AUGUST 2010

Today In History Tuesday August 30, 2010
1852 - The first pre-stamped envelopes were created with legislation of the U.S. Congress.
1886 - 110 people were killed when an earthquake struck Charleston, SC.
1887 - The kinetoscope was patented by Thomas Edison. The device was used to produce moving pictures. 
1920 - The first news program to be broadcast on radio was aired. The station was 8MK in Detroit, MI.
1935 - The act of exporting U.S. arms to belligerents was prohibited by an act signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1954 - 70 people were killed when Hurricane Carol hit the northeastern coast of the U.S.
1962 - The Caribbean nations Tobago and Trinidad became independent within the British Commonwealth.
1964 - California officially became the most populated state in America.
1965 - The Department of Housing and Urban Development was created by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
1981 - In Ramstein, West Germany, a bomb exploded at the U.S. Air Force European headquarters. Brig. General Joseph Moore & 19 others were injured.
1985 - The "Night Stalker" killer, Richard Ramirez, was captured by residents in Los Angeles, CA.
1986 - 82 people were killed when a small private plane collided with a Aeromexico DC-9 over Cerritos, CA.
1986 - The Admiral Nakhimov, a Soviet passenger ship, collided with a merchant vessel in the Black Sea. 448 people were killed when both ships sank.
1988 - A Delta Boeing 727 crashed during takeoff at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. Fourteen people were killed in the accident that was later blamed on the crew's failure to set the wing flaps in their proper position.
1990 - U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met with the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz to try and negotiate a solution to the crisis in the Persian Gulf.
1990 - East and West Germany signed a treaty that meant the harmonizing of political and legal systems. 
1991 - In a "Solidarity Day" protest hundreds of thousands of union members marched in Washington, DC.
1992 - Randy Weaver, a white separatist, surrendered to authorities after an 11 day siege at his cabin in Naples, ID.
1993 - Russia withdrew its last soldiers from Lithuania.
1994 - A cease-fire was declared by the Irish Republican Army after 25 years of bloodshed in Northern Ireland.
1994 - Russia officially ended its military presence in the former East Germany and the Baltics after a half-century.
1995 - Judge Lance Ito ruled that only two tapes of racist comments by Mark Fuhrman could be played in the trial of O.J. Simpson.
1997 - Princess Diana of Wales died at age 36 in a car crash in Paris. Her companion, Dodi Fayed, and their chauffeur were also killed.
1998 - A ballistic missile was fired over Japan by North Korea. The missile landed in stages in the waters around Japan. There was no known target.
1998 - U.S. embassies in Ghana and Togo were closed indefinitely because of security threats.
1998 - An explosion in a market in Algiers, Algeria killed at least 17 and wounded approximately 60.
1999 - At least 69 people were killed when a Boeing 737 crashed just after take off in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

YouTube: Leaked Video: Glenn Beck uses Vicks to Cry

Department of Justice Lists Survivalists, Constitutionalists in Extremism Guide
Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism—Terms and Concepts is a glossary designed primarily as a tool for criminal justice professionals to enhance their understanding of words relating to extremist terminology, phrases, activities, symbols, organizations, and selected names that they may encounter while conducting criminal investigations or prosecutions of members of extremist organizations.
Original Source: http://publicintelligence.net/doj-terrorism-and-criminal-extremism-terms-and-concepts-guide

COREXIT FOUND INLAND RUPTURES RED BLOOD CELLS
ALERT: 13.3 ppm of COREXIT found INLAND, near Florida border — Chemist says tests show “toxic solvent” 2-butoxyethanol that “RUPTURES red blood cells” (VIDEO & PHOTOS)

Gold Rallying to $1,500 as Soros's Bubble Inflates
Investors are accumulating enough bullion to fill Switzerland’s vaults twice over as gold’s most- accurate forecasters say the longest rally in at least nine decades has further to go no matter what the economy holds. Analysts raised their 2011 forecasts more than for any other precious metal the past two months, predicting a 10th annual advance, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The most widely held option on gold futures traded in New York is for $1,500 an ounce by December, or 18 percent more than the record $1,266.50 reached June 21. Holdings through bullion-backed exchange-traded products are already at more than 2,075 metric tons, within 0.1 percent of the all-time high. Comment: Let the fun begin!

Stocks Fall on Concern U.S. Economy Slowing
Consumer confidence in the U.S. probably stagnated near a five-month low this month, a Conference Board report may show today, a day after slower-than-forecast growth in personal incomes fueled speculation the recovery is losing momentum. More than $2 trillion has been wiped off the value of global equities since the Federal Reserve said Aug. 10 that the pace of U.S. economic recovery will probably be “more modest” than forecast. “The past couple of weeks have been clouded by talk of a double-dip recession,” said Ben Westmore, a minerals and energy economist at National Australia Bank Ltd. in Melbourne. “Until we get some macro news that is more consistent, these markets are going to be a bit choppy.”

CIA Blocking Lawsuit Over Experiments on Troops
An advocacy group working on behalf of Vietnam veterans has asked a federal judge in California to sanction the CIA, saying the spy agency has been blocking efforts to uncover its role in alleged experiments on US soldiers from the 1950s to 1970s.

Iran Transfers Assets Out of European Banks
TEHRAN — Iran has transferred assets out of European banks in its latest effort to defend itself against the effects of sanctions that are part of what Iranian officials have called an “economic war” against the country by the United States and other Western countries.

US Wanted Billions in Rebuilding Iraq
A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south.

Department of Justice Lists Survivalists, Constitutionalists in Extremism Guide
A recent Department of Justice guide for investigators of criminal and extremist groups lists “constitutionalists” and “survivalists” alongside organizations like Al-Qaeda and the Aryan Brotherhood.

Gaining on death, cooling therapy catches on
Doctors say those statistics could change, however, if more people had access to a procedure called therapeutic hypothermia -- cooling the body. As medical procedures go, it's among the simplest: Chill the patient about six degrees Fahrenheit -- using cold intravenous saline, cooling blankets or ice packs -- and wait 24 hours; then re-warm the patient slowly and cross your fingers. It's also the only treatment proven to protect the brain after cardiac arrest. In 2009, an analysis of earlier studies showed it increased the chances that people like Sproull would survive with intact brain function by more than half.

The Death of Cash?
Are we witnessing the slow but certain death of cash in this generation? Is a truly cashless society on the horizon?

Pentagon May Apply Preemptive Warfare Policy to the Internet
Grappling with matters of law and policy governing the United States military's cyber-warfare capabilities, Pentagon planners are eying ways of making preemptive strikes across the Internet part of America's toolbox.

Mexico to Ban Payment in Cash
Mexico says it is planning to tighten the noose around big-ticket cash purchases to curtail the flow of smuggled dollars and fight money laundering.

Congress May Sneak Through Internet Kill Switch in Defense Bill
A federal cybersecurity bill that critics say creates a presidential "kill switch" for the Internet could be added on to a defense spending bill and passed without much debate, technology news sources report.

Record Number in Government Anti-Poverty Programs
WASHINGTON — Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.

Russia Opens China Pipeline for Siberian Oil
Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, on Sunday opened a new pipeline to export east Siberian oil to China that will help Russia reorientate its oil trade towards the east.

Control of Food Supply To Be Handed Over to Department of Homeland Security
The words "homeland security" are found 41 times in the text of the bill S. 510, also known as the Food Safety Modernization Act. Unprecedented powers over food are set to be handed over to Homeland Security if the bill is not stopped.

Israel Plans to Strike in Syria
The Alrai daily newspaper in Kuwait reported on Saturday that Israel is planning to attack Hizbullah weapons storage and production facilities in Syria.

Deadly Denial of 'Corexit Exit.' Evacuations. Griff's Agenda 21 Facts
Denial that Americans are under a planned chemical warfare attack by their own own government gassing Gulf coast residents is resulting in a deadly slow-kill, rendering it impossible for most locals to self-relocate.

Gulf Loop Current Stalls From BP Oil Disaster: Global Consequence if Current Fails to Reorganize
Oceanographic satellite data now shows that as of July 28, the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico has stalled as a consequence of the BP oil spill disaster. This according to Dr. Gianluigi Zangari, an Italian theoretical physicist, and major complex and chaotic systems analyst at the Frascati National Laboratories in Italy.

Prescription Painkillers Now Gateway Drugs to Hard Drug Use
Shocking new research out of the University of Buffalo has revealed that popular prescription opioid medications are causing people to become addicted to street drugs.

Vitamin D Really Does Prevent Cancer, Autoimmune Diseases
A new study out of Oxford University pinpoints vitamin D deficiency as a culprit in serious illnesses like cancer and autoimmune disorders.

BPA Contamination Found in 90 Percent of Soup Cans
A product survey conducted by The Independent found that the toxic chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) is used in 18 on the 20 top-selling canned food products in the United Kingdom.

Americans Eat too Much Meat, Not Enough Fruit, Says USDA Research
The average U.S. consumer eats significantly too much meat and grain, and not enough fruits or vegetables, according to data form the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Economic Research Service.


Today In History Monday August 30, 2010
1806 - New York City's second daily newspaper, the "Daily Advertiser," was published for the last time.
1809 - Charles Doolittle Walcott first discovered fossils near Burgess Pass. He named the site Burgess Shale after nearby Mt. Burgess.
1862 - The Confederates defeated Union forces at the second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, VA.
1905 - Ty Cobb made his major league batting debut with the Detroit Tigers.
1941 - During World War II, the Nazis severed the last railroad link between Leningrad and the rest of the Soviet Union.
1945 - General Douglas MacArthur set up Allied occupation headquarters in Japan.
1951 - The Philippines and the United States signed a defense pact.
1956 - In Louisiana, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opened.
1960 - A partial blockade was imposed on West Berlin by East Germany.
1963 - The "Hotline" between Moscow and Washington, DC, went into operation.
1965 - Thurgood Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a Supreme Court justice. Marshall was the first black justice to sit on the Supreme Court.
1979 - Hurricane David hit the Caribbean island of Dominica. The hurricane took 1,100 lives through the Caribbean and the eastern U.S. seaboard.
1982 - P.L.O. leader Yasir Arafat left Beirut for Greece.
1983 - The space shuttle Challenger blasted off with Guion S. Bluford Jr. aboard. He was the first black American to travel in space.
1984 - The space shuttle Discovery lifted off for the first time. On the voyage three communications satellites were deployed.
1984 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and several others, were inducted into the Sportscasters Hall of Fame.
1989 - Leona Helmsley was found guilty of income tax evasion by a New York federal jury.
1991 - The Soviet republic of Azerbaijan declared its independence.
1992 - 15 people were killed and 31 injured in a Sarajevo market when an artillery shell exploded.
1993 - On CBS-TV "The Late Show with David Letterman" premiered.
1994 - Rosa Parks was robbed and beaten by Joseph Skipper. Parks was known for her refusal to give up her seat on a bus in 1955, which sparked the civil rights movement.
1994 - The largest U.S. defense contractor was created when the Lockheed and Martin Marietta corporations agreed to a merger.
1996 - An expedition to raise part of the Titanic failed when the nylon lines being used to raise part of the hull snapped.
1999 - The residents of East Timor overwhelmingly voted for independence from Indonesia. The U.N. announced the result on September 4.

Ag Department recalls Cargill ground beef
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has recalled 8,500 pounds of ground beef distributed by a division of Minnetonka-based agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. for a rare strain of E. coli after three people on the East Coast fell ill. The recall involves beef sold at 26 BJ's Wholesale Club locations in Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland. Federal officials learned of the problem on Aug. 5. Comment: Like the egg recall, another mega farm is involved in a massive food recall.

‘Mike Tawse Original Thought For The Day’
Question Everything - If you do not question everything around you, your mind will be filled with multitudes of emptiness; without questions, no answers can exist and understanding is impossible.

Homeowners' Rebellion - Could 62 Million Homes Be Foreclosure-Proof? By Ellen Brown
A committed movement to tear off the predatory mask called MERS could yet turn the tide for struggling homeowners.

We Need a Revolution, Not a Movement - by Chuck Baldwin
The elections of 2008 (and the early elections of 2010) produced two significant phenomena: the “Ron Paul Revolution,” and the “Tea Party Movement.”

Death of the First Amendment - by Paul Craig Roberts
August 27, 2010 "Information Clearing House" --Chuck Norris is no pinko-liberal-commie, and Human Events is a very conservative publication. The two have come together to produce one of the most important articles of our time, “Obama’s US Assassination Program.”

The War on Food: Eggsactly What Is Going On Here?
Reading this week's headlines about the egg salmonella crisis may leave one with the impression that we need more government control and we need it now.

Top Physicist Says Solar Flare Would Set Us Back 100 Years
Well known physicist Michio Kaku joins the Fox Business News Channel to discuss the probability of a serious solar flare event and what effects it may have on society.

Gold's Evangelist
"I'm not a goldbug, but there are times when I feel like an evangelist for it," says Thomas Kaplan, an Oxford-educated historian and chairman of Manhattan-based Tigris Financial Group.

EPA Denies Petition Calling for Lead Ammunition Ban
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today denied a petition calling for a ban on the production and distribution of lead hunting ammunition. EPA sent a letter to the petitioners explaining the rejection – that letter can be found here: http://www.epa.gov/oppt/chemtest/pubs/sect21.html

Ground Zero Muslim Center May Get Public Financing
The Muslim center planned near the site of the World Trade Center attack could qualify for tax-free financing, a spokesman for City Comptroller John Liu said on Friday, and Liu is willing to consider approving the public subsidy.

Feds to Drop Deportation of Thousands of Illegal Immigrants
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is moving to throw out deportation cases against thousands of illegal immigrants if the immigrants have a potential path to legal residency.

Homeland Security Head Praises City's Security Cameras
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday ranked Chicago’s Big Brother network of well over 10,000 public and private surveillance cameras as one of the nation’s most extensive and integrated — and Mayor Daley wants to make it even bigger.

CIA Making Secret Payments to Members of Karzai Administration
The CIA is making secret payments to multiple members of President Hamid Karzai's administration, in part to maintain sources of information in a government in which the Afghan leader is often seen as having a limited grasp of developments, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Fidel Castro Claims Osama bin Laden is a US Spy
Former Cuban president says the 9/11 mastermind is in the pay of the CIA and cites WikiLeaks as his source.

Outsourced Call Centers Return, To US Homes
Maureen Quigley-Hogan is the next generation of call center worker.

Guard Troops to Deploy to Arizona Border on Monday
PHOENIX – The first of 532 National Guard troops are set to begin their mission in the southern Arizona desert on Monday under President Barack Obama's plan to beef up U.S.- Mexico border security, although they won't have any law enforcement authority.

The Second Great Depression Has Arrived
David Rosenberg, market guru, has officially declared that the US economy is in a state of depression, and he sees the economic superpowers woes worsening.

US Postal Service Starts Quoting SDR to Dollar Conversion Rates, and IMF Endorses Replacing Dollar With SDRs
I have repeatedly pointed out that it is possible that the IMF's special drawing rights (SDRs) will become the world's reserve currency.

VIDEO: BP Investigation Blocked By Senate
The senate blocks investigation of BP.

Schools' Groom Kids for Surveillance State?
Schools are increasingly invading student privacy both in school and outside of school. Are schools grooming youth to passively accept a surveillance state where they have no expectation of privacy anywhere? A PogoWasRight.org commentary.

'Monetary Shock and Awe': The Fed Preparing to Launch Most Radical Intervention in History
The equities markets are in disarray while the bond markets continue to surge.

Russian Subs Stalk Trident in Echo of Cold War
Russian submarines are hunting down British Vanguard boats in a return to Cold War tactics not seen for 25 years, Navy chiefs have warned.

Recession May Have Pushed US Birth Rate to New Low
The U.S. birth rate has dropped for the second year in a row, and experts think the wrenching recession led many people to put off having children. The 2009 birth rate also set a record: lowest in a century.

Two-Tier Internet?
The Internet as you know it is in serious, serious danger. Some of the most powerful communications companies in the world have been involved in negotiations and have been making agreements that would throw net neutrality out the window and would move us toward a two-tier Internet.

California Students Get Tracking Devices
RICHMOND, Calif.—California officials are outfitting preschoolers in Contra Costa County with tracking devices they say will save staff time and money.

