likely to enter the program after they’ve used up their unemployment benefits. SSDI is supposed to help people who are too injured to work, but the Journal suspects some are using it as secondary unemployment. For example, it spoke to one 62-year-old with hearing aids that had never prevented her from working before who’d turned to it when unable to find a job. The program’s administrator sees the phenomenon as natural. “When employment is good … people with impairments, like everyone else, find it easier to find a job,” he told Congress this month. [...]" 

Interviews: "Archbishop of Canterbury Warns of Imminent Collapse of Great Britain" Press TV [12/29/11] [23:36] Note: Webster Tarpley is interviewed by Press TV. Link Fixed.

Cultural Studies: "Ten Plotlines You’ll Find in Science Fiction — Over and Over Again" [12/28/11] "Science fiction is a genre of limitless possibilities, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few ideas writers keep coming back to as trusty old standbys. Here are ten of science fiction’s most common tropes…and how they’ve evolved. Obviously, no list like this can ever be considered comprehensive, and we could probably do dozens of sequels to this post. But what we want to examine here are some of the most common building blocks of science fiction stories. For each trope, we explain where it came from, what cemented it as an iconic part of science fiction, and some of the things modern storytellers are doing to keep it and interesting. So, let’s take a look… [...]"  

MSM: "Virginity Tests’ On Egypt Protesters Are Illegal, Says Judge" [12/28/11] "Forced “virginity tests” on female detainees were ruled illegal in Egypt on Tuesday, after a court ordered an end to the practice. Hundreds of activists were in the Cairo courtroom to hear the judge, Aly Fekry, say the army could not use the test on women held in military prisons in a case filed by Samira Ibrahim, one of seven women subjected to the test after being arrested in Tahrir Square during a protest on 9 March. Fekry, head of the Cairo administrative court, decreed that what happened to Ibrahim and six other detainees was illegal and any similar occurrence in the future would also be considered illegal. The court is expected to issue a further injunction against such tests and decree that the test was completely illegal, opening the door for financial compensation. [...]"  

RT Interview: "CIA Involved In Occupy Wall Street Crackdown?" [12/28/11]   [7:42] "We have all witnessed the massive police crackdown on the Occupy Wall Street Movement whether it be in Oakland, San Fransisco, or New York City. Many have wondered who was behind these seemingly coordinated, militarized police crackdowns and what motive they would have in stifling the free speech of American citizens. While the Department of Homeland Security was the more obvious culprit,(and still is) it seems that the CIA may have played a larger part than previously known. The CIA’s connection to the NYPD has already been heavily documented which adds even more credence to the possibility that they illegally infiltrated a domestic political movement. The Partnership for Civil Justice recently filed multiple Freedom of Information requests after seeing the massive military style crackdown on the protests. The answer they received from the Central Intelligence Agency made their position startling clear: “They wrote back saying that they would refuse to process the request basically on the grounds that if the CIA had any involvement it would have been illegal for it to have involvement and therefore their record system is not constructed in a way that they could possibly search for their involvement,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of PFCJ. Mara went on to note that they could have easily written back a different request, even one that stated that they did not have any records yet they chose to essentially say that they cannot tell the public if there are records because if there were they would be illegal. The idea that Federal agencies were NOT involved in the clearly coordinated attack on OWS is absurd and the people of America must support legal action against any government agency refusing to turn over their records on the brutal crackdown of a largely peaceful protest movement. [...]"  

MSM: "US Cities Struggle to Control Sewer Overflows" [12/28/11] "But the price of progress is becoming too high for local governments, with the bad economy cutting into tax revenues and residents rebelling against higher water and sewer rates. Responding to pleas for leniency, the Obama administration is promising more flexibility as hard-pressed cities look for less conventional and cheaper ways to reduce overflows. [...]"  

MSM: "Sears Holdings Will Close One Hundred Sears and KMart Stores" [12/28/11] "After a disastrous holiday shopping season, the parent company of Sears and Kmart will close at least 100 stores to raise cash — a move that sparked speculation about whether the 125-year-old retailer can avoid a death spiral fed by declining sales and deteriorating stores. Sears Holdings Corp., a pillar of American retailing that famously began with a mail-order catalog in the 1880s, declared Tuesday that it would no longer prop up “marginally performing” locations. The company pledged to refocus its efforts on stores that make money. Sears’ stock quickly plunged, dropping 27 percent. [...]"  

Commentary:  "Hungarian Government Passes Authoritarian New Laws" [12/28/11] "Just before the Christmas break, the Hungarian parliament passed a number of authoritarian and nationalistic laws. The new laws are unpopular with the population, as well as with international financial institutions. [...] Last Friday, police intervened violently at a demonstration against the government's new laws. The protest involved several thousand participants and took place in front of the parliament building in Budapest. Many opposition figures were arrested, including eleven members of the LMP who chained themselves to the railings of the parliament building. "  [...]   Public and private television is now subject to the government. Balazs Nagy Navarro, the Chairman of the Television and Film Makers Independent Trade Union (TFSZ), and his deputy, Aranka Szavuly, began a hunger strike last week to protest the continuous manipulation of the public news broadcaster MTV. Significant numbers of youth joined the protest. Economic laws were also passed by the parliament. The flat tax which came into effect this year has been enshrined in constitutional law. Thus, the 16-percent tax may in future only be abolished or amended by a two-thirds parliamentary majority. This makes it very difficult for future governments to affect any change. The law was passed against the explicit wish of the European Union. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso sharply criticized the measure, because it prevents governments from making new budget cuts quickly. There has also been criticism of the fact that Hungary's balanced budget amendment (the “debt brake”) only becomes binding in 2016, instead of 2012. The declared aim of the debt brake is to reduce the country's budget deficit from the current level of 80 percent to less than 50 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). [...]"  

Commentary: "6 Ways Parents, Society and the Educational System Foster Psychopathic Behavior in Kids" [12/27/11] "Each day around this nation, and indeed the world, one can find endless stories of horrific animal cruelty---torture and murder so vile it defies imagination---conceived of and carried out by kids as young as 3 years old. There appears to be a proliferation of fresh-faced psychopaths, spawning faster than the poisonous spores of a Frankenstenian experiment gone awry. Why and how does such evil take root? The problem is pervasive and multifaceted, but the most obvious cause for such blatant disregard for life is a lack of compassion and empathy passed on from parent to child. Generations of individuals perpetuating cruelty toward non-humans based on a multitude of flawed and erroneous notions, including the following: [...]" 

Legal Case: "Judge Hears Arguments on Sheriff Arpaio's Sweeps" [12/27/11] "Arizona. A two-hour hearing in a lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio began Thursday with a federal judge warning, "This is not a press conference," and with Tim Casey, representing co-defendant Maricopa County, conceding that its Sheriff's Office has "no inherent authority to enforce federal civil immigration law." U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow heard arguments on whether Arpaio's enforcement of immigration and human-smuggling law resulted in racial profiling and unreasonable searches of five Latinos. [...] The five plaintiffs in the 4-year-old lawsuit were detained by sheriff's deputies during "so-called 'crime suppression sweeps'" to enforce the state's human-smuggling law by "using pretextual and unfounded stops, racially motivated questioning, searches and other mistreatment," according to their complaint. The plaintiffs claim these sweeps "resulted in almost no arrests under the human smuggling statute." "Claiming authority under a limited agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that actually prohibits the practices challenged here, defendants have launched a series of massive so-called 'crime suppression sweeps' that show a law enforcement agency operating well beyond the bounds of the law," the complaint states. "During these sweeps, which have shown no signs of abating since defendants began them in September 2007, large numbers of MCSO officers and volunteer 'posse' members under defendants' direction and control have targeted Latino persons for investigation of immigration status, using pretextual and unfounded stops, racially motivated questioning, searches and other mistreatment, and often baseless arrests. [...]"  

Media and Culture: "Subversive" Chinese Writer Gets 9 Years in Prison" [12/26/11] "A Chinese writer has been hit with a nine-year jail sentence for "inciting subversion of state power" after he posted online essays demanding free speech and government reform, reports the BBC. The sentence follows a two-hour, closed-door trial that Chen Wei's wife called "a performance" whose outcome was settled beforehand. Chen was one of hundreds detained following an online movement for Chinese protests echoing the Arab Spring, dubbed the Jasmine Revolution. The sentence, accompanied by an additional two years in which Chen will be stripped of his political rights, is among the toughest faced in connection with the movement, the BBC notes. The writer's wife said he "did criticize the Communist Party, but that's stating the facts. That is not subversion." [...]" 

MSM: "The U.S. Cities That Gained And Lost The Most Jobs" [12/26/11] "Of the five cities that lost the most jobs, only two saw an increase in unemployment. Surprisingly, the sharpest drop in unemployment was in Vancouver, Washington, a city that lost the fifth most jobs as percentage of the total number of workers. Vancouver lost more than 1,500 jobs, but its labor force decreased by nearly 6,000, mostly from those looking for work.  [...]"  

MSM: "UK: Struggling Families Face Astronomical Interest On Loans" [12/25/11] "The queues forming outside credit unions to arrange loans show the extra stress that Christmas is bringing to already hard-pressed workers and their families in the UK. Credit unions are co-operatives controlled by their members and have to have a “common bond”. These used to be for workers from one factory, business or social club, but that remit has now widened. They have seen their customer base increase by over 20 percent in the last year. Members do not get a loan straight away but have to save for a period with the union and then, if agreed, they can have a loan at a low interest rate. The sole benefit of using the co-operative credit unions for many is that they will not face the astronomical interest repayments that some loan firms charge. “Pay Day” loans are the most notorious with interest rates of 5,000 percent if the whole amount is not repaid in one month. The firms involved excuse their rates by claiming that they represent a penalty because the loan was only meant to be short-term, hence its name. However, when faced with repayment difficulties many borrowers are offered “rollovers”, to extend their loan for months at a time, incurring huge costs. One £80 loan escalated into £600 over a couple of months. Research by Consumer Focus last year showed the number of payday loan users rose from 300,000 in 2006 to 1.2 million in 2009. That figure has now doubled to 4 million, according to some recent estimates, as the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government’s austerity measures bite, with rising unemployment, inflation and pay cuts and freezes. [...]" 

Trends: "Mentally Ill Flood ER As States Cut Services" [12/25/11] "Across the country, doctors like Sullivan are facing a spike in psychiatric emergencies - attempted suicide, severe depression, psychosis - as states slash mental health services and the country's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression takes its toll. This trend is taxing emergency rooms already overburdened by uninsured patients who wait until ailments become acute before seeking treatment. "These are people without a previous psychiatric history who are coming in and telling us they've lost their jobs, they've lost sometimes their homes, they can't provide for their families, and they are becoming severely depressed," said Dr. Felicia Smith, director of the acute psychiatric service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. [...]"  

Commentary:  "Occupy LA Protesters To Avoid Prosecution By Paying $355 For Free Speech Classes" [12/25/11] "The city will not press charges against those who complete a course outlining their rights under the First Amendment. Protesters described the offer as "patronising." They also objected to money paid for the course going to a private contractor. More than 350 people have been arrested since an Occupy camp was set up outside City Hall in Los Angeles in October to protest about corporate greed. The camp has now been removed. The deal to avoid prosecution was offered to those arrested for minor offences including failure to disperse. Lawyers for the city, who have faced severe budget cutbacks, hoped it would save money by allowing them not to pursue large numbers of court cases. [...]"  

Trends:  "Sweden Legalizes And Regulates Cannabis" [12/24/11] "The Swedish Parliament has approved a law which will regulate the growing, usage and trade of cannabis. This is according to the Health and Social Services of Sweden, Jonas Grönhög, who was quoted, "We don't want to make the same mistakes which the USA has done, we do not want to be prohibitionists because the war on drugs has been lost long ago. It is better to prevent marginalization of young people than jail them for soft drugs usage which are comparatively harmless. If we allow the sale of alcohol, there is no reason to ban the soft drugs no longer." [...]" 

Commentary: "Christmas Of Crisis In America" [12/23/11] "America at Christmas 2011 is a society of mass poverty, on the one hand, and vast wealth accumulation, on the other—tens of millions of people are poor and desperate, while a relative handful enjoy riches undreamt of by the Egyptian pharaohs or the aristocracy of Louis XIV. Government agencies and social service groups document the tidal wave of human need in statistics that are increasingly mind-boggling: 50 million Americans live below the official poverty line, while another 100 million live in “near-poverty,” struggling to support themselves on incomes so low that they are one misfortune away from destitution. Some 25 million workers are either unemployed or underemployed, 50 million live without health insurance, one out of every seven Americans receives food stamps. The number of self-employed Americans has fallen by two million over the past five years. Nearly six million of the jobless have been out of work for more than six months. The jobs crisis has steadily worsened, not only year-to-year, but decade after decade. American capitalism continues to generate record corporate profits and wealth for the super-rich, but is less and less able to provide employment for working people. According to a study by the McKinsey consulting firm, it took six months for the US economy to return to pre-recession job levels after the 1982 recession. After the 1991 recession, the recovery in jobs required 15 months. After the 2001 recession, it took 39 months. Some 48 months have already passed since the current slump in the labor market began, and there are six million fewer people employed than in December 2007. McKinsey initially forecast that it would take 60 months before jobs regained the level of 2007, but at the current level of job creation, it would take 78 months to reach the level of 146 million workers employed before the onset of the recession—assuming that there is no further deepening of the economic slump. [...]"  

MSM: "US House Votes Down Extension Of Unemployment Benefits" [12/23/11] "By a vote of 229-193, the US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted down a Senate compromise bill for a two-month extension of federal jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed as well as a payroll tax cut. More than three-and-a-half million people stand to lose unemployment benefits in early 2012 if no agreement is reached. Members of the Senate have already left for their holiday break and the House is not scheduled to reconvene until January 17. Whatever the outcome of the current impasse in Washington, the very fact that the US Congress could vote down—only days before Christmas—minimal relief to millions of people devastated by the worst economic slump since the Great Depression exposes this body for what it is: a hardened enemy of the working class. [...]" 

MSM: "Washington State Deepens Austerity Measures" [12/23/11] "Washington State Democratic Party Governor Christine Gregoire smiled and joked as she signed the first in a series of budget reductions Wednesday. The legislation imposes $480 million in cuts to education, mental health, state parks and other departments. The Governor noted that the millions in reductions she signed on Wednesday is just “a down payment,” and that she expects the state legislators to return in January, “Tan, rested and ready,” to complete the job of cutting an additional $1.5 billion. [...]"  

Media and Culture: "USA Land Of The Free Jails One In 100 American Adults" [12/22/11] [3:36] "America has 2.3 million people in prison -- more than any other country. More than one in 100 adults are in jail. No society in history has imprisoned more of its citizens. 1 in 9 black men aged between 20 and 34 is behind bars. There are more 17-year-old black American males in jail than in college. America has five percent of the world's population but 25% of its prisoners. And prison labour is now a huge industry, producing an enormous range of goods, not least for the US military. It is in effect a revival of the slave trade. Britain can't compete but is no slouch either, locking up more of its population -- 148 per 100,000 -- than any other European country, and more than China, India or Turkey. [...]" Note: Interesting clip.

MSM: "Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Sued By Undocumented Woman Shackled During Labor " [12/22/11] "... Though both the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have denounced the practice of shackling during childbirth, it's still legal in 36 states, according to Michelle Brané, head of Women's Refugee Commission, who heads a project on shackling legislation. The Federal Bureau of Prisons and the United States Marshal's Service have also eliminated the practice. In 2008 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit found shackling during child birth to constitute cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. In September "The Colbert Report" drew attention to the practice of shackling women in deportation proceedings during childbirth in a segment called "Labor Chains" after The Huffington Post reported about the topic. [...]"  Note: A lot of barbarism comes from reincarnated retreads who are both immature and sadistic, although minion 'authorities' behave like animals because they are, essentially, in terms of spirit path. No empathy or compassion there. The type of people who gravitate to power over others in a physical way.