Banks Back Switch to Renminbi for Trade
A number of the world’s biggest banks have launched international roadshows promoting the use of the renminbi to corporate customers instead of the dollar for trade deals with China.

Justice Department Gives Second Ultimatum in Sheriff Arpaio Investigation
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County, Arizona, man who calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” has until Sept. 10 to comply with a Justice Department request to explain his office’s “operations, policies and procedures” involving the arrest and detention of Hispanics, according to a letter obtained by ABC News.

Vaccine Zombie Song and Video Warns of Vaccination Dangers
Check out the new Vaccine Zombie video and song, now viewable on NaturalNews.TV and YouTube.com (see links below).

Water Before Meals Helps With Weight Loss, Say Researchers
Weight loss techniques are a dime a dozen these days, with experts touting all sorts of different diet and exercise regimens as the solution to obesity.

Finland Suspends H1N1 Vaccines After Children Suffer Narcolepsy from Vaccinations
Shortly after Australia banned flu vaccines in children due to an alarming increase in vomiting, fevers and seizures caused by the vaccines
(http://www.naturalnews.com/029586_A...), Finland has now suspended H1N1 vaccines due to increased reports of narcolepsy in children and teens.

Compounds in Berries Improve Brain Function
The aging process involves a steady decline in the brain's ability to guard itself from oxidative stress and inflammation.

Eating More Good Fats Really Does Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease
Replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats really does lower a person's risk of heart disease, scientists have shown for the first time.

Deadly Fungus Spreading Across US and Canada
A research study out of Duke University has found that a dangerous mutated form of an airborne fungus called Cryptococcus gattii is spreading across the Northwest United States and some parts of Western Canada.

Oil Spill: A Poor Appetite for Gulf Seafood
Reporting from Venice, La. — President Obama served plates of barbecued gulf shrimp to guests at his 49th birthday party Aug. 9. But Kindra Arnesen, who runs a shrimp boat with her husband here in southern Louisiana, isn't nearly ready to eat what comes out of the tepid gray waters.
 

Today In History Friday August 27, 2010
1859 - The first oil well was successfully drilled in the U.S. by Colonel Edwin L. Drake near Titusville, PA.
1889 - Charles G. Conn received a patent for the metal clarinet.
1892 - The original Metropolitan Opera House in New York was seriously damaged by fire.
1894 - The Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act was passed by the U.S. Congress. The provision within for a graduated income tax was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
1912 - Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan of the Apes" was published for the first time.
1928 - The Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed by 15 countries in Paris. Later, 47 other nations would sign the pact.
1938 - Robert Frost, in a fit of jealousy, set fire to some papers to disrupt a poetry recital by another poet, Archibald MacLeish.
1939 - Nazi Germany demanded the Polish corridor and Danzig.
1945 - American troops landed in Japan after the surrender of the Japanese government at the end of World War II.
1962 - Mariner 2 was launched by the United States. In December of the same year the spacecraft flew past Venus. It was the first space probe to reach the vicinity of another planet.
1972 - North Vietnam's major port at Haiphong saw the first bombings from U.S. warplanes.
1979 - Lord Louis Mountbatten was killed in a boat explosion off the coast of Ireland. The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility.
1981 - Work began on recovering a safe from the Andrea Doria. The Andrea Doria was a luxury liner that had sank in 1956 in the waters off of Massachusetts.
1984 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that the first citizen to go into space would be a teacher. The teacher that was eventually chosen was Christa McAuliffe. She died in the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986.
1984 - Diane Sawyer became the fifth reporter on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes."
1985 - The Space Shuttle Discovery left for a seven-day mission in which three satellites were launched and another was repaired and redeployed.
1986 - Nolan Ryan, while with the Houston Astros, earned his 250th career win against the Chicago Cubs.
1989 - The first U.S. commercial satellite rocket was launched. A British communications satellite was onboard.
1990 - 52 Americans reached Turkey after leaving Iraq. Three young American men were detained by the Iraqis.
1990 - The U.S. State Department ordered the expulsion of 36 Iraqi diplomats.
1992 - Federal troops were ordered to Florida for emergency relief due to Hurricane Andrew.
1996 - California Governor Pete Wilson signed an order that would halt state benefits to illegal immigrants.
1998 - In a Florida boot camp for teens, two boys killed a counselor and used his car to escape. The boys, 16 and 17 years old, would be tried as adults for the pickax murder.
1999 - The final crew of the Russian space station Mir departed the station to return to Earth. Russia was forced to abandon Mir for financial reasons.
2001 - The U.S. military announced that an Air Force RQ-1B "Predator" aircraft was lost over Iraq. It was reported that the unmanned aircraft "may have crashed or been shot down."
2001 - A complaint was filed against California Congressman Gary Condit and two others for their efforts to obstruct justice in the disappearance of intern Chandra Levy. Condit was accused of conspiring to secure Anne Marie Smith's silence about an affair in their past.
2001 - Work began on the future site of a World War II memorial on the U.S. capital's historic national Mall. The site is between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

Homeowners' Rebellion - Could 62 Million Homes Be Foreclosure-Proof? By Ellen Brown
A committed movement to tear off the predatory mask called MERS could yet turn the tide for struggling homeowners.

Fluzone Package Insert
Read the Flu Package Insert.

Mystery Yacht Washes Up In Florida
An empty yacht, with the engine was still running and its lights still on, washed up ashore in the Madeira Beach area yesterday around 1pm EST. Guess who it's registered to?

Man proves to VA he isn't dead
HOUSTON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- A Texas man said weeks of trying to convince the Department of Veterans Affairs that he still lives ended only after he told them he was talking to the media.

Miracles do happen
Premature baby son back to life with two hours of loving cuddles after doctors pronounce him dead.

Australia bans flu vaccine for children after convulsions, seizures
Australian health authorities have been urging parents there to vaccinate their children against the flu, propagating the mythology that flu vaccines are both safe and effective. But this time around, many Australian parents found out the hard way that they were being lied to.

Crocodile Dundee' stuck in Australia
Actor Paul Hogan, star of the "Crocodile Dundee" movie trilogy, has been barred from leaving Australia until he pays a disputed tax bill, his lawyer said on Thursday.

Cinnamon extract reduces risk of diabetes and heart disease
A recent study headed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has identified a link between cinnamon intake and reduced risk of diabetes and heart disease. According to the research, water-soluble cinnamon extract, which is high in antioxidants, helps to decrease glucose levels in the blood as well as reduce oxidative stress in the body.

Salmonella found in feed used at 2 Iowa farms
Food and Drug Administration officials say they have found positive samples of salmonella that link two Iowa farms to a massive egg recall. Investigators found salmonella in chicken feed at Wright County Egg that was used by that farm and also Hillandale Farms, the FDA said. Authorities also found additional samples of salmonella in other locations at Wright County Egg. More than 550 million eggs from the two farms were recalled this month after they were linked to salmonella poisoning in several states.

Boeing Delays Dreamliner Until Early 2011 Amid Parts Shortages
Boeing Co. postponed delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner, already more than two years late, by several weeks after a Rolls-Royce Group Plc engine blew up in testing. The first plane will now be handed over in the middle of the first quarter of next year, the Chicago-based planemaker said in a statement today. Maiden customer All Nippon Airways Co. said the delay was “regrettable.” Officials at Rolls-Royce did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

How Much Gold is Enough?
If you don’t have at least 10% of your investable assets in physical gold, or at least two months of living expenses, you have your answer: Buy. Don’t use leverage, don’t borrow money, and don’t buy with reckless abandon, but yes, get your asset insurance policy and tuck it away. And then start working toward 20% (we recommend a third of assets be in various forms of gold in Casey’s Gold & Resource Report). Comment: It's just like tithing to your family and yourself (10%). Excellent advice!

EPA Sets Vote to Ban Lead Bullets on November 1, 2010
According the National Shooting Sports Foundation, “If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds.”

Democrats Privately Fear House Prospects Worsening
Top Democrats are growing markedly more pessimistic about holding the House, privately conceding that the summertime economic and political recovery they were banking on will not likely materialize by Election Day.

New Jobless Claims Drop for First Time in 4 Weeks
New requests for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week, the first decline in a month and a hopeful sign after a raft of negative economic reports.

Boeing to double China factory workforce
US aircraft maker Boeing plans to double the number of employees at its parts factory in northern China to keep up with renewed demand for planes, state media reported Thursday. Boeing Tianjin Composites Co Ltd will increase its workforce to 1,200 in the next three to four years, Boeing China president David Wang was quoted by the China Daily newspaper as saying. "We have to enlarge the place because the needs of commercial airlines is growing fast," Wang said.

World's Workshop Heads to Inland China
With this leap into Henan province, 1,600 km (1,000 miles) from Shenzhen, Foxconn is expanding aggressively inland, where wages are lower and workers more plentiful, keeping mostly higher-value, engineering, and R&D work in China's coastal areas. It will have as many as 1.3 million workers in China by the end of 2011, up from 920,000 now, company officials say.

Iran Has Material for 1-2 Atom Bombs
Iran has stockpiled enough low-enriched uranium for 1-2 nuclear arms but it would not make sense for it to cross the bomb-making threshold with only this amount, a former top U.N. nuclear official was quoted as saying.

Alan Simpson Under Fire for Remarks on Social Security
An advocacy group is calling for the ouster of former Sen. Alan Simpson, the co-chairman of President Obama's bipartisan debt commission, who described Social Security as a "milk cow with 310 million tits!" in an email.

Iran to Russia: Let's Establish a Nuclear Consortium
Moscow is "considering" offer to supply fuel for future reactors as well as Bushehr; Iran says it wants to show the world its capability in uranium production.

VENABLE: Texas Fights Global-Warming Power Grab
The state's slogan is "Don't mess with Texas." But the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is doing just that, and at stake is whether the Obama administration can impose its global-warming agenda without a vote of Congress.

Cabbie: 'Are you Muslim?' Leads to Night of Horror
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has invited a taxi driver, who was allegedly attacked by a baby-faced college student this week, to meet at City Hall on Thursday.

Portions of the Gulf Are So Toxic That Dolphins, Fish, Crabs, Stingrays and Other Animals are 'Trying to Crawl Out of the Water'
"It looks like all of the sea life is trying to get out of the water," said Alabama fisherman Stan Fournier. "In the 40 years I have been on these waters I've never seen anything like this before."

FDA Ignored Evidence That CT Scans Are Killing 14,000 Americans a Year From Cancer
FDA administrators sought to brush aside evidence that CT scans may be killing thousands of patients a year, say agency scientists.

Scientists Discover Unique Way to More Than Double Antioxidant Content in Ordinary Potatoes
Scientists from Obihiro University in Hokkaido, Japan, have discovered a simple, cost-effective way to boost antioxidant levels in ordinary potatoes.

Bovine DNA Found on Chicken Meat
Tests carried out in Ireland have found traces of cow and pig DNA in chicken products being sold in grocery stores, raising concerns over unlabeled cross-species ingredients.

'We're Seeing Way More Dispersant Than Ever Before' Large, Thick Oil Plumes, Freshly Sprayed With Poison
Today, Project Gulf Impact is out on the waters in and around Orange Beach Alabama. What they have found is exactly the opposite of what BP and the federal government have told the American people.

ALERT: 13.3 ppm of Corexit Found INLAND, Near Florida Border -
Chemist Says Tests Show 'Toxic Solvent 2-butoxyethanol That Ruptures Red Blood Cells . [Cotton Bayou, Ala. resident] Margaret Long… first got suspicious when she saw something in the water she had never seen before. She even took photographs, “Some times it’s about the size of a half dollar. Some times it streams along and its like floating sand.


Today In History Thursday August 26, 2010
1842 - The first fiscal year was established by the U.S. Congress to start on July 1st.
1873 - The school board of St. Louis, MO, authorized the first U.S. public kindergarten.
1896 - In the Philippines, and insurrection began against the Spanish government.
1920 - The 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The amendment prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in the voting booth.
1934 - Adolf Hitler demanded that France turn over their Saar region to Germany.
1937 - All Chinese shipping was blockaded by Japan.
1939 - The first televised major league baseball games were shown. The event was a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1945 - The Japanese were given surrender instructions on the U.S. battleship Missouri at the end of World War II.
1957 - It was announced that an intercontinental ballistic missile was successfully tested by the Soviet Union.
1957 - The first Edsel made by the Ford Motor Company rolled out.
1973 - A U.S. Presidential Proclamation was declared that made August 26th Women's Equality Day.
1981 - The U.S. claimed that North Korea fired an antiaircraft missile at a U.S. Surveillance plane while it was over South Korea.
1987 - The Fuller Brush Company announced plans to open two retail stores in Dallas, TX. The company that had sold its products door to door for 81 years.
1990 - The 55 Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait left Baghdad by car and headed for the Turkish border.
1992 - A mistrial was declared in the Iran-Contra cover-up trial of CIA spy Clair George.
1992 - A "no-fly zone" was imposed on the southern 1/3 of Iraq. The move by the U.S., France and Britain was aimed at protecting Iraqi Shiite Muslims.
1996 - Robert Vesco, a U.S. financier, was convicted in a Cuban court of economic crimes.
1998 - The U.S. government announced that they were investigating Microsoft in an attempt to discover if they "bullied" Intel into delaying new technology.
1998 - U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a review of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
1998 - Sudan filed a criminal lawsuit against U.S. President Clinton and the United States for the bombing of the El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Company. The Sudanese claimed that the plant was strictly civilian.

EPA Sets Vote to Ban Lead Bullets on November 1, 2010
According the National Shooting Sports Foundation, “If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds.”

CDC Report Stirs Controversy For Merck's Gardasil Vaccine
A government report released recently raises new questions about the safety of the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil. The vaccine has been linked to 32 unconfirmed deaths and shows higher incidences of fainting and blood clots than other vaccines.
Be sure to check out: http://truthaboutgardasil.org

Troops Still Deploying to Mideast From BIA
As the nation watches troops being withdrawn from the Middle East, few perhaps are aware that another wave of soldiers is being deployed.

The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

Flu Plan Scandal Ahead - An Urgent Warning
Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, discusses the outcome of last year’s swine flu debacle, and the potentially harmful changes that are being made to this season’s flu vaccine as a result.

Creeping Militarism Invades Alaska Grade School
In 1787, Thomas Jefferson lamented the fact that the newly minted Constitution lacked any specific provisions on standing armies.

New Home Sales Decline to Record Low in July
The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 276 thousand. This is an decrease from the record low of 315 thousand in June (revised down from 330 thousand).

Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans
As the privacy controversy around full-body security scans begins to simmer, it’s worth noting that courthouses and airport security checkpoints aren’t the only places where backscatter x-ray vision is being deployed.

E-Cigarettes Spark New Smoking War
E-cigarettes have caught fire in part because they mimic the experience of smoking. When a user sucks on an e-cigarette, an atomizer turns the liquid inside into a vapor—which is why the practice is called "vaping" instead of smoking. Consumers typically pay $40 to $120 for a starter kit, and then pay smaller amounts for liquid refills. E-cigarettes typically contain a solution of propylene glycol—a chemical used to make artificial smoke in theatrical productions—water, nicotine and flavorings such as "espresso" and "simply strawberry." The amount of nicotine varies to accommodate different consumers' preferences. Some e-cigarettes contain no nicotine.
Here's the MSDS for propylene glycol: http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/PO/poly(propylene_glycol).html  Comment: The MSDS says it (propylene glycol) may be harmful by inhalation? Let's throw some aspartame in it too! People might as well smoke tobacco.

US Weighs Expanded Strikes in Yemen
U.S. officials believe al Qaeda in Yemen is now collaborating more closely with allies in Pakistan and Somalia to plot attacks against the U.S., spurring the prospect that the administration will mount a more intense targeted killing program in Yemen.

Credit Card Debt Drops to Lowest Level in 8 Years
The amount consumers owed on their credit cards in this year's second quarter dropped to the lowest level in more than eight years as cardholders continued to pay off balances in the uncertain economy.

How to Start Tomato Plants From Cuttings
Gardeners may be familiar with starting new perennials and shrubs from cuttings, but you may not realize that veggies can be started this way, too!

US Military Top Secret X-37 Shuttle Disappears for two Weeks - Changes Orbit
The X-37B was launched in April amid much publicity, but scant detail about its true use. Built by Boeing's Phantom Works division, the X-37B program was originally headed by NASA.