UK: "Homeless People In The UK Revealed To Have Life Expectancy Of Just 47" [12/21/11] "... According to government figures highlighted by Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity, there are currently 69,846 children in England living in temporary accommodation such as hostels, bed and breakfasts and refuges. With waiting lists lengthening and the government's cuts to housing benefit, there are worries that swelling numbers living in temporary shelter will become a permanent feature. [...]" 

MSM: "Swedes Arrested For Butter Smuggling" [12/20/11] "Two Swedes have been arrested by Norwegian police for smuggling more than 250kg of butter into the country, offloading one consignment for more than £25 a packet. The two men, from the Northern city of Umea, managed to make their first delivery before a police patrol stopped their van on Saturday evening.  [...]"  Related: "Norway Butter Shortage: Online Sellers Offer 1 Pound For Up To $465" [12/13/11] "An acute butter shortage in Norway, one of the world’s richest countries, has left people worrying how to bake their Christmas goodies with store shelves emptied and prices through the roof. The shortfall, expected to last into January, amounts to between 500 and 1,000 tonnes, said Tine, Norway’s main dairy company, while online sellers have offered 500-gramme packs for up to 350 euros ($465). The dire shortage poses a serious challenge for Norwegians who are trying to finish their traditional Christmas baking — a task which usually requires them to make at least seven different kinds of biscuits. The shortfall has been blamed on a rainy summer that cut into feed production and therefore dairy output, but also the ballooning popularity of a low-carbohydrate, fat-rich diet that has sent demand for butter soaring. “Compared to 2010, demand has grown by as much as 30 percent,” Tine spokesman Lars Galtung told AFP. Last Friday, customs officers stopped a Russian at the Norwegian-Swedish border and seized 90 kilos (198 pounds) of butter stashed in his car. [...]"  

Commentary: "Texas: Growth Of Large Private Water Companies Brings Higher Water Rates" [12/20/11] "When Robert White opened his water bill last month, his jaw dropped: $250 for a month's worth of water and sewer service. The 63-year-old construction contractor, who shares a three-bedroom home with his wife in the bucolic Springbrook Centre subdivision, said he likes to keep his lawn green and expects hefty water bills. "I just don't want to be hijacked," he said.White's water service is provided by a private utility owned by California-based SouthWest Water Co. LLC. Just across the four-lane Pflugerville Parkway, where White's neighbors in the Springbrook Glen subdivision — a nearly identical grid of neatly arranged brick-faced homes — get their water from Pflugerville, rates are on average about 60 percent less. And White's bill for water service may nearly double soon, if SouthWest Water gets the latest rate increase it has requested. "I have never felt so helpless," he said. [...]" 

Commentary: "Christopher Hitchens: One Man's Service In The War Against Delusion" [12/19/11] "... Last October, Christopher Hitchens received the Atheist Alliance of America's Richard Dawkins award. This is an edited version of his acceptance speech [...] "I suppose I should close now because I've said all I wanted to say for myself... In the meantime we have the same job we always had, to say, as thinking people and as humans, that there are no final solutions, there is no absolute truth, there is no supreme leader, there is no totalitarian solution that says that if you will just give up your freedom of inquiry, if you would just give up, if you will simply abandon your critical faculties, a world of idiotic bliss can be yours. We have to begin by repudiating all such claims – grand rabbis, chief ayatollahs, infallible popes, the peddlers of mutant quasi-political worship, the dear leader, great leader, we have no need of any of this. And looking at them and their record I realise it is they who are the grand imposters, and my own imposture this evening was mild by comparison."   Related: Richard Dawkins Christopher Hitchens: Texas Free Thought Conference 2011  [30:06] (Full Event)

MSM: "While Using Excessive Force, Cop Is Caught On Camera Planting Drugs On Citizen" [12/19/11] [2:03] "Cookeville TN Cops get caught on dash cam planting dope on a person pulled over for a domestic charge. [...]"  

UK: "England Riots: Police Operation 'Flawed' Say Mps" [12/19/11] "... Lessons from the disturbances of August 2011 report said flooding the streets with police what what ultimately quelled the disorder. "If numbers could have been increased more rapidly, it is possible that some of the disturbances could have been avoided," it said. "We regret this did not happen and, with the benefit of hindsight, we regard the operation to police the disorder in many towns and cities, and particularly in London as flawed." [...]"  Note: The usual lack of maturity exhibited by those who put themselves 'in control'.

UK: "Former Lovers Of Undercover Officers Sue Police Over Deceit" [12/18/11] "Eight women who say they were duped into forming long-term loving relationships with undercover policemen have started legal action against police chiefs, alleging that they have suffered intense emotional trauma and pain. The women say the men "deliberately and knowingly deceived" them into forming intimate relationships of up to nine years by concealing their real identities. They say the men, who had been sent to infiltrate protest groups, were using them "physically and emotionally" to obtain intelligence about those campaigns. In an unprecedented move, they are now threatening to sue police chiefs as they say that the "deeply degrading" deceit caused them psychiatric and psychological injuries including depression, trauma, anxiety, anger and a difficulty to trust people again. In legal papers sent to police chiefs, the women outline the scale of the alleged deception, saying that the relationships with five named men spanned from 1987 to last year. It is the first time that two of the men have been accused of being police spies. The allegations contradict claims by police chiefs that their undercover officers are not permitted "under any circumstances" to sleep with people they are spying on. Police chiefs claim it is "grossly unprofessional" and "never acceptable" for undercover officers to have sex with people they are targeting. The women were involved in the campaigns being infiltrated or loosely connected to them. [...]"  

MSM: "Feds: 'Excessive Force' By Seattle Cops Must Stop" [12/18/11] "A 10-month investigation by the U.S. Justice Department has found the Seattle Police Department "engages in a pattern of unnecessary and excessive force" in "violation of the Fourth Amendment," federal officials announced Friday. According to the Justice Department report, Seattle police use force in an "unconstitutional manner nearly 20 percent of the time" and "too quickly resort to the use of impact weapons, such as batons and flashlights." U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan announced the findings at a Friday morning press conference. She was joined by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, who flew to Seattle to publicize the findings. "Our findings should serve as a foundation to reform the police department and to help restore the community's confidence in fair, just and effective law enforcement. The problems within SPD have been present for many years and will take time to fix," Perez said.[...]"  Related: "Department Of Justice Finds Widespread Use Of Excessive Force By Seattle Police"   [1:58]

MSM: "US Poverty-News Analysis" Press TV [12/18/11] [25:34] "Half of the people in the US are either poor or low income: one would guess this to be true of a third world country, but such is the case for Americans in the US, in which nearly 1 in 2 Americans have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. In this News Analysis, we will discuss how the US, to have had the lead in consumerism, has fallen to this deep low, and whether it has fallen victim to the banksters and corporate greed representing the 1%. [...]"   Related: See "Census Data: Half Of U.S. Poor Or Low Income" [12/16/11] below.

Commentary: "As Banks Start Nosing Around Facebook and Twitter, the Wrong Friends Might Just Sink Your Credit" [12/18/11]   "Let’s take a trip with the Ghost of Christmas Future. The year is 2016, and George Bailey, a former banker, now a part-time consultant, is looking for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage for a co-op in the super-hot neighborhood of Bedford Falls (BeFa). He has never missed a loan payment and has zero credit card debt. He submits his information to the online-only PotterBank.com, but halfway through the application process, the website asks for his Facebook login. Then his Twitter. Then LinkedIn. The cartoon loan officer avatar begins to frown as the algorithm discovers Mr. Bailey’s taxi-driving buddy Ernie was once turned down by PotterBank for a loan; then it starts browsing his daughter Zuzu’s photo album, “Saturday Nite!” And what was this tweet from a few years back: “FML, about to jump off a goddamn bridge”? A new wave of startups is working on algorithms gathering data for banks from the web of associations on the internet known as “the social graph,” in which people are “nodes” connected to each other by “edges.” Banks are already using social media to befriend their customers, and increasingly, their customers’ friends. The specifics are still shaking out, but the gist is that eventually, social media will account for at least the tippy-top of the mountain of data banks keep on their customers. [...]"  

Trends: "Increasingly, Smoking Indoors Is Forbidden At Public Housing" [12/18/11] "In 2004, the Auburn Maine Housing Authority became the first authority in Maine and one of the first in the country to ban smoking in public housing, and it has served as a model. On Jan. 1, Maine will become the first state in the country in which all of its public housing authorities are smoke free, affecting about 12,000 tenants. Similar policies are being adopted with increasing frequency across the country as cities move aggressively to restrict smoking in more public places, from bars and restaurants to parks, beaches and vehicles. Come September, Boston will become the biggest city to ban smoking in its public housing, which serves about 25,000 tenants. Detroit, San Antonio and Portland, Ore., already have similar restrictions in place. The bans are largely a response to the risks posed to nonsmokers by secondhand smoke. In addition, property managers say smokeless apartments are cheaper to clean, especially if there is carpeting, and reduce the risk of fire.  [...]" 

MSM: "Unemployment Drug Tests: Republicans' Unprecedented Pursuit Of Drug Testing The Jobless" [12/17/11]   "During a debate on the floor of the House of Representatives this week, Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) suggested the unemployed can't find jobs because of their own bad decisions.This year more than ever, Republicans have brought up again and again the topic of unemployed people using drugs. Lawmakers in a dozen state legislatures pursued jobless drug testing bills in 2011, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, in an unprecedented flurry of legislative activity on the issue. But a major obstacle to those proposals is that federal law does not allow states to deny unemployment benefits for reasons not related to the circumstances of a person's unemployment -- though 20 states do have laws disqualifying workers from receiving benefits if they're fired for a drug-related reason. The legislation percolating through the states culminated in Congress, where Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday to allow states to do all the drug testing they want. NASWA director Rich Hobbie, who's worked in the unemployment insurance field since 1975, said it's the first time a bill to drug test the unemployed has made it so far. The fate of the provision is currently in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who has said he finds it ridiculous. [...]"  

MSM: "Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail" [12/16/11] "Some Illinois residents struggling to pay off their debt have yet another thing to worry about: getting thrown in jail. As WBEZ reports, creditors in the state have figured out ways around laws that prevent them from putting debtors in jail, and the number of people being issued arrest warrants linked to unpaid bills is growing. Collection agencies can reportedly file a lawsuit requiring a court appearance, and if the defendant doesn't show up for their hearing, an arrest warrant can be issued. The practice has been happening more often in a stagnant economy, and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan wants to do something about it. "We can no longer allow debt collectors to pervert the courts," Madigan told the Wall Street Journal, adding that some victims of this practice were thrown in jail without knowing that they were being sued due to misleading or sloppy paperwork submitted to the court by debt collectors.  [...]"  

Trends: "Household Electricity Bills Skyrocket" [12/16/11] "Electric bills have skyrocketed in the last five years, a sharp reversal from a quarter-century when Americans enjoyed stable power bills even as they used more electricity. Greater electricity use at home and higher prices per kilowatt hour are both driving the higher costs, in roughly equal measure: [...]"  

MSM: "Census Data: Half Of U.S. Poor Or Low Income" [12/16/11] "Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families. "Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too `rich' to qualify," said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty. "The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal," he said. "If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years." [...]" 

MSM: "Feds: Sheriff Arpaio’s Immigrant Crackdowns Often Illegal" [12/16/11] "Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona have long engaged in the “unconstitutional policing” of Latino communities, the Department of Justice alleged Thursday in a scathing report released after two years of detailed investigation. In a conference call with reporters, Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said that the agency had conducted over 400 interviews in the course of their investigation, finding a long pattern of abuse, neglect and scorn for people of Mexican descent.  [...]" 

MSM: "There Are No Civil Liberties Left! Most Americans Have Not Focused On This" Current TV [12/16/11] [7:10] Keith Olbermann interviews Robert Reich.

Trends: "Married Couples At A Record Low" [12/15/11] "The proportion of adults who are married has plunged to record lows as more people decide to live together now and wed later, reflecting decades of evolving attitudes about the role of marriage in society. Just 51 percent of all adults who are 18 and older are married, placing them on the brink of becoming a minority, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census statistics to be released Wednesday. That represents a steep drop from 57 percent who were married in 2000. [...]" 

MSM: "Firearm Sales Way Up During Holiday Season" [12/15/11] "FBI stats show the number of background checks done on Black Friday three years ago pales in comparison to the number done this year — a 32-percent jump. “People are just coming in to protect themselves,” the employee said. “I think there’s just a lot of things going on in the world that are getting people thinking.” More women are buying guns than ever before as criminals get more desperate. [...]" 

MSM: "U.S. Postal Service Puts 5-Month Pause On Closings" [12/14/11] "The U.S. Postal Service has agreed to a five-month moratorium on closures of post offices and processing facilities while lawmakers hammer out legislation to overhaul the cash-strapped mail carrier, a group of U.S. senators said on Tuesday. The Postal Service was studying about 3,700 money-losing post offices for possible closure starting in February 2012, and considering closing hundreds of processing centers in April. The senators said USPS officials agreed to push back the closures to give lawmakers time to pass legislation that would help get the Postal Service back on track before the end of fiscal year 2012, when the mail carrier has said it could shut down. The Postal Service, which does not receive taxpayer money to fund its services, lost more than $5 billion in fiscal year 2011 and says it needs to shed about $20 billion in annual costs by 2015. The Postal Service has argued that facility closures will help it adjust to falling mail volumes as consumers turn to the Internet to communicate and pay bills. The House and the Senate have until May 15 to reach an agreement for postal reform which will bring the Postal Service to a financial status where they can continue and expand operations," said Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Several members of the group had been critical of Postal Service plans to close facilities, particularly in rural areas. [...]"  

Commentary:  "Congress Investigates 'Lavish' Executive Pay At For-Profit Colleges" [12/14/11] "Over the past three years, lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee have investigated bonuses and executive pay at companies that benefited from billions in taxpayer dollars: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and others bailed out after the 2008 financial crisis. Now, Democrats on the committee have turned their attention to another industry whose fortunes are closely tied to federal money: for-profit colleges. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House oversight committee, has requested executive compensation information this week from 13 Wall Street corporations that own for-profit colleges. According to letters he sent to the companies' executives Monday, Cummings is seeking information on how what he termed "lavish" executive pay at college corporations is tied to the quality of education and student performance at such schools. "When compared to public and non-profit schools, for-profit companies spend a smaller percentage of their funds on student education, reserving more for marketing, advertising, recruitment and other non education expenses," Cummings said. "Their student success rates are lower, and their students are more likely to default on loans. But their CEOs consistently make much more than their counterparts at public and non-profit schools." [...]" 

MSM: "Report: Child Homelessness Up 33% In 3 Years" [12/14/11] "One in 45 children in the USA — 1.6 million children — were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, or doubled up with other families last year, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness. [...]" 

Commentary: "Taxation by Citation in California" [12/14/11] "... Running a red light is now $425.00. Not signaling; $140.00. Five miles over the speed limit in a school zone sucks you of $530.00 .I listened to the judge on almost 50 cases in that brief time and roughly estimated the state of California took in about $50,000.00 dollars in that one hour. The assessed amount for fines was astronomical. But now you pay not only the fine, they also throw in the court costs. You pay for the cost of the court to collect that fine from you. And these fees have also become absurd. To now settle my $40.00 ticket , I would be charged another $35.00. Which simply says one thing, and one thing only: traffic fines have become an incredible source of revenue for the states.  [...]"  