The Trillion Dollar Bailout You Didn't hear About
The latest data on existing home sales should tell you exactly where we are in this so called recovery.

USA A Failed State? It May Be Closer Than You Think
There’s only one common factor in the failure of great nations: Mismanagement. The USA is heading down a well traveled road to its own Armageddon. Rome, China, Russia, the British Empire and others have all been there before.

Bancor: The Name of the Global Currency That a Shocking IMF Report is Proposing
Sometimes there are things that are so shocking that you just do not want to report them unless they can be completely and totally documented.

72 Bodies Found in Rural Mexico
Gunmen from a drug cartel appear to have massacred 72 migrants from Central and South America who were on their way to the U.S., a grisly event that marks the single biggest killing in Mexico's war on organized crime.

China's Epic Traffic Jam 'Vanished'
XINGHE COUNTY, China (AFP) – Can a monster traffic jam spanning dozens of miles and leaving drivers stuck for days really disappear overnight?

Eating berries may activate the brain's natural housekeeper for healthy aging
The study concluded that berries, and possibly walnuts, activate the brain's natural housekeeper mechanism, which cleans up and recycles toxic proteins linked to age-related memory loss and other mental decline.

Youngest in class get ADHD label
Nearly 1 million children may have been misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, not because they have real behavior problems, but because they're the youngest kids in their kindergarten class, researchers say.

America's 10 Dying Cities: From Detroit to New Orleans
The MIT research work goes beyond a mere list of statistics and points out reasons why some of these cities will never recover. In almost every case, tax bases have disappeared, which has undermined the ability of local governments to spend money on revitalization. Abandoned areas of these cities have high crime rates, which not only keeps people from relocating to these areas but is actually an incentive for them to move away. This in turn, leads to the image of these cities as desolate urbanscapes.

U.S. Recession Risk Rises on Home Sales, Durables Data
“The risks of a double-dip recession are steep enough to provide cause for worry,” said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody’s Capital Markets Group in New York, who said the odds of another economic slump are now about one-in-three, twice as high as earlier this year. “It calls for more remedial action by the Federal Reserve.” Comment: No! It calls for abolishing the Federal Reserve Bank, which is the only remedial action that will work!

Diabetes Drug Actos Has Same Heart Risks as Glaxo's Avandia, Study Finds
Actos become the market leader after a 2007 study showed a 43 percent higher chance of heart attacks from Avandia, which generated $3.3 billion of sales before the findings. The latest study, the first to compare the drugs, suggests the risks are tied to that category of medicine, said Jenny Gunton, a diabetes researcher at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. “It just maybe increases the worry of using either of the drugs,” Gunton, who wasn’t involved in the study, said in a telephone interview from Sydney. A rate of 4 percent is “pretty high” given the short study period, she said.

Rolls-Royce Blowout Shutters Boeing, Airbus Test Bed
Rolls-Royce Group Plc has yet to reopen a site used to trial jet engines for Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner model and the rival Airbus SAS A350 after a $17 million turbine blew up on the test bed three weeks ago. Comment: Other than harassment by TSA at the airports, this is another reason why not to fly on any commercial airliners. Keep in mind, with the Boeing Dreamliner 787, the wings have fallen off during a test flight and the tail fell off during another test flight.

Boeing Works to Reshape Seattle Culture Amid 787 Woes
Senn-Delaney Leadership Consulting Group LLC was hired to help (Boeing) employees feel engaged and end a climate in which they sometimes were reluctant to speak up or ask for help, said Jim Albaugh, chief of Seattle-based Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Deliveries of the 787 may not start until next year after setbacks to a 2008 target date for the first jetliner made mostly of plastic composites. Days before announcing the fifth delay in June 2009, Boeing had pledged the plane would fly within two weeks. Boeing said then that some people in the company had known about a structural flaw for several weeks before deciding it was serious enough to scrub the flight. Comment: This has the appearance of Boeing's appeasing the stockholders as being more important than anything else.

Winchester to Deliver 200 Million 40 Cal. Rounds to Homeland Security
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Winchester Ammunition was recently awarded a contract by the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security to supply a maximum of 200 million, 40 cal. rounds over the next five years.

CNN: Opposition to Government, Bankers is Criminal
CNN’s Rick Sanchez and the tireless propaganda minister of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mark Potok, have teamed up to demonize the Sovereign Citizen movement. In the intro to the piece below, Sanchez displays an overt disgust for the growing movement.

Mesquite Flour is a High-Protein, Low Glycemic Superfood from Desert Trees
When I lived in the Sonoran desert in Arizona, I used to take long daily walks for exercise and adventure.

Fish Oil Helps Teenage Boys Fight Depression
Japanese researchers have discovered yet another benefit to fish oil -- treatment for depression.

High Cocoa Chocolate Can Prevent Cardiovascular Illness
The alleged health benefits of chocolate have circulated the news in recent years, but new research shows that not just any old chocolate will do.

Electromagnetic Pulse Can Be Used to Disrupt Morality In the Human Brain
The ability to evaluate other people's actions as right or wrong can be disrupted with an electromagnetic pulse to the brain, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
 

Today In History Wednesday August 25, 2010
1814 - The U.S. Library of Congress was destroyed by British forces.
1825 - Uruguay declared independence from Brazil.
1840 - Joseph Gibbons received a patent for the seeding machine.
1875 - Captain Matthew Webb swam from Dover, England, to Calais, France making him the first person to swim the English Channel. It took 22 hours.
1916 - The National Park Service was established as part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
1920 - The first airplane to fly from New York to Alaska arrived in Nome.
1921 - The U.S. signed a peace treaty with Germany.
1941 - Soviet and British troops invaded Iran. This was in reaction to the Shah's refusal to reduce the number of German residents.
1941 - Allied forces invaded Iran. Within four days the Soviet Union and England controlled Iran.
1941 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the bill appropriating funds for construction of the Pentagon.
1944 - Paris, France, was liberated by Allied forces ending four years of German occupation.
1944 - Romania declared war on Germany.
1950 - U.S. President Truman ordered the seizure of U.S. railroads to avert a strike.
1967 - American Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell was assassinated by a sniper.
1972 - In Great Britain, computerized axial tomography (CAT scan) was introduced.
1978 - The Turin shroud believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ went on display for the first time in 45 years.
1981 - The U.S. Voyager 2 sent back pictures and data about Saturn. The craft came within 63,000 miles of the planet.
1983 - The U.S. and the Soviet Union signed a $10 billion grain pact.
1987 - Saudi Arabia denounced the "group of terrorists" that ran the Iranian government.
1988 - Iran and Iraq began talks in Geneva after ending their eight years of war.
1990 - Military action was authorized by the United Nations to enforce the trade embargo that had been placed on Iraq after their invasion of Kuwait.
1992 - It was reported by researchers that cigarette smoking significantly increased the risk of developing cataracts.
1993 - Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman was indicted by a federal grand jury for terrorist activities, one of which was the World Trade Center bombing.
1993 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 3,652.09, an all-time high.
1995 - Harry Wu, human rights activist, returned to the United States. He said the spying case against him in China was "all lies."
1997 - The tobacco industry agreed to an $11.3 billion settlement with the state of Florida.
1998 - A survey released said that 1/3 of Americans use the Internet.
1998 - Seven Cuban-Americans were indicted by federal grand jury in Puerto Rico on charges of conspiracy to murder Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Logan Airport Palm searches blasted
Logan airport security just got more up close and personal as federal screeners launched a more aggressive palms-first, slide-down body search technique that has renewed the debate over privacy vs. safety. The new procedure - already being questioned by the ACLU - replaces the Transportation Security Administration’s former back-of-the-hand pat down. Boston is one of only two cities in which the new touchy-feely frisking is being implemented as a test before a planned national rollout. The other is Las Vegas.

Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans
As the privacy controversy around full-body security scans begins to simmer, it’s worth noting that courthouses and airport security checkpoints aren’t the only places where backscatter x-ray vision is being deployed. The same technology, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets.

South Carolina High School Automatically Enlists Students in ROTC
The entire freshman class at Carvers Bay High School has been automatically enrolled in the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, a military-sponsored program that trains high school students in military discipline and concepts. Principal Richard Neal, a Navy veteran, said the school's Marine Corps JROTC class is fulfilling the student's physical education requirement and is part of the school's Ninth Grade Academy.

Lack of Jobs, Foreclosures May Keep U.S. Housing Depressed
Builders have to compete with existing homes on the market, where supply has been swollen by the so-called shadow inventory of foreclosures and short sales, in which banks accept less than the outstanding balance on a mortgage. Comment: I continually tell people about the shadow inventory, so it's good that it's a term that's making it into the mainstream. Shadow inventory homes will not have for sale signs on the front lawn, but they could easily be homes on your street. (Thanks Jimm)!

FDA Commissioner Says Agency Needs More Authority
Food and Drug Administration chief Margaret Hamburg said Monday her agency is limited by law to a mostly reactive stance on food safety and argued that it needs a more "preventive approach."

'Enron Accounting' Has Bankrupted America: US Deficit Really $202 Trillion
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts the U.S. budget deficit will hit $1.3 trillion this year.

Acuvue Contact Lenses Are Recalled in Asia and Europe
Johnson & Johnson Vision Care made the recall in some countries in Asia and Europe after some consumers in Japan complained that they developed unusual stinging or pain after inserting certain lots of 1-Day Acuvue TruEye lenses, the company said Monday in a statement. A company investigation identified an isolated issue in one part of the lens rinsing process on a particular manufacturing line, the statement said.

Iran Launches Assault Boats With Warning
Iran kicked off mass production of two high-speed missile-launching assault boats on Monday, warning its enemies not to "play with fire" as it boosts security along its coastline.

Govt. Says Gulf Seafood Safe, Now Consumers Decide
Not everyone shares that confidence in Gulf seafood, which accounts for about 2 percent of overall U.S. seafood consumed. "I would say that I always have a skeptical eye toward government regulation and government certification of things," said Genie Gratto, an Oakland food blogger. "It's been proven time and time again that, first of all government certification of food is such a massive job - the USDA and the FDA tend to be pretty understaffed in those kind of inspection areas - there's no way they can get everything." Comment: A big amen to those comments about our government. Who can ever forget being told the air was OK to breath after the government sponsored, WTC building demolitions.

Shrimpers on Opening Day: “We caught 12 shrimp”, “Nothing at all” — “Generations of shrimping … DONE”
BP’s fading Vessels of Opportunity (VOO) program that has created a false economy for the now out of work fishermen. “BP is buying out a way of life… Generations of shrimping … done.”

How Hyperinflation Will Happen
Right now, we are in the middle of deflation. The Global Depression we are experiencing has squeezed both aggregate demand levels and aggregate asset prices as never before.

Your Senator Is (Probably) a Millionaire
In the Senate, 68 legislators were estimated to be worth at least $1 million, led by Herb Kohl, a Democrat from Wisconsin, who was worth an estimated $214,570,011 in 2008. The average net worth across the Senate was $13,989,022.98.

Existing Home Sales Lowest Since 1996, 12.5 Months of Supply
Existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, dropped 27.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million units in July from a downwardly revised 5.26 million in June, and are 25.5 percent below the 5.14 million-unit level in July 2009.

Nationwide Meat Recall Announced
Zemco Industries in Buffalo, New York, has recalled approximately 380,000 pounds of deli meat that may be contaminated with bacteria that can cause a potentially fatal disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday.

States are out of cash, and so are their lending programs
Many state programs that help small businesses get loans they need to survive or expand are in jeopardy, victims of the economic downturn and state budget gaps.

Ron Paul Calls for Audit of US Gold Reserves
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul , R-Tex., plans to introduce a new bill next year that will allow for an audit of US gold reserves, he told Kitco News in an exclusive interview.

Germany to Roll Out ID Cards With Embedded RFID
The production of the RFID chips, an integral element of the new generation of German identity cards, has started after the government gave a 10 year contract to the chipmaker NXP in the Netherlands. Citizens will receive the mandatory new ID cards from the first of November.

America Won the Cold War But Now Is Turning Into the USSR, Gerald Celente Says
There's a lot of talk these days about America being an empire in decline. Gerald Celente, director of the Trends Research Institute, goes a step further, arguing America is following a similar path as the former Soviet Union.

Scientists Hack Into Cars' Computers - Control Brakes, Engines
It sounds like a Hollywood movie: cybercriminals in a van use a laptop to hack wirelessly into the computer-controlled systems of the car on the road ahead. In seconds the target car's engine, brakes, and door locks are under their nefarious control.

Mark Pittman Smiles After Appeals Court Refuses to Review Fed Attempt To Stop Bailout Disclosure; Supreme Court Now on Deck
It appears that the Fed is heading for its biggest legal confrontation ever.

US Stocks Slump, Treasuries Rally On Home Sales Report
U.S. stocks extended losses, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average below 10,000, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell below 2.5 percent for the first time since 2009 as a bigger-than-estimated slump in existing home sales fueled concern the economy may relapse into recession.

Thousands of Dead Fish Surface at Mouth of Mississippi River
Thousands of fish have turned up dead at the mouth of Mississippi River, prompting authorities to check whether oil was the cause of mass death, local media reports said Monday.

City Receives Citation for Not Fluoridating Water
The City of Watsonville has been cited by the California Department of Public Health for failure to comply with an order by the state to fluoridate the water supply.

Obama Economic Team Should Resign
"Time to put grown-ups in charge," Boehner says:
* Wants "fresh start" on economic strategy
* Economy may swing balance of power in Congress elections

Economy Caught in Depression, Not Recession
Positive gross domestic product readings and other mildly hopeful signs are masking an ugly truth: The US economy is in a 1930s-style Depression, Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg said Tuesday.

US Said Preparing New Laws to Seize Americans Retirement Accounts
First They Destroy Private Healthcare in America – Yes, the socialist Democrats won their first battle to destroy the private healthcare system in the US but the automatic IRA bill now in Congress is their next attack to also control, confiscate and destroy the private retirement system.

'The Real Doomsday Scenario' Is a Compromised FORMATION and Uncontrolled Flow to the Seafloor
BOB CAVNAR: “If it [oil & gas] comes into the formation, basically, you’ve got uncontrolled flow to the sea floor. And that is the doomsday scenario.”

Protestors of Toxic GM Crops Resort to Literally Destroying Them
Biotechnology giants like Monsanto continue to push their genetically-modified (GM) crop seeds on the nations of the world, in most cases bypassing the clear will of the people in the process.

Pesticides May Be A Leading Cause of Major Diseases
Chronic illness is widespread in many industrialized nations like the U.S., and more studies than ever are linking this disease epidemic to pesticide exposure.



Today In History Tuesday August 24, 2010
1814 - Washington, DC, was invaded by British forces that set fire to the White House and Capitol.
1867 - Johns Hopkins died. The railroad millionaire left $7.5 million in his will for the founding of a new medical school in his name.
1869 - A patent for the waffle iron was received by Cornelius Swarthout.
1912 - A four-pound limit was set for parcels sent through the U.S. Post Office mail system.
1932 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the U.S. non-stop. The trip from Los Angeles, CA to Newark, NJ, took about 19 hours.
1949 - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) went into effect. The agreement was that an attack against on one of the parties would be considered "an attack against them all."
1954 - The Communist Party was virtually outlawed in the U.S. when the Communist Control Act went into effect.
1968 - France became the 5th thermonuclear power when they exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.
1981 - Mark David Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of John Lennon.
1985 - 27 anti-apartheid leaders were arrested in South Africa as racial violence rocked the country.
1986 - Frontier Airlines shut down. Thousands of people were left stranded.
1989 - Pete Rose, the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, was banned from baseball for life after being accused of gambling on baseball.
1990 - Iraqi troops surrounded foreign missions in Kuwait.
1990 - Irish hostage Brian Keenan was released. He had been held in Lebanon for 1,597 days.
1991 - Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the head of the Communist Party.
1992 - Hurricane Andrew hit southern Florida causing 55 deaths in the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana.
1992 - China and South Korea established diplomatic relations.
1995 - Microsoft's "Windows 95" went on sale.
1998 - U.S. officials cited a soil sample as part of the evidence that a Sudan plant was producing precursors to the VX nerve gas. And, therefore made it a target for U.S. missiles on August 20, 1998.
1998 - The U.S. and Britain agreed on the Netherlands as site for the trial of two Libyan suspects for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
2001 - The remains of nine American servicemen killed in the Korean War were returned to the U.S. The bodies were found about 60 miles north of Pyongyang. It was estimated that it would be a year before the identities of the soldiers would be known.
2001 - U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly was randomly picked to take over the Microsoft monopoly case. The judge was to decide how Microsoft should be punished for illegally trying to squelch its competitors.
2004 - Salim Ahmed Hamdan was formally charged in the first U.S. military tribunal since World War II. Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former chauffer, was charged with conspiracy as an al-Qaida member to commit war crimes, including murder.
2005 - The planet Pluto was reclassified as a "dwarf planet" by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Pluto's status was changed due to the IAU's new rules for an object qualifying as a planet. Pluto met two of the three rules because it orbits the sun and is large enough to assume a nearly round shape. However, since Pluto has an oblong orbit and overlaps the orbit of Neptune it disqualified Pluto as a planet.