MSM: "Unannounced Verizon Emergency Alert Causes Panic In New Jersey" [12/13/11] "An unannounced test of a soon to be mandatory emergency alert system caused panic in New Jersey today after Verizon customers received text messages warning them that a “civil emergency” was in progress and to “take shelter,” prompting alarmed citizens to flood 911 lines with anxious calls. However, media reports concerning the alarm completely ignore the fact that Verizon was almost certainly running a test for the federal government’s soon to be mandatory PLAN alert program, which the company has signed up for. “A mass text message warning New Jersey cell phone users of a “civil emergency” was sent out by Verizon Wireless earlier today,” reports the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Verizon Wireless later apologized to its customers for causing alarm. The alert message included the text “U.S. Govern,” suggesting to customers the text had come from the federal government itself, which undoubtedly fueled the panic. [...]" 

Concepts and Practices: "Violence Gene, Brain Science Not Admissible In Court, Say UK Scientists" [12/13/11] "Criminal behaviour can't be blamed on how someone's brain is wired, at least not yet, says a report from British experts who examined how neuroscience is being used in some court cases. "Having a psychotic brain is not a general defence against a criminal charge," said Nicholas Mackintosh, emeritus professor of experimental psychology at the University of Cambridge, who led the group that produced the report. "There's no such thing as a gene for violence. "The scientists said that while some criminals, such as psychopaths, have different brain structures from most people, these differences aren't enough to release them from being legally responsible for their actions. Some experts said it was too simplistic to think brain scans could explain human actions. [...]"  

MSM: "Florida County Will Throw Parents Of Truant Kids In Jail" [12/13/11] "A new truancy court in Palm Beach, Florida aims to cut down on the state's absentee rate for young children by punishing parents who don't take their kids to school. Florida law says parents of children under 16 who let their kids miss 15 days of school within three months can be sent to jail for up to two months as punishment. The Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that Palm Beach prosecutors say the two-month jail sentence will be a last resort, after government and nonprofit workers try to fix whatever problem is keeping parents from getting their kids to school. About a dozen Baltimore parents were sent to prison for their kids' truancy in 2011, the Baltimore Sun reported in April. (In 2010, no Baltimore parents were jailed.) After California adopted a strict anti-truancy bill earlier this year, at least five parents in Orange County were sent to jail for the crime, according to the local CBS affiliate. Judges in Alabama, Texas, and North Carolina and other states have also used truancy laws to send offending parents to jail. Earlier this year, the NAACP sued a Pennsylvania school district for levying what it claimed were illegal fines of thousands of dollars on truant students and their parents. Lenora Hummel, above, was fined $8,000 after her son and daughter stopped going to school because they said they were bullied and harassed by other students. [...]"  

UK: "Forced Marriages In England On The Rise, Says Government" [12/13/11] "There are at least 5,000 to 8,000 cases of forced marriage in England and the number of reported cases is rising every year, the Government has said. The Home Office said the full scale of the problem was not known but published the estimates as it considers making forced marriage a criminal offence. [...]"  

Commentary:  "Federal Agents Demand Customer Lists From Mormon Food Storage Facility" [12/13/11] "Oath Keepers has learned that federal agents recently visited a Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Church food storage cannery in Tennessee, demanding customer lists, wanting to know the identity of Americans who are purchasing food storage from the Mormons. [...] So on the one hand, government agencies both state and federal are urging you to be prepared and even checking up on you to see how prepared you are, and on the other hand, we now have federal agencies that are attempting to gather information on individuals that are following FEMA suggestions. What is the reasoning behind gathering this information? Are American citizens now being “listed” by DHS if they are simply following FEMA guidance and purchasing bulk food and emergency supplies for their families? It appears as so."  Related: "Door-To-Door Questioning About Food Supplies In Tennessee:  Canneries Downplay Initial Reports" "Whether it's flooding or another severe weather event, emergency officials want to make sure Tennesseans are prepared. A community assessment will get underway Thursday across Davidson County.  The Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health will be using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are. The door to door assessment will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. It will be in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment. [...]"  

MSM: "Florida Bans Gun Controls: County Sues the Governor" [12/12/11] "The Palm Beach County Commission sued Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature, fighting a new law that allows the governor to remove from office any local officials who enact gun control ordinances. The Gun Law, House Bill 45, passed through the Legislature this year, was signed by the governor on June 2 and took effect Oct. 1. It allows the governor to yank from office any officials who pass gun control laws; allows a court to fine the officials $5,000 for it; and gives a private cause of action to any "persons or organization whose membership is adversely affected" by such a law, who may sue the officials for damages of up to $100,000 and costs, with a "contingency multiplier." [...]"  

MSM: "Americans Leaving Us In Record Numbers" [12/09/11] "Ever dream of leaving it all behind and heading out of America? You’re not the only one. A new study shows that more US citizens than ever before are living outside of the country. According to statistics from the US State Department, around 6.4 million Americans are either working or studying overseas, which Gallup says is the largest number ever for such statistic. The polling organization came across the number after conducting surveys in 135 outside nations and the information behind the numbers reveal that this isn’t exactly a longtime coming either — numbers have skyrocketed only in recent years. In the 24 months before polling began, the number of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 living abroad managed to surge from barely 1 percent to over 5.1 percent. For those under the age span wishing to move overseas, the percentage has jumped in the same amount of time from 15 percent to 40. [...]"  

MSM: "Judge Rules Police Cannot Ban Protesters From Washington State Capital Without Due Process " [12/08/11] [0:53] Protesters granted temporary restraining order. 

MSM: "New Rules For Crossing The U.S. Canadian Border " [12/08/11] [2:04] People will now be registered as leaving one country and entering another.

Trends: "Thousands Protest Money In Politics In Washington, Shutting Down Lobbyist-Lined K Street" [12/07/11] "Thousands of people protesting what they say is corporate greed and the role of money in politics on Wednesday shut down Washington’s K Street, known as the home of lobbying in the nation’s capital. The protesters, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, came from across the country and gathered under a steady rain. One demonstrator, Teresa Law, 50, of Springfield, Ohio, said she came to protest against corporate America and because jobs that the government promised to create have not been created.  [...]"  Live Stream

MSM: "Alabama: Inmates Can Replace Hispanic Farmhands" [12/07/11] "Alabama farmers frantically looking for workers to replace those that have fled the state in the wake of its tough new immigration law should just stop by their local prison, according to the head of Alabama’s agriculture department. John McMillan, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, told the Montgomery Advertiser on Thursday that inmate labor through the state’s work-release program offers a short-term solution to the sudden labor shortage that has hit Alabama since enforcement of its illegal immigration law kicked in. Some farmers have said the state’s new law has driven away Hispanic migrant farm workers — and without another potential labor source, they say produce may have to be left to rot in the fields. “We are optimistic that by Monday, we will have some help for farmers,” McMillan said. Under the law, employers must use the E-Verify system to check workers’ legality and police can ask for documentation of anyone they stop, detain or arrest. [...]"  Note: Slave labor ... is used to manufacture goods in order to compete with other countries that have cheap labor.

 Internet:  "India To Ban 'Offensive' Internet Material" [12/07/11] "India on Tuesday vowed to ban offensive material from the Internet after Facebook, Google and other major firms told the government they were unable to screen content before it was posted. Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said talks with the Internet giants had failed to come up with a solution following complaints that he had lodged three months ago over "unacceptable" images. "My aim is that insulting material never gets uploaded," Sibal told reporters in New Delhi. "We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue. [...]"  Note:  I'm sure they will, as most reincarnated retreads often do. Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the whole issue from their perspective has no rational justification. People derive their own meaning from experience.

Commentary: "Israel Behind Much Of Militarized Brutality Of US Police" [12/07/11] "The extreme militarization of American police forces has been brought to public attention by the tactics employed against Occupy protesters, which often appear more appropriate to counter-terrorism operations than to the control of non-violent protest. According to investigative journalist Max Blumenthal, however, the proper term for this ruthless suppression of dissent should be "Israelification." [...] According to Blumenthal, the transformation began after September 11, when American law enforcement officers began to look to the Israelis for counter-terrorism expertise and in response the Israel Lobby "provid[ed] thousands of top cops with all-expenses paid trips to Israel and stateside training sessions with Israeli military and intelligence officials." Many of these trips and training sessions were arranged by JINSA, the stridently pro-Israel organization whose advisors have included such prominent Neocons as Douglas Feith and Richard Perle. The Anti-Defamation League has also provided Israeli-run training senssions to over 700 police officers through its course on Extremist and Terroist Threats and claims to have provided a background in Israeli perspectives to another 45,000 through its Law Enforcement and Society program, which is required training for all new FBI agents. The Israeli influence has been particularly strong in New York City where, Blumenthal writes, "under the leadership of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, ties between the NYPD and Israel have deepened by the day. Kelly embarked on his first trip to Israel in early 2009 to demonstrate his support for Israel's ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip. Kelly returned to Israel the following year to speak at the Herziliya Conference, an annual gathering of neoconservative security and government officials who obsess over supposed 'demographic threats.' Back in New York, the NYPD set up a secret 'Demographics Unit' designed to spy on and monitor Muslim communities around the city." Not only dissidents but even ordinary criminals may be treated as terrorists under the Israel model, which can also include the routine use of torture. Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham School of Law's Center on National Security, told Blumenthal, "After 9/11 we reached out to the Israelis on many fronts and one of those fronts was torture. The training in Iraq and Afghanistan on torture was Israeli training. There's been a huge downside to taking our cue from the Israelis and now we're going to spread that into the fabric of everyday American life? It's counter-terrorism creep. And it's exactly what you could have predicted would have happened. [...] already, the Israelification of American law enforcement appears to have intensified police hostility towards the civilian population, blurring the lines between protesters, common criminals, and terrorists."   Related: See "SWAT Raids, Stun Guns, And Pepper Spray: Why The Government Is Ramping Up The Use Of Force" [12/06/11] below.

Legal Case: "California Can't Cut Aid for Old & Disabled" [12/06/11] "Finding the governor's plan to cut millions from social services as part of the 2011-12 California budget "raises serious questions of violations of the federal due process clause," a federal judge refused to let the state implement $100 million worth of cuts to the In-Home Supportive Services program [...]"  

MSM: "London Police Listed ‘Occupy’ Protesters As Potential Terrorists" [12/06/11] "The City of London Police listed “Occupy London Stock Exchange” (OLSX) as a domestic terrorist threat in a bulletin sent to businesses, according to The Independent. The protesters have been camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London’s financial district since October 15, as part of a global wave of demonstrations against political and economic inequality. The bulletin, “Terrorism/Extremism Update,” listed the protesters along with al Qaeda, the Colombian revolutionary group FARC, and Belorussian terrorists. [...] “It is likely that activists aspire to identify other locations to occupy, especially those they identify with capitalism. City of London Police has received a number of hostile reconnaissance reports concerning individuals who would fit the anti-capitalist profile. All are asked to be vigilant regarding suspected reconnaissance, particularly around empty buildings,” it stated. A spokesman for City of London Police confirmed the document was authentic, but said it was poorly worded and did not intend to label “Occupy London” as a potential terrorist threat." Note: That the City of London perceives the whole dynamic as only revolving around capitalism, they're pretty shallow minded.

MSM: "Ireland: Psychiatrist Calls for Lithium to be Added to Water To Treat Depression" [12/06/11] "A consultant psychiatrist last night called on Government to add lithium salts to the public water supply in a bid to lower the suicide rate and depression among the general population. At a mental health forum on “Depression in Rural Ireland” in Ennistymon, Co Clare, Dr Moosajee Bhamjee said that “there is growing scientific evidence that adding trace amounts of the drug lithium to a water supply can lower rates of suicide and depression”. Lithium is used by doctors as a mood stabiliser in the treatment for depression. Dr Bhamjee said: “A recent article in the British Journal of Psychiatry found the beneficial uses of lithium when it was added to the water supply in parts of Texas.” He said the Government should consider a pilot project for a town in Ireland where lithium salts could be added to the water in very small doses and examine the results.” He said there was already strong precedent for governments intervening in the operation of public water supply for health benefits by adding fluoride. Dr Bhamjee said that a community would not get “hooked” on lithium “because the doses would be so small”. He said: “There are 200,000 people suffering from depression in Ireland and the Government must think of new ways of tackling the problem.” [...]" 

Commentary: "SWAT Raids, Stun Guns, And Pepper Spray: Why The Government Is Ramping Up The Use Of Force" [12/06/11] "... The amount of force the government uses to uphold a given law is no longer determined only by the threat to public safety posed by the suspect. Now, it appears to give an indication of how serious the government is about the law being enforced. The DEA sends SWAT teams barreling into the offices of doctors accused of over-prescribing painkillers not because the doctors pose any real threat of violence, but because prescription drug abuse is a hot issue right now. The feds sent SWAT teams into marijuana dispensaries not because medicinal pot merchants are inherently dangerous people, but because officials believe the dispensaries are openly defying federal law. It is, to put it bluntly, a terror tactic. Sending a couple cops with a clipboard to hand out fines and shut down a dispensary doesn't convey a strong message. Sending a bunch of cops dressed like soldiers to point guns at dispensary owners and their customers certainly does.  [...] Few politicians have the backbone to call for less power, weaponry and authority for law enforcement, because nobody loses an election by being "too tough" on crime. They'll only begin to question these trends when there's a political benefit to doing so -- or political harm for keeping quiet. So long as partisans on both sides only speak up when their own are on the receiving end of excessive government force, there isn't much incentive for policymakers to care."  Related: "Pentagon Is Offering Free Military Hardware To Every Police Department In The US" "The US military has some of the most advanced killing equipment in the world that allows it to invade almost wherever it likes at will. We produce so much military equipment that inventories of military robots, M-16 assault rifles, helicopters, armored vehicles, and grenade launchers eventually start to pile up and it turns a lot of these weapons are going straight to American police forces to be used against US citizens. Benjamin Carlson at The Daily reports on a little known endeavor called the “1033 Program” that gave more than $500 million of military gear to US police in 2011 alone. 1033 was passed by Congress in 1997 to help law-enforcement fight terrorism and drugs, but despite a 40 year low in violent crime, police are snapping up hardware like never before. While this years staggering take topped the charts, next years orders are up 400 percent over the same period. [...] Tim Lynch, director of the Cato Institute’s project on criminal justice told The Daily, “The trend toward militarization was well under way before 9/11, but it’s the federal policy of making surplus military equipment available almost for free that has poured fuel on this fire.” “It’s kind of had a corrupting influence on the culture of policing in America,” Lynch says. “The dynamic is that you have some officer go to the chief and say, people in next county have [military hardware], if we don’t take it some other city will. Then they acquire the equipment, they create a paramilitary unit, and everything seems fine. “But then one or two years pass. They say, look we’ve got this equipment, this training and we haven’t been using it. That’s where it starts to creep into routine policing. [...] "  

MSM: "Rural Suicides Follow Medicaid Cuts" [12/06/11] "Suicide is on the increase in rural America--nowhere so much as in western mountain states like Idaho, Wyoming and New Mexico. Mental health professionals attribute it in part to cutbacks in Medicaid funding, to the recession and to the culture of the rural West. In Idaho, somebody kills himself every 35 hours, according to a 2009 report to Idaho's governor by the state's Council on Suicide Prevention. Their report calls suicide "a major public health issue" having a "devastating effect" on Idaho's families, churches, businesses and even schools: 65 students aged 10 and 18 killed themselves in a recent five-year period. [...]"  

Commentary: "No, America's Unemployment Rate Is Not 8.6 Percent" [12/06/11] "November’s figure, 8.6 percent, is actually the proportion of Americans unemployed, “as a percent of the civilian labor force,” as per the official definition from the Labor Department (a figure it refers to as “U-3,” the official unemployment rate). When considering those that fit that definition as well as discouraged workers (U-4), those marginally attached to the work labor force (U-5) and those that are employed part-time and seeking full-time employment but can’t find it, the Labor Department has another statistic, which it refers to as U-6; for the month of November, that figure is at 15.6 percent. Even taking into account the Labor Department’s definition of what counts as employed, 20 of the 50 states in America (plus the District of Columbia) saw jobless figures exceeding 9.0 percent for the month of November. In California and Washington DC, numbers were at or above 11 percent; in Nevada: 13.4 percent. [...]"  