The Real Meaning of "Operation New Dawn"
Note the blue and orange!!

What You Will Not Hear About Iraq
For the past few decades, prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the percentage of the urban population living in slums in Iraq hovered just below 20 percent. Today, that percentage has risen to 53 percent: 11 million of the 19 million total urban dwellers. In the past decade, most countries have made progress toward reducing slum dwellers. But Iraq has gone rapidly and dangerously in the opposite direction.

Five 'New Normals' That Really Will Stick
Of course, we adapted to 'new normals' long before the phrase became cliché. According to a Factiva search, one of the earliest references came in a Newsday article in 1988, in which 'the new normal' referred to the realities of single parent households and the need for more government-funded childcare. After September 11, 2001, the 'new normal' referred to the vulnerability of a nation changed. Comment: How convenient to just throw 9/11 out there, in an article of "new normals".

Nationwide meat recall announced (Wal*Mart)
Zemco Industries in Buffalo, New York, has recalled approximately 380,000 pounds of deli meat that may be contaminated with bacteria that can cause a potentially fatal disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday. The products were distributed to Wal-Marts nationwide, according to the USDA's website.

Original Thought For The Day from our friend Mike Tawse in the UK
Love Makes All Things Worthwhile....read more...

US Said Preparing New Laws To Seize Americans Retirement Accounts
Bipartisan Theft – But don’t think a GOP victory in the fall elections or 2012 will safeguard your retirement assets as Washington’s need for new wealth is a bipartisan effort by both political parties. I take exception to the views of David John, The Heritage Foundation’s leading analyst on issues relating to pensions, financial institutions, asset building, and Social Security reform but read his The Automatic IRAs: A Conservative Way to Build Retirement Security and you will see how even some traditional conservatives are supporting the latest Washington retirement wealth and power grab.

Why Quantitative Easing is Likely to Trigger a Collapse of US Dollar
A week ago, the Federal Reserve initiated a new program of "quantitative easing" (QE), with the Fed purchasing U.S. Treasury securities and paying for those securities by creating billions of dollars in new monetary base.

Credit Card Control Blow Back: Credit Card Rates at Nine Year High
New regulations are now enforce to "help" consumers. As of Sunday, the new regs limit banks' ability to charge penalty fees. Other regs have already kicked in limiting banks' ability to adjust rates quickly. The result: As all other interest rates are falling dramatically, rates on credit card debt are climbing.

Vacationing Obama Can't Shed Entourage
President Barack Obama had a simple task for his first morning on vacation: shoot over to a Martha's Vineyard bookstore to fill out his daughters' summer reading list and grab himself a novel.

Ron Paul editorial: Let the Housing Market Normalize!
Recently there have been some encouraging signs that Congress is finally willing to admit what should have been evident two years ago. Even after a $150 billion bailout, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still bankrupt and should be abolished.

Facing Afghan Mistrust, Al-Qaeda Fighters Take Limited Role in Insurgency
On Aug. 14, a U.S. airstrike in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz killed a Taliban commander known as Abu Baqir. In a country where insurgents are killed daily, this attack was notable for one unusual detail:

Obama Now Blames Poor Job Numbers on Congressional Inaction. WAIT! His Party Runs Congress!
Just a few minor things to catch up on for the weekend now that the Fundraiser-in-Chief has gone on another vacation (Don't worry though. White House chef Sam Kass went along, so the first family need not eat ordinary human food.)

Mexican Policemen Arrested for Murder of Santiago Mayor
The murder scarred a part of Mexico that was supposed to be reasonably safe from violence and crime.

US Troops to Return Only If Iraqi Forces Fail
It would take "a complete failure" of the Iraqi security forces for the U.S. to resume combat operations there, the top American commander in Iraq said as the final U.S. fighting forces prepared to leave the country.

Combat Bridgades in Iraq Under Different Name
As the final convoy of the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., entered Kuwait early Thursday, a different Stryker brigade remained in Iraq.

UN Board Could Rein In $2.7 Billion Carbon Market
An obscure U.N. board that oversees a $2.7 billion market intended to cut heat-trapping gases has agreed to take steps that could lead to it eventually reining in what European and U.S. environmentalists are calling a huge scam.

WOW! Insider - How They Will Kill YOU!
We are moving into a new stage of NWO agendas and it will be more than controlling the populations.

Israel Says Iranian Reactor Use 'Totally Unacceptable'
Israel on Saturday denounced Iran's fueling up of its first nuclear power plant as "totally unacceptable" and called for more international pressure to force Tehran to cease any uranium enrichment.

Artificial Meat 'Made In a Giant Vat' Could Solve Global Food Shortage
Over 9 billion people are expected to inhabit the planet by 2050 and the challenge of providing them with enough food to live without destroying the environment is increasingly tough.

LA Unveils $578M School, Costliest in the Nation
Next month's opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968.

Uninsured Slow to Sign Up for Coverage
Just two people in New Jersey will begin receiving coverage Monday under new plans created by federal health care reforms.

Ground Zero Imam Says US Worse Than al-Qaeda
New audio has surfaced of the imam behind the controversial mosque near Ground Zero allegedly telling an audience overseas that the United States has been far more deadly than al-Qaeda.

Barack Obama Elementary Opens in Maryland
The first school in the D.C. area named after the current president opens Monday morning as the school year begins in Prince George's County.

Muslim Center Dispute Sparks New York Rallies
Supporters and opponents of a proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque near the World Trade Center site staged competing rallies in downtown Manhattan on Sunday, kept apart by police and barricades.

First US Soldier Killed in Iraq Since Withdrawal of Combat Troops
An American soldier was killed by a rocket strike near Basra today, in the first US fatality since the last combat troops left Iraq.

Israeli Official Declares: 'We're Preparing for War'
While Israel is hoping for a peaceful resolution to Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Jewish state is also preparing for "a time of war," declared a Knesset member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party.

Millions of Children Misdiagnosed With ADHD for Being Younger Than Their Classmates
Research out of Michigan State University (MSU) has revealed that nearly a million children, and counting, may have been misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) simply for being younger, and thus more immature, than the other kids in their grade.

Can Drinking Alcohol Help Your Brain Function?
A recent Norwegian study has found a possible link between moderate wine consumption and better brain function.

FDA Exploits Salmonella Eggs Recall to Pursue Food Sterilization Agenda
It's always amusing to see how quickly consumers can be worked up into a false fear frenzy by health authorities.

Analysis: Dollar becomes funding currency as yields tumble
"There's a possibility the dollar will be just like the yen a couple of years ago," said Dean Malone, a currency director at Compass FX in Dallas, Texas, which sold U.S. dollar versus Swiss francs on Thursday. "With yields these low, there's simply very little appreciation value in the dollar," he said. "Until we turn the corner, until employment picks up and the Fed decides to start raising interest rates, markets will keep looking for higher returns elsewhere. And the dollar may be used to help fund those trades."

Stocks, U.S. Futures, Oil Fall on Concern Economies Slowing
Stocks dropped for a fourth day, U.S. futures slipped and commodities fell while the yen strengthened to a 15-year high against the dollar on concern the economic recovery is dissipating. Government bonds rallied. Comment: When investors exit the market, the multinational corporations will have less cash to work with, will bring down the market further. I'm looking forward to "the correction".

Japan execution chamber opening could spark debate
The issue of false charges came under the spotlight last year when a man was released from jail after 17 years when his conviction for killing a four-year-old girl was overturned after DNA evidence. Yasuyuki Tokuda, a lawyer who is working to reopen the case of a man hanged in 2008, said executions should not take place so long as there is any possibility of a mistake. "Even if he is found innocent, (the executed inmate) Mr. Kuma cannot come back," he said. Comment: Admittedly, I was once a strong backer of the death sentence, but have renounced those earlier beliefs. Regardless of the life and actions of a person, we should not have the final say in someone to be put to death. Vengeance is the Lord's, not ours.


Today In History Monday August 23, 2010
1838 - The first class graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, MA. It was one of the first colleges for women.
1877 - The Texas outlaw Wes Hardin was captured in near Pensacola, FL.
1892 - The printed streetcar transfer was patented by John H. Stedman.
1902 - Fannie Merrit Farmer opened her cooking school, Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery, in Boston, MA.
1904 - Hard D. Weed patented the grip-tread tire chain for cars.
1914 - Tsingtao, China, was bombarded as Japan declared war on Germany in World War I.
1944 - During World War II, Romanian prime minister Ion Antonescue was dismissed. Soon after the country would abandon the Axis and join the Allies.
1944 - Marseilles was captured by Allied troops during World War II.
1947 - Margaret Truman, U.S. President Truman's daughter, gave her first public performance as a singer. The event was at the Hollywood Bowl and had an audience of 15,000.
1952 - The security pact of the Arab League went into effect.
1962 - The first live TV program was relayed between the U.S. and Europe through the U.S. Telstar satellite.
1970 - U.S. swimmer Gary Hall broke three world records at the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) outdoor swimming meet, held in Los Angeles, CA.
1979 - Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York City.
1982 - The parliament of Lebanon elected Bashir Bemayel president. He was assassinated three weeks later.
1982 - Gaylord Perry (Seattle Mariners) was tossed out of a game for throwing an illegal spitball.
1983 - The U.S. announced that it was nearly ready for a test flight of an anti-satellite missile.
1990 - President Saddam Hussein appeared on Iraqi state television with a group of Western detainees that he referred to as "guests." He told the group that they were being held "to prevent the scourge of war."
1992 - Hurricane Andrew hit the Bahamas with 120 mile per hour winds.
1993 - It was confirmed by Los Angeles police that Michael Jackson was the subject of a criminal investigation.
1996 - U.S. President Clinton imposed limits on peddling cigarettes to children.
1998 - Kathryn Schoonover was arrested when she was caught stuffing envelopes with cyanide and preparing to send them to people around the U.S.
1999 - Rescuers in Turkey found a young boy that had been buried in rubble from an earthquake for about a week.
1999 - Robert Bogucki was rescued after getting lost in the Great Sandy Desert of Australia on July 11. During the 43 day ordeal Bogucki lost 44 pounds.
2001 - California Congressman Gary Condit gave an interview to ABC's Connie Chung. Condit denied involvement in Chandra Levy's disappearance and avoided directly answering questions about whether they had an affair.

Everything Is A Lie: The Deliberate Intent To Deceive People Is At An All Time High
How many more lies will people around the world accept as truth? Some say a global awakening is taking place, but at what cost? Will it take the destruction of most of the earth and its resources before people are enlightened?

Army veteran awarded $130,000 for clamp left in his chest
an Aurora Army veteran who had a surgical clamp left inside his chest following triple-bypass surgery at the Denver Veterans Affairs hospital, was awarded $130,000 in damages by a federal judge Thursday.

Government to overhaul bioterror and pandemic flu plans
Although Sebelius did not address it directly, the changes are an implicit acknowledgment that Project BioShield, a $5.6-billion fund set up in 2004, has not led to the quick development of a stream of vaccines, drugs and equipment for the bioterrorism medicine chest. Key congressional lawmakers last month proposed cutting $2 billion from BioShield.

Ongoing BP Gulf Disaster May Be Killing Millions
“I think the media now has to...tell the American people who’s getting money for poisoning the millions of people in the Gulf." - Hugh Kaufman, senior EPA analyst, admits millions have been poisoned in the Gulf states.

Sweden Withdraws Warrant for WikiLeaks Founder
Swedish authorities revoked a short-lived arrest warrant for the founder of WikiLeaks on Saturday, saying a rape accusation against him lacked substance.

Iran Begins Loading Bushehr Nuclear Reactor
Scientists from Iran worked to fuel the reactor Iran has begun loading fuel into its first nuclear power station in a ceremony attended by Russian officials.

Texas July Home Sales Collapse - Lowest Total Since 1997
Be prepared for a reported collapse in home sales and for economists everywhere to be surprised by it.

Restaurants in 'Survival Mode'
"It's been a miserable 21/2 years," said Chuck Keagle, who has closed six of the 10 restaurants in his family's Rancho Cucamonga-based Cask 'n Cleaver steakhouse chain since the downturn began.

Military Resistance 8H10: Indiana Soldiers Resist Deployment
Vatic Project: Having served in the military, I can tell you right now, something stinks to high heaven. Reading this article below is heart breaking and disturbing as hell.

Chelaea's New Father-in-Law Bigger Crook Than Daddy Bubba? WOW!!
Edward Mezvinsky served as a congressman from the first district in Iowa from 1973 to 1979. In 2003, he was convicted of fraud for allegedly scamming over $10 million from banks and individuals using e-mail fraud methods

NYC Imam's Goodwill Tour Comes Amid Mosque Furor
The furor over the planned mosque and Islamic center near ground zero has put Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf in a curious position: At the same time he is being vilified in the U.S. for spearheading the project, he is traveling the Mideast on a State Department mission as a symbol of American religious freedom.

Nearly 50% Leave Obama Mortgage-Aid Program
Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration's flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.

Bank Failures #115 to #118 - Bank Failures Friday - 8 Banks Fall - The FDIC is $20.7 Billion in the Red
From the FDIC: Rabobank, National Association, El Centro, California, Acquires All the Deposits of Two Banks in California.

This Week: Second and Third Hindenburg Omen This Week
I discussed the Hindenburg Omen earlier this week and the value it has when understood in terms of the insights it provides relative to real human activity in the stock market, and in particular its value in signalling significant market instability.

Huge Miss Coming On Existing Home Sales?
MarketWatch is reporting the consensus for July existing home sales is 4.85 million SAAR (seasonally adjusted annual rate).

Are Banks Selling WORTHLESS Loans to Fannie?
If this is true, it's deadly-serious.

Florida Mosque Bombed: FBI Calls for Help; National Media Mute
On May 10th, a middle-aged man carried a can of gasoline and a pipe bomb into the Jacksonville Islamic Center of Northeast Florida during evening prayers and detonated it. Fortunately, there were no injuries to people, though the bomb did damage property.

Second Farm in Egg Recall Link to Salmonella
A second Iowa egg farm has ordered a major recall of eggs today in an effort to stem the outbreak of salmonella.

BP Accused of Withholding Critical Sill Data
The company that owned the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico is accusing BP of withholding critical evidence needed to investigate the cause of the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, according to a confidential document obtained by The Associated Press. BP called the claims a publicity stunt.

Health Insurance Companies Are Dramatically Increasing Premiums Due to New Health Care Law and There Is Not Much We Can Do About It
Wasn't the new health care reform law supposed to make health care more affordable for everyone?

High-Tech Carts Will Tell On Cleveland Residents Who Don't Recycle
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It would be a stretch to say that Big Brother will hang out in Clevelanders' trash cans, but the city plans to sort through curbside trash to make sure residents are recycling -- and fine them $100 if they don't.

Gulf of Mexico: Continuous Oil Plume Over 35KM In Length, At Approximately 1100M Depth
The Deepwater Horizon blowout is the largest offshore oil spill in history. We present results from a subsurface hydrocarbon survey using an autonomous underwater vehicle and a ship-cabled sampler.

Cuts in Social Security
A White House-created commission is considering proposals to raise the retirement age and take other steps to shore up the finances of Social Security, prompting key players to prepare for a major battle over the program’s future.

The Richest People That You've Never Heard Of
When you think of the richest people in the world, the name Riley Bechtel probably doesn't come to mind.

Seasonal, H1N1 Flu Vaccine To Be Combined This Fall
OKLAHOMA CITY — For those concerned about the impending flu season, the government will be making the seasonal flu vaccine available again this year.