Canada: "Omnibus Crime Bill On Verge Of Passing " [12/06/11] "The Safe Streets and Communities Act" passed the report stage last week, amid some controversy because the government shortened debate on the bill and also tried, and failed, to amend it at the last minute. The Conservatives had rejected proposed amendments made at the committee by opposition MPs and then days later tried to introduce virtually the same ones, measures related to the bill's anti-terrorism provisions. Speaker Andrew Scheer rejected the government's attempts to amend the bill, ruling that the amendments should have been pitched at the committee. The government may now try to amend the bill once it gets to the Senate. Opposition MPs say the government's attempts to change the bill prove their argument that it has been rushed through Parliament without enough careful consideration. Bill C-10 combines nine previous bills that did pass in previous Parliaments and makes major changes to several exisiting laws. Some aspects of the bill are supported by the opposition parties, such as tougher sentences for sexual crimes committed against children, but MPs have raised particular concerns about the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes and changes to young offender laws. Key measures are: [...]" 

MSM: "U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail " [12/05/11] " Facing bankruptcy, the U.S. Postal Service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day. The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail on Monday, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the cash-strapped Postal Service to quickly trim costs, seeing no immediate help from Congress. The cuts, now being finalized, would close roughly 250 of the nearly 500 mail processing centers across the country as early as next March. Because the consolidations typically would lengthen the distance mail travels from post office to processing center, the agency also would lower delivery standards for first-class mail that have been in place since 1971. Currently, first-class mail is supposed to be delivered to homes and businesses within the continental U.S. in one day to three days. That will lengthen to two days to three days, meaning mailers no longer could expect next-day delivery in surrounding communities. Periodicals could take between two days and nine days. The consolidation of mail processing centers is in addition to the planned closing of about 3,700 local post offices. In all, roughly 100,000 postal employees could be cut as a result of the various closures, resulting in savings of up to $6.5 billion a year. [...]" 

UK: "Claims Of Police Communication Breakdown During Riots Rejected " [12/05/11] "Allegations that the police were forced to use personal mobile phones during the summer riots after their multi-billion pound radio system failed have been branded as "completely inaccurate". A review into August's unrest from the Police Federation leaked to The Observer details failings which purport to explain why the police were constantly playing catch-up as events unfolded. The report claims that some forces were even unsure of how many officers were on duty after the collapse of the official Airwave communication system. The newspaper also said: "The Airwave network was supposed to improve the way emergency services in London responded to a crisis after damning criticism for communication failures following the 7 July bombings in 2005." The internal review also reveals that after the trouble erupted, "forces often did not know how may officers they had on or off shift" and senior officers took charge in some places "often without the local knowledge of the areas", making it easier to be outmanoeuvred by rioters. [...]" 

MSM: "China To Prepare For Social Unrest As The Economy Takes A Slide" [12/05/11] "Beijing has underlined its concern that an economic slowdown could lead to social unrest in China, with the country’s security chief urging local officials to do more to prepare for the “negative effects of the market economy”. Zhou Yongkang, a member of the politburo, told provincial officials that they needed to find better methods of “social management” – a euphemism which can include everything from better internet censorship and strategic policing of violent unrest, to a better social safety net. “It is an urgent task for us to think how to establish a social management system with Chinese characteristics to suit our socialist market economy,” he told a seminar on “social management innovation”. “Especially when facing the negative effects of the market economy, we still have not formed a complete mechanism for social management,” he said. Mr Zhou also urged officials to limit spending on wasteful “vanity” projects that trigger public anger. His comments are the clearest sign yet that Beijing is worried that the global economic crisis could lead to serious domestic social unrest. Mr Zhou’s remarks, published by the state-run Xinhua news agency on Saturday, came at the end of a week which saw evidence of a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing, an easing in credit policy to avert a sharper slowdown, and two outbreaks of violence. Recent months have seen a rise in unrest – apparently linked to economic grievances, including workers’ fears about the economic dislocation caused by Beijing’s long-term plan to move away from low-value manufacturing to more creative and innovative industries. [...]"  

MSM: "How Unemployment Is Tearing America Apart" [12/05/11] "With 25 million out of work or underemployed, the U.S. is in the grips of a jobs depression Eight months ago, Deborah Burnley, an administrative assistant in Baltimore, suddenly found herself among America's growing army of unemployed. Losing her job at a cash-strapped non-profit was a demoralizing and debilitating experience, she says, and to keep her spirits from crashing she's sought solace in, of all things, the bleak arithmetic of her job hunt: 226 positions applied for, six temp agencies engaged, and countless miles traveled across the region for interviews. "I try to think of it as a numbers game, that each day is basically one more step closer to being employed," says Burnley, 52. In other words, if she applies for enough positions, and meets enough prospective employers, some day - eventually - she's bound to find work. But even as she clings to that hope, Burnley acknowledges she and her husband, who also lost his job as a facilities manager six weeks ago, have depleted their savings and almost maxed out their credit cards. "It can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel." Two-and-a-half years after the Great Recession was deemed officially over, that light has never seemed dimmer for the close to 25 million Americans who are either out of work or underemployed today. Like a gaping wound at the heart of the economy, the U.S. job crisis has cast a vast swath of the population into a state of semi-permanent unemployment. At the same time, America's housing market is in a shambles and poverty is on the rise. Even if economists weren't already once again warning of another global recession, a realization is slowly setting in: the United States is suffering from an outright economic depression, and it threatens to leave a deep scar on the American psyche for decades to come. As Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and a former secretary of labour, put it recently: "America's ongoing jobs depression, which is what it deserves to be called, is the worst economic calamity to hit this nation since the Great Depression." [...]"  

MSM: "Chicago's Citizen Surveillance The Most Extensive & Integrated In US" [12/04/11] "One legacy of Rahm Emanuel is digitally clear. Security cameras will follow us like a bad credit rating. The Missile’s bravura early performance includes a drastic increase in cameras to protect us from bad guys and to keep us from breaking laws, notably speeding, even while surely accelerating a loss of individual privacy. The city’s traditional lack of transparency on the extent of cameras, and a legacy of illegal surveillance dating to Mayor Richard J. Daley, are woeful. But the public is more interested in Jay Cutler’s thumb than in potential abuses of zoom technology, facial recognition, biometrics, the ability to track somebody from one camera to another and then combining or sharing databases. Last week the mayor stood with Police Chief Garry McCarthy, and Forrest Claypool, the head of the Chicago Transit Authority, as they rightly praised rapid installation of another 1,700 C.T.A security cameras. But now add several thousand more cameras planned near schools and parks — meant to catch speeders endangering children — and you’ve got a hefty increase in what was already the most “extensive and integrated” surveillance system in the United States, according to Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary. A February report by the American Civil Liberties Union estimated that Chicago had 10,000 surveillance cameras. Let’s now figure on another 4,000 or so. [...]"  

Society and Culture:  "Regrets of the Dying" [12/04/11] "For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them. When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five: #1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. [...]"  

Commentary: "The Secret Revolution in North Dakota" [12/04/11] "North Dakota citizens may abolish property taxes, allowing them more control over government spending. Nearly 30,000 signatures were collected to place the people's initiative on the ballot in June, 2012 that would constitutionally abolish all property taxes in North Dakota. This landmark measure supports property rights, small government and freedom advocates around the country. If the initiative is successful, North Dakota will be the first state to abolish all property taxes, both state and local, and will provide a model for the other states to do the same. North Dakota may be the first state to kick off the property rights revolution! Since 1978 the state legislature has amended, altered or "reformed" property tax 134 times. This tells us that the tax cannot be fixed. [...]" 