Senior NOAA Scientist Admits He Lied That Gulf Spill Is Gone, Puts Adminstration's Spill Disclosure Credibility In Question
The fears of all those who had long believed that the administration, either in collboration with BP or otherwise, had been flagrantly lying about the true situation in the GOM, have been confirmed by The Guardian (via BNO).

Who's Blowing Up Iran's Gas Pipelines?
In the past few weeks Iran’s gas infrastructure, which is central to the country’s energy requirements, has been hit by a series of unexplained explosions.

Obama Hits Links for More Mass. Island Golf
EDGARTOWN, Mass. (AP) - It's Sunday and President Barack Obama is on vacation, so that means it's time for another round of golf on Martha's Vineyard.

401K Withdrawls at Highest Level in 10 Years
Hardship withdrawals from 401(k) retirement saving plans rose to the highest level in 10 years during the second quarter, Fidelity Investments said on Friday, in the latest sign of a dismal economy.

FDA Uses Massive Egg Recall to Push for Pasteurization
Amid the massive egg recall currently underway over potential salmonella poisoning, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been working hard to push its pasteurization agenda.

Canada Survey Finds Vast Majority of People Loaded With BPA
A recent report released by Statistics Canada, Canada's official statistical agency, has revealed that more than 90 percent of Canadians are contaminated with bisphenol-A (BPA), a toxic chemical compound used in many plastics and resins.

GSK Executives Sell Drug Compound as Nutritional Supplement on the Side
A recent report in Xconomy has revealed that several executives from drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have been selling proprietary formulations of resveratrol, a component of red wine that has gained much attention for its anti-cancer and anti-aging properties, as dietary supplements while the formations undergo clinical trials for drug approval.

Zinc Helps Prevent Pneumonia in the Elderly
A new report published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has found that zinc plays a very important role in health maintenance.

Prescription Drug Overdoses on the Rise in the US
Both accidental and intentional prescription drug overdoses are on the rise in the United States, according to a study conducted by researchers from West Virginia University.

Paychecks to Shrink Because of Higher Health Premiums, U.S. Companies Say
Workers will pay more for their health care next year as U.S. companies prepare for provisions of the overhaul signed into law by President Barack Obama, according to a survey released today. About 63 percent of businesses plan to make employees pay a higher percentage of their premium costs in 2011, said the Washington-based National Business Group on Health, which surveyed 72 companies that employ more than 3.7 million people. The survey showed 46 percent plan to raise the maximum level of out-of-pocket costs that workers
must bear. Comment: Isn't this proof of just one more lie, in an ongoing the string of lies, told by this administration and Congress?

Today In History Friday August 20, 2010
1866 - The National Labor Union in the U.S. advocated an eight-hour workday.
1866 - It was formally declared by U.S. President Andrew Johnson that the American Civil War was over. The fighting had stopped months earlier.
1914 - German forces occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I.
1918 - The British opened its Western Front offensive during World War I.
1940 - France fell to the Germans during World War II.
1953 - It was announced by the Soviet Union that they had detonated a hydrogen bomb.
1955 - In Morocco and Algeria hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting.
1955 - Col. Horace A. Hanes, a U.S. Air Force pilot, flew to an altitude of 40,000 feet. Hanes reached a speed of 822.135 miles per hour in a Super Sabrejet.
1964 - A $1 billion anti-poverty measure was signed by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
1967 - The New York Times reported about a noise reduction system for album and tape recording developed by technicians R. and D.W. Dolby. Elektra Record's subsidiary, Checkmate Records became the first label to use the new Dolby process in its recordings.
1968 - The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization.
1977 - Voyager 2 was launched by the United States. The spacecraft was carrying a 12 inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.
1985 - The original Xerox 914 copier was presented to the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of American History. Chester Carlson invented the machine.
1986 - Patrick Henry Sherril, postal employee, killed 14 co-workers in a shooting spree at the post office in Edmond, OK.
1988 - Eight British soldiers were killed by a landmine while in a military bus in Northern Ireland. The mine belonged to the Irish Republican Army.
1989 - Jose and Kitty Menendez were shot to death by their sons Lyle and Erik. The first trials ended in hung juries.
1991 - A rally of more that 100,000 people occurred outside the Russian parliament building to protest the coup that removed Gorbachev from power.
1997 - NATO troops seized six police stations in Banja Luka that had been held by troops controlled by former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic.
1997 - Britain began voluntary evacuation of its Caribbean island of Montserrat due to the volcanic activity of the Soufriere Hills.
1998 - Canada's Supreme Court announced that Quebec could not secede without the federal government's consent.
1998 - U.S. military forces attacked a terrorist camp in Afghanistan and a chemical plant in Sudan. Both targets were chosen for cruise missile strikes due to their connection with Osama bin Laden.
1998 - The U.N. Security Council extended trade sanctions against Iraq for blocking arms inspections.

Audit: US cannot account for $8.7B in Iraqi funds
The $8.7 billion in question was Iraqi money managed by the Pentagon, not part of the $53 billion that Congress has allocated for rebuilding. It's cash that Iraq, which relies on volatile oil revenues to fuel its spending, can ill afford to lose.

Homeowners' Rebellion: Could 62 Million Homes Be Foreclosure-Proof?
The financial juggling that helped cause the 2008 crisis may be coming back to haunt banks—and help homeowners.

It Begins… Soros Bailing Out of US Stock Market
Far Left billionaire, democratic donor and Obama supporter, George Soros is bailing out of the US stock market. The value of billionaire investor George Soros’s hedge fund dropped by 42% to $5.1 billion at the end of the second quarter.

Kidnapped Mexican mayor found dead
Security forces find the body of a mayor days after he was abducted by hitmen in the latest attack on a public official by increasingly bold drug gangs. Comment: When recently talking to one of our friends from Mexico, he told us that things are REALLY bad down there and even the tourist areas are far from safe. He mentioned drive-by shootings as being common, even in the tourist areas.

Firms struggle to access funding
Bank credit has dried up for many small companies, while those which do have loans and overdrafts are finding that the cost of borrowing is on the increase. According to business sources, interest rates are being pushed up, while fees are also rising. The Small Firms Association (SFA) said recently that the cost of – as well as access to – finance was an increasing problem for small businesses, with 15 per cent of respondent companies stating that the cost of their working capital had increased in the last three months.

10 Credible Conspiracy Theories?
Here are the top ten list of conspiracy theories from AlterNet and with comments beneath.

Struggling workers increasingly tapping 401(k) accounts for needed cash
In the wake of news about a spike in new applications for unemployment benefits comes another potentially troubling sign: A record number of workers made hardship withdrawals from their retirement accounts in the second quarter. What's more, the number of workers borrowing from their accounts reached a 10-year high, according to a report issued Friday by Fidelity Investments.

New study: 85% of Big Pharma's new drugs are "lemons" and pose health risks to users
Independent reviewers found that about 85 percent of new drugs offer few if any new benefits -- but they carry the risk of causing serious harm to users.

Greece Enters Death Spiral
The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece's problems are dragging down the country's economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places. Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back.

Southern California home sales collapse by 21 percent year over year. Real estate tanks simultaneously with ending of government artificial market intervention
As would be expected, home sales in Southern California have collapsed in near synchronization with the ending of tax credits and tighter lending guidelines. The July sales figures fell on a year over year basis by 21.4 percent. This is a significant drop in a summer month that usually has solid home sales. This is the proof that the market is merely being held up by massive government intervention and incredibly expensive tax credits that serve really no purpose except to provide a short term sugar high for the market. Comment: Hold on to your assets, if you're buying a house, since the best deals are still yet to come.

Housing prices up but foreclosure rates paint a different picture
Foreclosure rates are an important indicator of economic well-being and are driven by employment levels. These persistently high rates, less distorted by the recent tax credit than housing prices, help to give a fuller picture of the state of the housing market. The rates imply that the housing market has stabilized somewhat, but absent the effects of the first-time homebuyer's tax credit, there hasn't been all that much recovery from the same time one year ago. Comment: The interesting item, somewhat said and glossed over, is the fact that the first time house buyer incentives really didn't do anything major to help this situation. Like the cash for clunkers, here's another place where bailouts don't work, especially if people are unemployed.

Schmidt Offers Google's Most Chilling Big Brother Scenario Yet
Plenty of people have worried that because of the amount of information Google knows about people, it could become an Orwellian Big Brother.

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims at 500,000, Highest Since November 2009
In the week ending Aug. 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 500,000, an increase of 12,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 488,000.

US Prepares for Gold Standard
I have often written about the US Treasury and US Mint's very strange behavior when it comes to their part in continuing "business as usual" for the fiat monetary system.

A List of Goldman Sachs People in the Obama Government: Names Attached to the Giant Squids Tentacles
At a time when Congressional hearings are set to call testimony from some Goldman Sachs employees, it is vital to understand how widespread that institution’s ties are to the Obama administration.

Russian Scholar Warns of 'Secret' US Climate Change Weapon
As Muscovites suffer record high temperatures this summer, a Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries.

Goodbye Iraq: Last US Combat Brigade Heads Home
As their convoy reached the barbed wire at the border crossing out of Iraq on Wednesday, the soldiers whooped and cheered.

S.510 Fake Food Safety: Forcing the Collapse of Domestic Agriculture
If food safety were the real issue…we would close down the USDA and FDA corporations immediately. S.510 is not intended to, and will not do anything other than stifle economic growth, kill off the domestic agricultural sector and hand that sector over to corporate predators.

The Story of Obama: All in the Company
WMR previously reported on the CIA links of President Obama’s mother, father, step-father, grandmother to the CIA.

Fidel Castro Fascinated By Book on Bilderberg Club
Fidel Castro is showcasing a theory long popular both among the far left and far right: that the shadowy Bilderberg Group has become a kind of global government, controlling not only international politics and economics, but even culture.

Nearly 80% of Gulf Spill Oil Still in Water
Nearly 80 per cent of the oil spilled from a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico is still in the gulf, US scientists have estimated, challenging a more optimistic assessment by the US government earlier in the month.

CBO Sees Difficult Economic Times Ahead
The U.S. economy faces even more difficult times ahead with chronic high unemployment rates and slow manufacturing growth hurting the recovery, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said on Thursday.

Obamas to Begin Sixth Holiday of the Year
President Barack Obama will be accompanied by his wife Michelle and daughters Malia, 12, and Sasha, nine, and are expected to stay at the historic Blue Heron Farm in Chilmark.

CIA Forms New Center to Combat Nukes, WMD's
The CIA is opening a counterproliferation center to combat the spread of dangerous weapons and technology, a move that comes as Iran is on the verge of fueling up a new nuclear power plant.

Schwarzenegger Orders Furloughs to Start After Top California Court Rules
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said 150,000 government workers must begin taking time off without pay starting Aug. 20 following a court ruling lifting an injunction temporarily blocking the furloughs.

Death of 'Government Motors' Offers Obama a Welcome Victory
General Motors' giant leap away from government ownership Wednesday could be a small but vital step in President Barack Obama's efforts to convince Americans his economic policies are working.

Nearly Half of United States Considering Arizona-Style Immigration Legislation
Twenty-two states are now in the process of drafting or seeking to pass legislation similar to Arizona’s law against illegal immigration.

Egg Recall Tied to Salmonella Grows to 380 Million
Hundreds of people have been sickened in a salmonella outbreak linked to eggs in four states and possibly more, health officials said Wednesday as a company dramatically expanded a recall to 380 million eggs.

Prince Charles Urges British Families to 'Snub the Bathtub'
Prince Charles has told British families to take shorter showers to help protect the environment.

Australian Survey Buoy Anomalies Offer New Evidence that Planet X is Approaching From the South
A heated debate in the Planet X community focuses on where Planet X is approaching from. Many believe it is near or moving along the ecliptic in the direction of the sun (the plane of our solar system.)

Ben and Jerry's 'Natural' Ice Cream Filled With Unnatural Ingredients
Consumer watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is calling out popular ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's for using artificial and chemically-altered ingredients in its "All Natural" premium ice creams.

Obesity Linked to Poor Sperm Quality
Young men now have a new incentive to stay lean and fit. According to a new report in the journal Fertility and Sterility, overweight young men have poorer sperm quality than their peers of a more healthy weight do.

Tainted Poultry Litter Causing Widespread Arsenic Contamination
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has pinpointed a major source of arsenic contamination in the environment -- poultry litter.

Vaccines Destroy the Lives of Children in China
More than 70 children in the northern Chinese province of Shanxi have suffered severe side effects from defective vaccines in the past several years, the China Economic Times has reported.

Walgreens Announces Flu Shot Gift Card: Give the 'Gift' of a Vaccine
Summer isn't even over yet and the big push for the mass vaccination of the entire population is already under way.

SAMe Supplement Effective at Treating Depression, Study Finds
Researchers recently completed a study revealing that the increasingly popular supplement S-Adenosyl Methionine (SAMe) is an effective treatment for people with depression.

Women More Easily Stressed Than Men
Two new studies have revealed that women deal with a lot more mental stress than men do.

Democrats reject gloomy election forecast
Democrats said they were encouraged by the success of the conservative "Tea Party" movement in Republican primaries, which has forced the party to the right and resulted in the nomination of more conservative outsider candidates in several key Senate races. They said the nomination of anti-establishment Tea Party-favorites Sharron Angle in Nevada, Rand Paul in Kentucky and Ken Buck in Colorado has bolstered Democratic chances in Senate races in those states. Public opinion polls in those states show all three races are close, and Paul has led most polls in Kentucky. Comment: This is what the establishment looks like when it's in complete denial.

Flight to “safety” eases China diversification
China appears to be taking steps to diversify its holdings away from the U.S. dollar and may just have chosen a pretty good time to do it. Longer term a meaningful diversification by China, which holds about a third of its $2.45 trillion currency reserves in U.S. Treasuries, is probably both inevitable and highly risky. Inevitable, because China probably realizes that, given the U.S.’s difficult fiscal and economic challenges it is not sensible to have its own fortunes tied so closely to its major client.
Comment: This subject is becoming more and more commonplace in articles talking about China and the U.S.

Crude Oil Declines to Six-Week Low Amid Signs U.S. Recovery Is Faltering
Crude oil declined to six-week low as rising U.S. jobless claims and a contraction in manufacturing added to concern growth in the world’s biggest oil-consuming nation is slowing.

Rapturous gold bugs see new highs ahead
Wednesday may prove to have been a very important day in gold. Gold broke early in the day, but then metal reversed, closing higher than Tuesday's high. For technicians, this amounts to an outside reversal.   Related: Gold rises 6th day in a row on weak U.S. jobs data

Point: Nullification Is The Civil Disobedience of Federalism
The national government appropriates power to itself, and it has built structures to weaken or remove legal impediments to that power. In response, we need illegal, but peaceful, impediments. Non-violent resistance carries with it a moral weight that legal Supreme Court wrangling never will, and that is a tool that we in the fight for liberty do NOT want to cede. Nullification may not be legal, but it is legitimate.

Google street view: shades of Nazi spy era?
It wasn’t too long ago that apartment dwellers in Germany assumed that someone, somewhere in the building, was taking notes on everything they did. Even people who owned their own homes could never be certain whether a government mole was listening in on their conversations. Read More...

The Stealth Debt Restructuring
Will the European Central Bank, whose prime directive is to keep inflation no higher than 2 percent, tolerate higher prices? Yes, said Mr. Fels, as long as the inflation comes from outside the euro area via import prices. The central bank will also be reluctant to add to the woes of Greece, Spain, Portugal and other slow-growth countries by raising rates. It could probably live with 3 percent inflation while the Fed, which has a more flexible mandate, would tolerate 5 percent or so. Comment: This sounds a lot like the comments that Bob Chapman made, well over two years ago, regarding hyperinflation and devaluation coexisting. Obviously, this is "trying" to be avoided.



Today In History Thursday August 19, 2010
1812 - "Old Ironsides" (the USS Constitution) won a battle against the British frigate Guerriere east of Nova Scotia.
1848 - The discovery of gold in California was reported by the New York Herald.
1856 - The process of processing condensed milk was patented by Gail Borden.
1909 - The first car race to be run on brick occurred at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
1919 - Afghanistan gained independence from Britain.
1929 - "Amos and Andy," the radio comedy program, made its debut on NBC starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll.
1934 - Adolf Hitler was approved for sole executive power in Germany as Fuehrer.
1940 - The new Civil Aeronautics Administration awarded honorary license #1 to Orville Wright.
1942 - About 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France. They suffered about 50 percent casualties.
1955 - Severe flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Diane, in the Northeast United States, claimed 200 lives.
1960 - Francis Gary Powers, an American U-2 pilot, was convicted of espionage in Moscow.
1960 - Two dogs were launched in a satellite into Earth's orbit by the Soviet Union.
1978 - 400 people were killed in a theater in Abadan, Iran. Moslem extremist set the fire.
1981 - Two Libyan SU-22s were shot down by two U.S. Navy F-14 fighters in the Gulf of Sidra.
1981 - The final episode of "Charlie's Angels was aired on ABC-TV.
1986 - 20 people were killed in a car bomb explosion in Tehran. Iran initially accused "American agents", however they later executed an "Iraqi agent."
1987 - David Horowitz, consumer reporter in Burbank, CA, was held at gunpoint while on camera and forced to read the assailants note. The program went off the air while police removed the gunman.
1991 - Soviet hard-liners announced that President Mikhail Gorbachev had been removed from power. Gorbachev returned to power two days later.
1993 - "Cheers" ended an 11-year run on NBC-TV. The show debuted on September 30, 1982.
1996 - A judge sentenced former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker to four years probation for his Whitewater crimes.
1999 - In Belgrade, thousands of Serbs attended a rally to demand the resignation of Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic.
2002 - A Russian military helicopter crashed after being shot by rebels in Chechnya. 119 people were killed.
2004 - Google Inc. stock began selling on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The initial price was set at $85 and ended the day at $100.34 with more than 22 million shares traded.

Central Banks Headed For Disaster
So here is a major banking crisis in the making, mainly as a result of the central banks’ continual attempts to rig the market finally coming to a head. It is a time when the whole idea of a world monopolized by fiat currencies is losing credibility. Fears of deflation currently dominate central bankers thinking. They dare not address the risk of inflation and nothing would suit central bankers more than the ability to print money without inflationary consequences.

Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database
The Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database, launched by Beyond Pesticides, facilitates access to epidemiologic and laboratory studies based on real world exposure scenarios that link public health effects to pesticides.

Walgreens announces flu shot gift card; give the "gift" of a vaccine
Summer isn't even over yet and the big push for the mass vaccination of the entire population is already under way. The CDC started the push by recently urging vaccine shots for everyone -- including infants, pregnant women and immune-compromised people. Adding to the vaccination hoopla, Walgreens has announced something quite bizarre: A flu shot gift card.

GM Announces Venture With Chinese Partner
General Motors Wednesday announced an interesting engine venture with one of its Chinese partners. GM and its Chinese partner, SAIC Motor, announced that they plan to jointly develop fuel-efficient small engines and transmissions. Comment: There's other ways, than shopping at Wal*Mart, to send our money to China!

Last full U.S. combat brigade leaves Iraq
The last U.S. combat troops crossed the border into Kuwait on Thursday morning, bringing to a close the active combat phase of a 7½-year war that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, forever defined the presidency of George W. Bush and left more than 4,400 American service members and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead.

Debt Virus Spreads During Make-Believe Recovery
The fevered predictions of the early summer that the euro was doomed, and that Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis would rip through countries such as Spain and Portugal like a virus, have been forgotten. The crisis appears to be over. Don’t believe it. Under the surface, the cracks in the euro are getting worse. The imbalances in the euro area are growing all the time. The resistance to the bailout package will rise as the terms turn out to be immoral and absurd. And the big-deficit nations are locked in a downward economic spiral.

Scientists Discover that Radiation Causes Breast Cancer
Girls who undergo chest radiation as a cancer treatment are significantly more likely to develop breast cancer as little as eight years later, according to a study conducted by researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

London Issues Orders to Obama: Hyperinflate!
The British Empire's messengers continue to bark out orders to their Obama administration in Washington, that he has to hyperinflate the financial system like there is no tomorrow. After all, it worked really well for Weimar Germany, didn't it?

Final Gulf Oil Well 'Kill' Plan on Hold Amid Pressure Fears
A long-standing deadline for sealing the ruptured Gulf of Mexico well deep below the seabed will be missed as US officials and BP tackle concerns about debris lodged in the well.

Frank and Dodd Kill Transparency
In a stunning revelation reported by Fox Business News, the Securities and Exchange Commission can now deny Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the public and the media as a result of a provision in the Dodd-Frank Financial Regulation law just signed by President Obama.

Renewed Attack On Private Property - Be Afraid
One of the things that perpetually frightens me about America is the unreasoning ability of our people to continually wave off things that are right in our faces – to just believe in the better side of people – even politicians.

The Dollar Continues to Fall Despite Economic Recovery Efforts
The Dollar Index has fallen for the 10th week in a row, worrying investors and economist all over the world. The data suggests US recovery efforts have yet to set a firm foundation in the worlds largest economy. What does this mean? It means the US is still in a recession and the recovery effort is failing.

Jury Deadlocks on 23 of 24 Charges Against Blagojevich
A federal jury deadlocked Tuesday on all but one of 24 charges against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, including the most explosive of all -- that he tried to sell an appointment to President Barack Obama's old Senate seat.

Ron Paul Will Run for President in 2012
Ron Paul is planning to run against Obama in 2012, this is a tip from an insider known as "The Collins," a hard core activist with connections to the Pauls.

DHS Memo 'Administrative Alternative to Comprehensive Immigration Reform'

Terrorist Interrogation Tapes Found
The CIA has videotapes, after all, of interrogations in a secret overseas prison of admitted 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh.

Rep Pelosi Calls for Investigation of WTC Mosque Opposition
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, called for an investigation of those who are protesting the building of the Ground Zero Mosque on Tuesday. She told San Francisco's KCBS radio:

Ailing 9/11 Responders Slam President Obama: Focus on Zadroga Health bill, Not Ground Zero Mosque
Ailing 9/11 responders slammed President Obama on Tuesday for sounding off on the Ground Zero mosque while keeping silent on a $7.2 billion health care
bill.

Israel Has Days to Strike Bushehr
Israel has only mere days to launch an attack on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor if Russia makes good on its plan to deliver fuel there this weekend, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton warned Tuesday.

Iran's Secret Pipeline Into the US
Iran Air 744 is a bimonthly flight that originates in Tehran and flies directly to Caracas with periodic stops in Beirut and Damascus. The maiden flight was Feb. 2, 2007.

VIDEO: Craig T. Nelson 's Glenn Beck Tax Rant

US May Sue Arizona's Sheriff Arpaio For Not Cooperating in Investigation
A federal investigation of a controversial Arizona sheriff known for tough immigration enforcement has intensified in recent days, escalating the conflict between the Obama administration and officials in the border state.

Gore Calls for Major Protests on Government's Climate Change Inaction
Former Vice President Gore is calling for major rallies to protest congressional inaction on climate change.

VIDEO: Dock Owners Asking Fishermen to Sign Waiver Stating That They Would Be Responsible for Contaminated Fish?
While President Obama and state officials claim that the Gulf is ‘open for business,’ these fishermen say the spraying of dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico is ongoing and they’ re concerned that seafood pulled from impacted waters is unsafe for eating.

Wal-Mart Quietly Raises Prices
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), which for years has touted its prowess at lowering prices, has been doing the opposite as it tries to bolster its bottom line amid stagnating sales.

White House Directive: Erect Signs at all Stimulus Projects as 'Symbol of President Obama's Commitment to American People'
Federal contractors receiving money for projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)—the $862 billion economic stimulus law President Barack Obama signed in February 2009—have been encouraged and, in some cases, required by the administration to post signs that say their work is funded by that specific act.

Sugar Beets - Monsanto Wins Again
Last Friday a federal judge imposed a nationwide ban on GMO sugar beets and it was overturned the next business day. Sugar beets comprise 50% of the sugar used in US food, and 95% of the sugar beets grown in the US are GMO.

Almost 80% of the Oil From Deepwater Horizon Disaster Remains in the Gulf
Despite what BP and and the media may be reporting, a study by the Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia that was released yesterday stated that almost 80% of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster remains in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Genetically Manipulated Crops: The GMO Catastrophe in the USA
Recently the unelected potentates of the EU Commission in Brussels have sought to override what has repeatedly been shown to be the overwhelming opposition of the European Union population to the spread of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in EU agriculture.

China Targets US Troops With Arms Buildup
China is aggressively building up military forces capable of striking U.S. forces in the western Pacific and elsewhere as part of what the Pentagon calls an array of high-tech "anti-access" missiles, submarines and warplanes in its latest annual report.

New Study: 85% of Big Pharma's New Drugs Are 'Lemons' and Pose Health Risks to Users
For years, natural health proponents have been sounding the alarm about the dangers of new drugs being pushed on consumers.

Severe Weather Threatens World Food Supply
Extreme weather conditions across the globe are destroying crops, cattle and land, as nations struggle through things like droughts, floods and other natural phenomena.

Developing nations to bear cancer brunt
Developing countries will bear 60 percent of the world's cancer burden by 2020 and 70 percent by 2030, but are not prepared for the looming crisis, cancer experts warned in a report on Thursday. These countries do not have the infrastructure in place to prevent cancer, diagnose it early or provide long-term treatment, according to CanTreat International, which comprises experts from leading international cancer organizations. "Developed countries have been setting up plans and systems to cope with cancer all the time, but developing countries are not ready ... treatment, diagnoses are made very late or not at all, so the (death) toll is much, much higher," Joseph Saba, a medical doctor and member of the group, said in an interview. Comment: See, vaccination have helped developing countries...(dramatic pause)...kill more people!

Clinton to Urge Global Aid for Pakistan to Match Haiti Response
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks today on Pakistan’s need for humanitarian assistance as donations trail the response to the Haiti earthquake. Clinton speaks at 4 p.m. at the United Nations General assembly in New York, a day after an Obama administration official said the U.S. will pledge more money to the flood- devastated country. Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, said today during a visit to Pakistan that U.S. aid will increase to $150 million, the Associated Press reported. Comment: Let's stop sending drones and bombs there and let them use the money saved there. This is insane. I'm compassionate, but this is pure hypocrisy!

Silver, Two of Seven
Silver metal was recognized as more precious than gold when bartering in ancient Egypt - this recorded as early as 930 BC. Silver’s use as money in coin form began around 2600 years ago. The Lydian (present day Turkey) Trite is considered by many experts to be one of the first coins used as money. It was made of “Electrum”, a silver and gold mixture. Egyptian silver in coin form began appearing around 300BC. Silver and gold have stood the test of time, as a medium of exchange, a storehouse of value and a safe haven in times of turmoil. Comment: I like the historical references in this article, which is a different angle than we usually read when someone writes about gold and silver. The author is 100% correct about where silver is headed!


Today In History Wednesday August 18, 2010
1840 - The American Society of Dental Surgeons was founded in New York City, NY.
1846 - Gen. Stephen W. Kearney and his U.S. forces captured Santa Fe, NM.
1894 - The Bureau of Immigration was established by the U.S. Congress.
1914 - The "Proclamation of Neutrality" was issued by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. It was aimed at keeping the U.S. out of World War I.
1916 - Abraham Lincoln's, the 16th president of the U.S., birthplace was made into a national shrine.
1919 - The "Anti-Cigarette League of America" was formed in Chicago IL.
1920 - Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Amendment guaranteed the right of all American women to vote.
1937 - The first FM radio construction permit was issued in Boston, MA. The station went on the air two years later.
1938 - The Thousand Islands Bridge was dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The bridge connects the U.S. and Canada.
1940 - Canada and the U.S. established a joint defense plan against the possible enemy attacks during World War II.
1958 - Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Lolita" was published.
1963 - James Meredith graduated from the University of Mississippi. He was the first black man to accomplish this feat.
1966 - The first pictures of earth taken from moon orbit were sent back to the U.S.
1981 - Herschel Walker of the University of Georgia took out an insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London. The all-American was insured for one million dollars.
1982 - The volume on the New York Stock Exchange topped the 100-million level for the first time at 132.69 million shares traded.
1982 - The longest baseball game played at Wrigley Field in Chicago, IL, went 21 innings before the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Cubs 2-1.
1983 - 22 people were killed and over $1 billion in damage was caused when hurricane Alicia hit the Texas coast.
1990 - The first shots were fired by the U.S. in the Persian Gulf Crisis when a U.S. frigate fired rounds across the bow of an Iraqi oil tanker.
1991 - An unsuccessful coup was attempted in against President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The Soviet hard-liners were responsible. Gorbechev and his family were effectively imprisoned for three days while vacationing in Crimea.
1997 - Beth Ann Hogan became the first coed in the Virginia Military Institute's 158-year history.
1998 - Sam Bowers', ex-Klansman, fifth trial began. Bowers was being tried again for the 1966 firebombing death of Vernon Dahmer, a civil right activist.
1998 - Mrs. Field's Original Cookies announced that they would acquire the Great American Cookie Co.
2004 - Donald Trump unveiled his board game (TRUMP the Game) where players bid on real estate, buy big ticket items and make billion-dollar business deals.

VIDEO: Craig T. Nelson 's Glenn Beck Tax Rant

Sara Lee latest to curtail use of high-fructose corn syrup
Many medical and nutritional professionals, as well as the Corn Refiners Association, contend that all sweeteners are metabolized the same way. A Princeton University study, on the other hand, has shown that long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup does lead to abnormal increases in body fat, especially around the belly. Books like "The Omnivore's Dilemma" have added to the debate, charging that widespread use of high-fructose corn syrup is part of what's wrong with the American diet. And movies like "Food, Inc." have heightened many consumers' skepticism about big food.

Students Told to Stop Singing National Anthem in D.C. - The Return Of Civil Disobedience
Police tell students to stop singing national anthem at Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

Corexit Is Being Sprayed at Night, Even Now (According to BP Vessel of Opportunity Workers and Others)
The government and BP have said that no dispersants have been sprayed in the Gulf since the well was partially capped on July 15th.
However, local residents have been saying for weeks that Corexit is still being sprayed.

Pakistan flood toll rises but international aid fails to flow
About 14 million people have now been affected by the flooding, and about 1,600 people killed. Both figures are expected to rise in the coming days. Pakistan's federal flood commission estimated that 300,000 homes have been destroyed or seriously damaged so far and 2.6m acres (105,000 sq km) of croplands submerged.

Chinese investments in an Idaho gold mine just one way the state hopes to revive its economy
Chinese businessmen and their families sat in the aisles and stood along the wall of a crowded Shanghai hotel conference room to hear Gov. Butch Otter invite them to move themselves and their money to Idaho. 20 investors had signed on to invest a total of $10 million that estimates say could create 200 jobs in Idaho. It was the first of what the state hopes will be a program that creates 1,200 jobs and brings $60 million a year to Idaho.

Guilty on just 1 count, Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich taunts U.S. attorney
Amazing. The report begins: "After deliberating for two weeks, a federal jury today convicted Rod Blagojevich of only one of the 24 counts against him - lying to the FBI - and announced it was deadlocked on the other 23 counts."

Foxconn Removes Safety Nets, Holds Rallies After Suicide Spree
The group is shifting facilities to central China to let employees work closer to their hometowns, and hiring outside management for some dormitories as it moves toward a “more open” style of management, Foxconn said in June. As many as 300,000 people will be employed at a new factory in Henan, the home province of almost 20 percent of Foxconn’s China workforce, the local government said in June. Jimm's Comment: I cannot be the only one raising the question of why is a dormitory is associated to a major corporation? Is this open an open admittance of slavery by the corporation.

40l(k)/IRA Nationalization Quietly Moves Forward
Although it's an ad for Goldworth, the facts are bluntly stated. This is something I've been yelling about for well over two years now. There are a number of bills, pushing for this, currently in Congress. Look for this to happen, disguised as the "way to save Social Security". I'm not endorsing this company (since I'd not researched what they're all about), but am impressed that they are stating the truth. I'll take any ounce of resistance to this tyranny. Bottom line, "they" want your retirement accounts to help "protect you".