MSM: "Woman Who Exposed Robo-Signing Scandal Found Dead" [12/04/11] "Tracy Lawrence, a 43-year-old notary who blew the whistle on the immense robo-signing scandal was found dead in her home on Monday morning after failing to appear in court. Lawrence had plead guilty to one count of notary fraud last Monday after coming forward earlier this month and confessing to notarizing roughly 25,000 documents in a fraudulent foreclosure scheme... [...]"  

MSM: "Cops Fired for Opposing War on Drugs" [12/04/11] "... Arizona probation officer Joe Miler, for instance, was dismissed after signing a letter supporting the decriminalization of Marijuana from the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “More and more members of the law enforcement community are speaking out against failed drug policies,” says the Arizona ACLU, which has filed a lawsuit for Miller. “They don’t give up their right to share their insight … simply because they receive government paychecks.” There’s reason to believe the lawsuit will succeed; a Washington police sergeant fired in 2005 for supporting decriminalization was awarded an $815,000 settlement. [...]"  

MSM: "Black Friday Best-Seller: Guns" [12/03/11] "Americans were big spenders on Black Friday–especially on guns. Numbers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation show an all-time one-day high for background check requests from gun buyers last Friday. There were 129,166 requests to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)–a third more than the previous record of 97,848 on Black Friday 2008, FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer said. On Black Friday last year, there were 87,061 requests. The numbers, first reported in USA Today, reflect the experience of gun-sellers on the ground. “It was the biggest rush we ever had. Some of the people at the gate sent their kid running to the gun counter to get in line,” said Tom Ritzer, store manager at MC Sports in Springfield, Mo., which opened its doors at 5 a.m. on Black Friday. Gun buyers had to wait until NICS opened at 7 before they could leave with their purchases, he said. [...]"  

Trends: "17% of American Workers Are Caregivers" [12/03/11] " ... Many people might be surprised that an estimated 17% of American workers are caregivers, or about one in six. But what may surprise them more is that 46% of those caregivers are men. Gallup's analysis indicates that 20% of all female and 16% of all male workers in the U.S. are caregivers. And at least 13% of full-time workers in every major socioeconomic and demographic group are caregivers; this includes 17% of whites, 21% of blacks, and 20% of Hispanics. About one in five (22%) middle-aged American workers report being caregivers -- the highest percentage of any group. The lowest percentage across the various groups who report being caregivers is 18- to 29-year-olds, at 13%. Though the percentage of caregivers tends to decrease somewhat as education and income increase, 15% of working Americans with a college degree or who make at least $90,000 per year are caregivers. [...]" 

MSM: "Netanyahu Cancels Controversial Ad Campaign To Bring Back Israeli Expats From U.S." [12/03/11] "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to discontinue a controversial Immigration and Absorption Ministry campaign in the United States aimed at convincing expatriate Israelis to return, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on Friday. The campaign, which warns Israelis that if they continue to live in the United States, they or their children are likely to become assimilated, has raised the ire of American Jewish groups. [...]"  Related: Israeli Ads Implore Jews To Not Marry Americans" [12/02/11] "The Israel government is sponsoring ads in the US warning young Jews here against marrying Americans and begging them to bid the States adieu. The Israel government has given the go-ahead to an ad campaign in the United States that, through a series of billboards and online video clips, is urging Jews to come back to Israel and cut ties with Americans, lest they want to be stripped of their identity and insult their religion. Steven I. Weiss of the Jewish Channel recently broke the story and believes that Israel government-comped campaign cost the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption office a price of around $1 million. In one video clip, Dafna, an Israeli girl, is observing Israel’s memorial day while her clueless boyfriend, Josh, becomes perplexed and confused. “They will always remain Israelis,” voices a narrator in Hebrew. “Their partners won’t always understand what this means.” [...]"

MSM: "LAPD Desecrates American Flag At Occupy LA" [12/03/11] [0:55] "In the early morning of November 30, LAPD officers storm out of City Hall and start evicting the Occupy LA protesters. While they are destroying the occupiers personal belongings, a LA cop rips the American flag. [...]" Guaranteed to piss some people off.

Commentary: "Egypt: ElBaradei Outed by Own Movement as Western Stooge" [12/03/11] "Mamdouh Hamza collaborated with Mohamed ElBaradei in executing the premeditated, US- engineered destabilization of Egypt in January 2011. Most likely to remove ElBaradei's terminally infected public image, he has finally outed ElBaradei as a member of George Soros' International Crisis Group and accused him of having "strong ties to Zionism." Hamza himself, however, is just as compromised as ElBaradei, perhaps more so. [...]"  

Legal Case: "As NYPD Searches Hit Record, Stop-and-Frisk Case Gains Speed" [12/01/11] "Days after a federal judge reinstated claims that New York City police illegally searched a black man as part of a stop-and-frisk policy, the New York Civil Liberties Union released a report that police recently reached their four millionth street stop in seven years. "Entire neighborhoods in New York City are turning into Constitution-free zones," NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said in a statement. "A walk to the subway or corner deli should not carry the assumption that you will be confronted by police, but that is the disturbing reality for many New Yorkers. Racially biased policing undermines trust between residents and police, harming public safety. It's time to hold the NYPD accountable for its unlawful and destructive stop-and-frisk practices." U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin is presiding over a class action that calls for this practice's end. She described the decades-long history of so-called "preemptive policing" in an earlier decision on the case. "Since the mid-1990s, New York City has experienced a precipitous decline in crime rates," that 86-page decision said. "The reasons for this decline are not clear. Some claim that it results from innovative policing policies influenced by the 'broken windows' theory of crime control, beginning under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner William Bratton, and continuing under current Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Others argue that the drop in crime must be due to economic or other factors, as crime rates declined in cities nationwide during the same period, irrespective of variations in policing policies. "In either case, it is clear that the policing policies that the city has implemented over the past decade and a half have led to a dramatic increase in the number of pedestrian stops, to the point of now reaching 'almost 600,000 a year,'" Scheindlin wrote. In the few months since that Aug. 31 order, Scheindlin has revised the estimate up to 720,000 a year. [...]"  

Media and Culture: "Gay Hoover Movie Enrages FBI's Old Guard" [12/01/11] " Hundreds of former FBI agents are hopping mad about Clint Eastwood's biopic of J. Edgar Hoover, which strongly hints that the first FBI director was a repressed homosexual in love with aide Claude Tolson. In J. Edgar—which stars Leonardo DiCaprio—Hoover is portrayed as an individual "who had homosexual tendencies and was a tyrannical monster,” complains one former agent who joined the FBI in 1972, the year Hoover died at the age of 77. “That is simply not true." A closed email list for retired agents has been swamped with complaints about the movie, but agents younger than 70 or so don't seem to understand the reverence for Hoover,  [...]" 

MSM: "Los Angeles: Police  Arrest 200 Occupy LA Demonstrators" [12/01/11] [3:37] "1,400 police officers arrested 200 Occupy LA demonstrators during an early morning raid. City work crews have torn down and cleaned the encampment at Los Angeles City Hall, which has been the scene of anti-corporate protests for past two months. [...]" 

Commentary:  "Prosecutors Fighting The Use Of DNA Evidence In Order To Save Face" [12/01/11] "Since DNA testing became available two decades ago, about 280 convicted felons in the United States have been exonerated of their crimes. In the process, serious flaws in the legal system have become exposed, including misconduct by law enforcement and prosecutors. Today, despite the fact that genetic testing has proven itself to be a reliable means of determining innocence, some prosecutors continue to fight off attempts to free those wrongly convicted. In some cases district attorneys “have spun creative theories” to keep convictions from being overturned. “They are attached to their convictions,” Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia, told The New York Times, “and they don’t want to see their work called into question.” [...]" Related: Flashback: "Prosecutors Block Access to DNA Testing for Inmates " [05/17/09]  

 

   Amended Often. Most Recent items added on top. Month begins on bottom 

 US: Police Misconduct Statistics | Analysis Maps

Economic Report Forecast Calendar - Sunday Update for The Coming Week

Shadow Gov't Statistics  The Consumerist  

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