Vietnam Devalues Its Currency as Equities Approach Bear Market
Vietnam devalued its currency for the third time since November, moving to reverse a slump in exports that helped to drive stocks close to a bear market. The dong dropped 1.1 percent to 19,320 per dollar as of 11:22 a.m. in Hanoi, after touching a record-low 19,425 as the central bank lowered the reference rate by 2 percent. The Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange’s VN Index dropped 1.7 percent to 455.49, extending its decline from the May peak to 17 percent, near the 20 percent that would indicate a bear market.

Is the U.S. Becoming a Third-World Country?
This begs the question: how much longer can giants like Walmart and Home Depot rely on cost cutting to beat the Street’s earnings expectations in the face of stubbornly slow sales? Not much longer, it turns out. According to the New York Post, a recent JPMorgan Chase study of a Walmart Supercenter in Virginia has revealed that “the worlds’ largest retailer has raised prices by nearly 6% on average over the past six weeks.” Prices on certain items increased by more than half – such as a 50% price hike on Windex household cleaner, 65% on Quaker Oats instant grits, and 50% on Tide laundry soap. So much for everyday low prices. Granted, Walmart is still at the lower end of the retail spectrum, but, says the New York Post, “its lead is narrowing – to 10.4 percent last month from 16 percent in June.”

START Expiration Ends US Inspection of Russian Nuclear Bases
For the first time in 15 years, U.S. officials have lost their ability to inspect Russian long-range nuclear bases, where they had become accustomed to peering into missile silos, counting warheads and whipping out tape measures to size up rockets.

The Great American Disaster: How Much Gold Remains In Fort Knox?
Yesterday marked the 39th anniversary of the day when the US Government declared bankruptcy. Oh, they didn't call it that at the time. But what happened on August 15, 1971 was that the US defaulted on its promise to pay gold for dollars. Before that day, gold was the legal linchpin of the world monetary system. Although every currency was defined in terms of the US dollar, the dollar itself was legally defined as 1/35th of a troy ounce of gold.

Former U.S. Army commander of forces in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal to teach at Yale
The former U.S. Army commander of forces in Afghanistan who was fired for making disparaging comments about his civilian superiors has been hired to teach at Yale, one of America's top universities. He will be teaching a graduate course on leadership.

Karzai Wants Private Security Firms Out of Afghanistan
American officials were stunned Monday by a surprise announcement from President Hamid Karzai's spokesman calling for the dissolution within four months of the private security companies that foreign armies and aid organizations in Afghanistan rely on to do their daily work.

China Reduces Holdings of Treasury Debt in June
China reduced its holdings of U.S. Treasury debt for a second straight month in June while the holdings of Japan and Britain rose.

Attacks Against Mexicans Inflame Tensions in NYC
When Rodolfo Olmedo was dragged down by a group of men shouting anti-Mexican epithets and bashed over the head with a wooden stick on the street outside his home, he instinctively covered his face to keep from getting disfigured. Blood filled his mouth.

Founder of Reaganomics Says That 'Without A Revolution, Americans Are History'
The United States is running out of time to get its budget and trade deficits under control.

China Diversifies Away From the Dollar
China, whose $2.45 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves are the world’s largest, is turning bullish on Europe and Japan at the expense of the U.S., reports Bloomberg.

The Return of Civil Disobedience
It’s good to see civil disobedience making a comeback. As NBC’s Washington, D.C., affiliate reported recently, a group of students who were members of the conservative Young America’s Foundation High School Conference were touring
the Capitol in June.

Gulf Shrimpers Find Oil In Reopened Fishing Areas, Government Says 'Shut Up,' Sierra Club Alleges Areas Were Solely Reopened to Limit BP's Liability
While the government says that the oil is gone, shrimpers say its still there.

War Preparations? Biggest US-Israeli Joint Infantry Exercise Ever
The Israeli military on Saturday carried out maneuvers in a terrain that resembles south Lebanon as part of exercises on the occupied Palestinian territories’ borders with Lebanon and Syria.

'Fructose-Slurping' Cancer Could Sour the Soda Business
Soda and processed-food manufacturers have long insisted that all sugars are essentially the same. Yet, simultaneously they're delicately backing away from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as one study after another links the corn-based sweetener to obesity and diabetes.

Israel Has '8 Days' to Hit Iran Nuclear Site
Israel has "eight days" to launch a military strike against Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility and stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, a former US envoy to the UN has said.

US Breast Cancer Drug Decision 'Marks Start of Death Panels'
A decision to rescind endorsement of the drug would reignite the highly charged debate over US health care reform and how much the state should spend on new and expensive treatments.

Russian Scholar Warns of 'Secret' US Climate Change Weapon
As Muscovites suffer record high temperatures this summer, a Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries.

Pentagon Warning Over China Military Build-Up
China is extending its military advantage over Taiwan and increasingly looking beyond, building up a force with power to strike in Asia as far afield as the US territory of Guam, the Pentagon said.

Obamacare Hits! Closes Pain Treatment Program
Obamacare has landed in Denver, where doctors at a pain-management clinic have been told they must stop treating patients with a successful process that extracts their own adult stem cells, cultivates them and then reinjects them to stimulate growth in damaged limbs.

The EPA Is Out Of Control
The Environmental Protection Agency is waging an unprecedented battle to end U.S. farming as we know it. Wielding regulation like a scythe, on the books or proposed, EPA is trying single-handed to make farming obsolete.

Will the Bizarre Weather of 2010 Set the Stage For a Major Global Food Shortage in 2011?
Record-shattering heatwaves all over the world, massive wildfires in Russia, truly historic flooding in Pakistan and China and devastating droughts in many other areas are playing havoc with harvests all over the globe.

Scientists Discover How Polyphenols in Green Tea May Protect Health of Diabetics
Having a cup of tea involves a lot more than meets the eye -- and the taste buds.

Acetaminophen More Than Doubles Risk of Asthma in Young People
Acetaminophen, more commonly recognized as aspirin, is under fire after a new study revealed that the drug can significantly increase young people's risk of developing asthma and eczema.

Chinese Babies Growing Breasts From Milk Hormones?
Premature development in young girls is becoming a problem in China, where growth hormones used in milk production have been found in certain baby formulas.

The Newest Eating Disorder: Sleep Eating
As many as one in a thousand adults may binge eat in their sleep, according to an article in the New York Times.


Today In History Tuesday August 17, 2010
1790 - The capital city of the U.S. moved to Philadelphia from New York City.
1815 - Napoleon began serving his exile when he arrived at the island of St. Helena.
1835 - Solyman Merrick patented the wrench.
1859 - A hot air balloon was used to carry mail for the first time. John Wise left Lafayette, IN for New York City with 100 letter land had to land after 27 miles.
1863 - Federal batteries and ships bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC, harbor during the Civil War.
1896 - The Klondike gold rush was set off by George Carmack discovering gold on Rabbit Creek in Alaska.
1903 - Joseph Pulitzer donated a million dollars to Columbia University. This started the Pulitzer Prizes in his name.
1915 - Charles F. Kettering patented the electric, automobile self-starter.
1943 - The Allied conquest of Sicily was completed as U.S. and British forces entered Messina.
1945 - The nationalists of Indonesia declared their independence from the Netherlands.
1961 - The Communist East German government completed the construction of the Berlin Wall.
1969 - Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast killing 248 people.
1978 - Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman became the first to land after a successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight. The voyage began in Presque Isle, ME and ended in Miserey, France.
1982 - The U.S. Senate approved an immigration bill that granted permanent resident status to illegal aliens who had arrived in the United States before 1977.
1987 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 2,700 for the first time.
1996 - A military cargo plane crashed in Wyoming killing eight crewmembers and a Secret Service employee. The plane was carrying gear for U.S. President Clinton.
1996 - Ross Perot was announced to be the Reform Party's presidential candidate. It was the party's first-ever candidate.
1998 - The FBI announced that it was questioning a suspect concerning the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on August 7th, 1998.
1998 - U.S. President Clinton admitted to having an improper relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern.
1998 - NationsBank and BankAmerica merge to create the largest U.S. bank.
1998 - Russia devalued the ruble.
1999 - More than 15,000 people were killed in an earthquake in Turkey.
2002 - In Santa Rosa, CA, the Charles M. Schulz Museum opened to the public.

Pat Tillman's Mom: McChrystal Helped in Cover-Up
Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, documents her family's crusade to uncover the truth and expose the cover-up by senior military officials in her book, "Boots on the Ground by Dusk: Searching for Answers in the Death of Pat Tillman," which is being re-released to coincide with the August 20 release of the documentary "The Tillman Story."  Mary Tillman: Pat's Death Isn't an Isolated Case; Many Military Families Not Getting Full Story About Kids' Deaths.

The Swim Was Staged
Obama's Gulf Swim Was Fake - by Stephen Lendman
On August 15, AP reported that Obama gave his "personal assurances of (the) Gulf's safety," saying: "Beaches all along the Gulf Coast are clean, they are safe, and they are open for business." He lied.

Liquor sales hit record in Ohio
Ohioans are spending more money than ever on hard liquor. Sales hit a record $742.7 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, the Ohio Department of Commerce reported Thursday. Liquor sales rose $12.8 million, or 1.75 percent, over the previous year. It was the 11th consecutive year of record sales.

Aerial Images Being Used to Enforce Laws
High-tech eyes in the sky — from satellite imagery to sophisticated aerial photography that maps entire communities — are being employed in creative new ways by government officials, a trend that civil libertarians and others fear are eroding privacy rights. "As technology advances, we have to revisit questions about what is and what is not private information," said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology.

New Immunization Rules Begin This School Year
School is right around the corner and Michigan’s health department is stressing the importance of vaccinating your kids. For this upcoming school year, new immunization rules are in effect for all children entering kindergarten, 6th grade and students changing school districts. As part of the new rules, these students are required to receive two doses of varicella vaccine. Comment: Make a note that the article states "rules", not "laws".

Gold Versus Paper: Gold in a Bull Market, Stocks in a Bear Market
Gold is in a bull market. It is unequivocal on a long-term chart and anyone who says otherwise doesn't know how to read a chart. Period. You can call it a bubble if it suits your sour grapes, but the trend line has not been broken. U.S. government bonds are also still in a bull market, which is also unequivocal. How many Gold bulls feel comfortable with this latter comment? How many Gold bulls are comfortable with Exter's pyramid? Hyperdeflation and hyperinflation are not as far apart as many like to think. Ice first, then fire, as federal reserve notes will be the last major asset class to hyperdeflate relative to Gold (the past deflation of private, for-profit, fascist, IOU debt notes backed-by-nothing relative to Gold has been just the warm up).

State on Record Pace for Foreclosures
The state is on pace for a record number of foreclosures in 2010, according to a report released by the NC Justice Center. If average foreclosure rates for the year stay constant, North Carolina will reach a record of 70,000-plus filings for 2010, according to the report.

Putting Government First
Where a man's purse is, there his heart will be also.If you would know where the heart of the Obama party is today, consider. In the dog days of August, with temperatures in D.C. rising above 100, Nancy Pelosi called the House back to Washington to enact legislation that could not wait until September.

Mexico Rethinks Drug Strategy as Death Toll Soars
The drug war in Mexico is at a crossroads. As the death toll climbs above 28,000, President Felipe Calderon confronts growing pressure to try a different strategy — perhaps radically different — to quell the violence unleashed by major drug syndicates.

Arabs Lobby US on Anit-Israel Vote
VIENNA — Ignoring a U.S. warning, Arab nations are urging Washington and other powers to end support of Israel’s nuclear secrecy and to push the Jewish state to allow international inspections of its program, diplomats told The Associated Press Sunday.

'Junk Bonds' Hit Record
U.S. companies issued risky "junk" bonds at a record clip this week, taking advantage of keen investor appetite for returns amid declining interest rates and tepid stock markets.

CA Town Overpaid Officials with $3 Million in Illegal Property Taxes
The tiny blue-collar city that granted huge salaries to its top officials may have to repay nearly $3 million in illegal property taxes, a state official said Friday.

UAE Imports Five Tons of Fake Gold
Several tons of gold imported into the UAE by traders and investors turned out to be fake on closer inspection, resulting in millions of dirhams in losses and high levels of stress to the victims.

US - China Conflict: From War of Words to Talk of War
Relations between the U.S. and China have been steadily deteriorating since the beginning of the year when Washington confirmed the completion of a $6.4 billion arms deal with Taiwan and China suspended military-to-military ties with the U.S. in response.

N Korea Warns of 'Severest Punishment' Over War Games
North Korea's military threatened Sunday to launch the "severest punishment" against South Korea for staging massive joint war games with the United States this week.

The Trade Deficit Nightmare
When they hear the word deficit, most Americans immediately think of the U.S. government budget deficit which is rapidly spiralling out of control. But that is not the only deficit which is ripping the U.S. economy to shreds.

S Korea, US to Begin Fresh Drills
South Korea and the United States are to launch a fresh large-scale joint military exercise this week amid growing tension with North Korea.

Army Report: AWOL's Up 234%
Tucked into this massive Army report on suicide is an interesting fact: Since 2004, the number of soldiers going AWOL, deserting, and "missing movement" -- that is failing to deploy when they're supposed to -- has gone up a shocking 234 percent.

Obama Backtracks Over Ground Zero Mosque
Barack Obama has backtracked over his support for plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero.

China Favors Euro Over Dollar As Bernake Alters Path
China, whose $2.45 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves are the world’s largest, is turning bullish on Europe and Japan at the expense of the U.S

Dems May Use Food Stamp Money to Pay for Michele Obama's Nutrition Initiative
Democrats who reluctantly slashed a food stamp program to fund a state aid bill may have to do so again to pay for a top priority of first lady Michelle Obama.

Bedbug City: 1 in 10 New Yorkers Has Grappled With Bedbugs in Their Home
A new Daily News-Marist poll suggests that The City That Never Sleeps is probably too busy itching: One in 10 New Yorkers has now battled bedbugs in their home.

Banks to Benefit Most From White House Program to Help Fight Foreclosures
Banks will get the biggest benefit from an Obama administration housing program designed to help unemployed homeowners escape foreclosure.

Rand Paul: Keep EPA Out of KY Affairs
Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul took harsh digs at President Barack Obama while mining for votes in Kentucky coalfields Saturday, saying busybody regulators backed by the president are stifling the coal sector.

Dead Cow Carcasses 'Resurrected' to Produce Cloned Beef
We already know that cloned beef has entered the food supply both in the United States and the UK.  Now, thanks to revelations from JR Simplot, a U.S. company specializing in the cloning of cows for beef production, we're learning that dead cows are cloned to produce the next generation of beef cattle.

It's Official: Smoking Makes You Stupid
Smoking is directly correlated with a lower IQ, according to a study conducted by researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel and published in the journal Addiction.

Scientists Stunned as Bee Populations Continue to Decline
Scientists remain stymied as honeybees in the United States and across the world continue to die in large numbers.

John Bolton: Russia's Loading of Nuke Fuel Into Iran Plant Means Aug 21 Deadline for Israeli Attack
News that Russia will load nuclear fuel rods into an Iranian reactor has touched off a countdown to a point of no return, a deadline by which Israel would have to launch an attack on Iran's Bushehr reactor before it becomes effectively "immune" to any assault, says former Bush administration U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton.

Your House Might Be Underwater for Years: Michael Carliner
This doesn’t even take into account the large number of homes with defaulted mortgages in the foreclosure pipeline. On the demand side, while mortgage rates are low, plenty of households may have trouble meeting new, stricter lending standards. Then there are those consumers who would like to buy, but whose credit records were damaged by mortgage defaults or other difficulties repaying debt. They will be locked out of the housing finance system for years, so even if they want to buy their ability to borrow is nil, further limiting potential demand.


Today In History Monday August 16, 2010
1812 - Detroit fell to Indian and British troops in the War of 1812.
1829 - The "Siamese twins," Chang and Eng Bunker, arrived in Boston, MA. They came to the Western world to be exhibited. They were 18 years old and joined at the waist.
1858 - A telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to U.S. President Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable.
1861 - U.S. President Lincoln prohibited the Union states from trading with the states of the Confederacy.
1906 - 1,500 people died in an earthquake in Valparaiso, Chile.
1923 - Carnegie Steel Corporation put into place the eight-hour workday for its employees.
1930 - The first British Empire Games were held at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The event is now called the British Commonwealth Games.
1937 - Harvard University became the first school to have graduate courses in traffic engineering and administration.
1948 - Babe Ruth died at the age of 53.
1954 - Sports Illustrated was published for the first time. It was claimed that 250,000 subscriptions was sold before the first issue came off of the presses.
1954 - Jack Paar replaced Walter Cronkite as host of "The Morning Show" on CBS-TV.
1960 - Cyprus was granted independence by Britain.
1960 - The free-fall world record was set by Joseph Kittinger. He fell more than 16 miles (about 84,000 feet) before opening his parachute over New Mexico.
1978 - Xerox was fined for excluding Smith-Corona Mfg. from the copier market. The fine was $25.6 million.
1984 - John DeLorean was acquitted on eight counts of a $24 million dollar cocaine conspiracy indictment.
1984 - The U.S. Jaycees voted to admit women to full membership in the organization.
1987 - 156 people were killed when Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed. The only survivor was four-year old Cecelia Cichan.
1993 - Harvey Weinstein was rescued from a 14-foot-deep pit by New York Police. He had been there for nearly two weeks while being held for ransom.
1995 - Voters in Bermuda rejected independence from Great Britain.
1999 - In Russia, Vladimir V. Putin was confirmed as prime minister by the lower house of parliament.

Tylenol tied to childhood asthma and allergies
A pair of studies suggests that the common painkiller acetaminophen -- better known as Tylenol in the U.S. -- may be fueling a worldwide increase in asthma. According to one study out Thursday, Tylenol could be responsible for as many as four in 10 cases of wheezing and severe asthma in teens.

Guess Where Your Fluoride Comes From? China!
Much of the fluoride added to municipal water supplies across the United States is imported from China, and is contaminated with heavy metals, according to a warning by Bernard Miltenberger, president of the Pure Water Committee of Western Maryland.

Another Bank goes down - Palos Bank and Trust Company, Palos Heights, Illinois
Palos Bank and Trust Company, Palos Heights, Illinois, became the 110th bad bank to be shuttered by the FDIC last night. The agency estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $72.0 million. It closed down Friday Aug. 13.

Distemper Outbreaks in Dogs Call for Natural Prevention
Recent increases in outbreaks of distemper around the country are cause for alarm among dog owners. There are natural remedies that, if caught early enough, are effective in speeding recovery. Read More....

China Overtakes Japan as World's Second-Biggest Economy
China surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy last quarter, capping the nation’s three- decade rise from Communist isolation to emerging superpower. Japan’s nominal gross domestic product for the second quarter totaled $1.288 trillion, less than China’s $1.337 trillion, the Japanese Cabinet Office said today. Japan remained bigger in the first half of 2010, the government agency said. Comment: Another domino falls.

Will Quantitative Easing By the Fed Unleash Economic Hell?
Prior to the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, the Federal Reserve could always count on being able to stimulate the U.S. economy with a quick cut to interest rates.

A Boat Ride and Ice Cream Cap Obama's Trip to the Gulf
President Barack Obama and his family cruised the waters off their Florida Panhandle hotel on Sunday, offering a portrait of a family on vacation to boost a region struggling with the economic damage wrought by the nation's worst oil spill.

China Favors Euro Over Dollar as Bernanke Alters Path
China, whose $2.45 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves are the world’s largest, is turning bullish on Europe and Japan at the expense of the U.S. The nation has been buying “quite a lot” of European bonds, said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the People’s Bank of China who was part of a foreign-policy advisory committee that visited France, Spain and Germany from June 20 to July 2. Japan’s Ministry of Finance said Aug. 9 that China bought 1.73 trillion yen ($20.1 billion) more Japanese debt than it sold in the first half of 2010, the fastest pace of purchases in at least five years.

Genetically Modified Salmon: AquaBounty Technologies Seeks FDA Approval of Fast Growing Salmon
AquaBounty is seeking FDA approval for a genetically engineered fish that reaches market weight in half the usual time. Some in the industry are leery.

Can Stores Require an ID When I Pay by Credit Card?
You’ve probably encountered this situation numerous times. You are in a store paying for your purchase with your credit card. The cashier asks to see your driver’s license. Do you have to show it? Probably not!

Pakistan Flood Crisis Raises Fears of Country's Collapse
The humanitarian and economic disaster caused by the worst floods in Pakistan's history could spark political unrest that could destabilize the government, dealing a major blow to the Obama administration's efforts to fight violent Islamic extremism.

Pastor Acquitted in Interstate 8 Checkpoint Incident
A Baptist pastor who claimed he was beaten by law enforcement officers at an interstate checkpoint was acquitted Friday of two misdemeanor charges related to the incident.

Air Strike on Iran Nuclear Assets Possible Now
When I posted two or three weeks ago that an American supported Israeli air strike was possibly eminent because the necessary assets had moved in place, I still lacked the reason as to why just now.

Researchers Propose Serving Free Cholesterol Drugs With Fast Food Meals
A group of researchers at Imperial College London recently cross-referenced a couple of studies on heart health and have made an interesting recommendation to fast food outlets: rather than fries, each order should come with a free statin drug.

Iran Prepares to Launch First Nuclear Reactor
The country’s atomic energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said they were preparing to transfer the fuel inside the Bushehr power station in southern Iran next week before transferring it to the reactor core.

More College Students are Affected With Severe Mental Illness
The number of college students who are afflicted with a serious mental illness is rising, according to data presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Assn. in San Diego.

FBI's Racist Shock Jock Hal Turner Convicted of Threatening 3 Judges
A US Internet radio host was convicted Friday of threatening to assault and kill three judges who upheld a ban on handguns in Chicago, the US Justice Department said.

Obama Signs Border Bill to Increase Surveillance
President Obama signed into law a $600 million bill on Friday to pay for 1,500 new border agents, additional unmanned surveillance drones and new Border Patrol stations along the southwest border.

Using Local Organic Cooperatives to Defeat Globalists
When I count from zero to five, you will become wide awake and feeling great; your vision will be clear, your consciousness will easily decode this illusory matrix, your humanity will return, and your fierce determination to be a free sovereign individual will be fully restored.

Obama Strongly Backs Islam Center Near 9/11 Site
President Obama delivered a strong defense on Friday night of a proposed Muslim community center and mosque near ground zero in Manhattan, using a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan to proclaim that “as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.”

FDA Approves Ella As 5-Day-After Emergency Contraceptive
The Food and Drug Administration approved a controversial new form of emergency contraception Friday that can prevent a pregnancy as many as five days after sex.

VIDEO: Feds Says Risk of BLOWOUT Near Wellhead Is the Center of Discussion

US Dollar Now Ripe for Catastrophic Devaluation
Normally when I cover subjects in the economy, I try to take a “macro” approach, giving an overall view of various financial elements around the world and how they are clearly connected to one another in a greater synchronous social force.

Schoolbook Hunky-Dory With Islam, but Skunks Jesus?
Parents of Florida high-school students are outraged because they say a world-history textbook used in many of the state's schools portrays Islam and Muhammad in a favorable light.

Russia Burns (Radiation Alert): Into the Ashes
A hasty evacuation of diplomatic staff from foreign embassies, like a stampede, began in Moscow.

APOCALYPSE 2010
In a previous article on Extreme Weather Events that I posted on my blog in November 2009, I wrote that there was a high probability of much more ‘Extreme Weather’ to come in 2010, and in following years.

The Hindenburg Omen Indicates Stock Market Crash is Coming
On Thursday August 12, the US equities market triggered a confirmed technical indicator known as the “Hindenburg Omen."

New Plastic Technology Limits Toxic Outgasing
Researchers have come up with a solution to the problem of plastic outgasing -- or the toxic release of plastic chemicals into food and the environment.

ADA Calls on Schools and Communities to Help Improve Student Nutrition
The American Dietetic Association (ADA) recently published a position paper that urges local schools and their surrounding communities to work together to improve the nutritional quality of food in schools.

Beware $1 Trillion Lying Under Chinese Mattress by William Pesek
The most dangerous aspect of China’s trajectory is how, well, American it looks. China’s social fabric is under pressure. This year’s employee suicides at Foxconn Technology Group are a case in point. So is the spate of deadly attacks on schoolchildren, which press reports suggest are related to grievances with local governments. Last week, the New York Times reported on growing violence against doctors in the northeastern city of Shenyang.

Goldman Undercuts Rivals in GM IPO as It Loses Top Role
Wall Street banks led by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley stand to make a combined $120 million on General Motors Co.’s initial public offering. If it weren’t for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., they could have made four times as much. In a pitch to the U.S. Treasury in May, Goldman Sachs offered to accept a fee of 0.75 percent, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. That’s a fraction of the 3 percent banks typically charge on the largest IPOs and well below the 2 percent offered by Bank of America Corp. and other banks that presented to Treasury, said the people, speaking anonymously because the matter is private. Comment: From the government to the bankers, the fascist move is complete (since the bankers run the government).

 

Today In History Friday August 13, 2010
1846 - The American Flag was raised for the first time in Los Angeles, CA.
1867 - "Under the Gaslight", by Augustin Daly, opened in New York City, NY.
1876 - The Reciprocity Treaty between the U.S. and Hawaii was ratified.
1889 - A patent for a coin-operated telephone was issued to William Gray.
1907 - The first taxicab started on the streets of New York City.
1912 - The first experimental radio license was issued to St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia, PA.
1931 - The first community hospital in the U.S. was dedicated in Elk City, OK.
1932 - Adolf Hitler refused to take the post of vice-chancellor of Germany. He said he was going to hold out "for all or nothing."
1934 - Al Capp's comic strip "L'il Abner" made its debut in newspapers.
1935 - The first roller derby match was held at the Coliseum in Chicago, IL.
1942 - Walt Disney's "Bambi" opened at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, NY. Disney movies, music and books
1959 - In New York, ground was broken on the $320 million Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
1960 - "Echo I," a balloon satellite, allowed the first two-way telephone conversation by satellite to take place.
1961 - Berlin was divided by a barbed wire fence to halt the flight of refugees. Two days later work on the Berlin Wall began.
1979 - Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals got his 3,000th career hit.
1985 - The engagement of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenagger was announced.
1986 - United States Football League standout Herschel Walker signed to play with the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League.
1989 - The wreckage of Texas Congressman Mickey Leland's plane was found a week after disappearing in Ethiopia. There were no survivors of the 16 passengers.
1990 - Iraq transferred $3-4 billion in bullion, currency, and other goods seized from Kuwait to Baghdad.
1990 - Magic Johnson announced the indefinite postponement of his wedding to fiancé Earletha Kelly.
1992 - Woody Allen began legal action to win custody of his three children. A judge ruled against Allen in 1993.
1992 - A gunmen dressed in military fatigues shot and killed three people and wounded four others before killing himself. The shootings took place in a plant nursery in Watsonville, CA.
1994 - It was reported that aspirin not only helps reduce the risk of heart disease, but also helps prevent colon cancer.

10 Things You Didn't Know About Social Security
Paper Social Security checks will soon be retired. Social Security recipients will be required to collect payments by direct deposit into a bank account or a government Direct Express Debit MasterCard beginning on March 1, 2011. Existing beneficiaries must switch to electronic payments by March 1, 2013. Paperless payments are expected to save $300 million over five years, according to Treasury Department estimates.Comment: Cashless society, here we come! And, isn't it wonderful that everything is going through MasterCard?

July Highest All-Time for Background Checks on Firearm Sales
Unadjusted data released by the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reported 1,069,792 checks in July 2010, ranking the month the highest July for most NICS checks.

China PLA Warns US Over Fresh Military Drill in Region
China's People Liberation Army demanded a tough response to U.S. plans to send an aircraft carrier to naval exercises near its coast, saying that "respect" was at stake.

American Cancer Society Maintains Close Financial Ties Mammography Radiation Device Manufacturers
The American Cancer Society (ACS) is involved financially with manufacturers of mammography devices, tainting its cancer screenings with conflict of interest, cancer prevention experts Samuel S. Epstein and Rosalie Bertell have charged.

Bill Gross Issues Ultimatum: GSE's Keep Government Guarantee Or Else
In an interview with the FT, Pimco's Bill Gross flatly warned the government, in advance the housing finance conference that will begin deciding the fate of the GSEs next Tuesday, that unless Fannie and Freddie bonds retain their government guarantees, he would cease purchasing GSE debt.

Grain Price Rise May Fuel Mideast, Europe Unrest
Rising grain prices from Russia's drought and fires will pressure populations already hit by the financial crisis and could stoke unrest -- particularly in the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe.

Gulf Scientist: Justice Department is gagging me from studying oil spill
The Justice Department continues to impose stifling restrictions on independent scientists seeking to study the catastrophic effects of Gulf spill, according to one scientist.

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims Increase, Highest Since February
In the week ending Aug. 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 484,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 482,000. The 4 -week moving average was 473,500, an increase of 14,250 from the previous week's revised average of 459,250.

Business Facing a Wave of Green Taxes
Companies that fail to register their energy use by next month will be hit with fines that could reach £45,000 under the little-known rules.

Trouble Ahead Adds to Worries for US Recovery
As economic recovery wavers in the United States, evidence is mounting that growth abroad is also slowing and may be unable to sustain the fragile rebound here.

Borrowers Refuse to Pay Billions in Home Equity Loans
During the great housing boom, homeowners nationwide borrowed a trillion dollars from banks, using the soaring value of their houses as security.

Housing Crisis Reaches Full Boil in East Point, 62 Injured
Thirty thousand people turned out in East Point on Wednesday seeking applications for government-subsidized housing, and their confusion and frustration, combined with the summer heat, led to a chaotic mob scene that left 62 people injured.

Stocks Fall Sharply as Investors' Gloom Grows
Stocks and interest rates fell sharply Wednesday as more bad news chipped away at investors' view of the economy.

Oil Spill: BP Nears Deal to Continue Drilling in Gulf of Mexico
BP was on Tuesday night close to safeguarding its future in the Gulf of Mexico as it neared a break-through deal aimed at smoothing relations with the Obama administration.

Google CEO Schmidt: No Anonymity Is The Future of the Web
No anonymity is the future of web in the opinion of Google's CEO Eric Schmidt. He said many creepy things about privacy at the Techonomy Conference.

Student Loan Debt Surpasses Credit Cards
Consumers now owe more on their student loans than their credit cards.

IMF Report Promotes World Currency
An April report from the International Monetary Fund promoting a world central bank and a global fiat currency went totally undetected by the global press for months, but after a blog post earlier this month on the Financial Times’ website, it is now in the media spotlight.

Fed Looks to Spur Growth by Buying Government Debt
Federal Reserve officials decided to reinvest principal payments on mortgage holdings into long-term Treasury securities, making their first attempt to bolster growth since March 2009 to keep the slowing U.S. economy from relapsing into recession.

Youth Unemployment Hits Record High
Global youth unemployment has hit a record high following the financial crisis and is likely to get worse later this year, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said Thursday.

We Want Our IOU's
State Controller John Chiang said Tuesday that without a state budget, California's government would be unable to pay its bills in late August (or maybe early September).

Watchdog Panel Cites Global Impact of US Bailout
The $700 billion U.S. bailout program launched in response to the global economic meltdown had a far greater impact overseas than other countries' financial rescue plans did on the U.S., according to a new report from a congressional watchdog.

Sen Harry Reid Key Player in Big Pharmas' Control Over Washington
Corruption in Washington is nothing new. Lobbyists for special interests have been padding the pockets of amoral politicians for longer than most of us have been alive, and they've been doing so with the help of a controlled media that rarely presents the facts without shrouding them in terms of "left" or "right" in order to confuse people.

Determining Dangers of DEET
It's widely used in insect repellents, and has been detected in the state's rivers and lakes.

USS Truman Posted Opposite Hormuz As Iranian Threats Spiral
To meet increasingly defiant Iranian threats to US regional military forces, Washington has detached the USS Truman carrier from support duty for Afghanistan in the Arabian Sea and reassigned it to Dubai opposite the Gulf of Oman and the Straits of Hormuz with thousands of marines aboard.
 

Today In History Thursday August 12, 2010
1851 - Isaac Singer was issued a patent on the double-headed sewing machine.
1865 - Disinfectant was used for the first time during surgery by Joseph Lister.
1867 - U.S. President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him when he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
1877 - Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and made the first sound recording.
1898 - Hawaii was annexed by the U.S. Hawaii was later given territorial status and was given Statehood in 1959.
1898 - The Spanish-American War was ended with the signing of the peace protocol. The U.S. acquired Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Hawaii was also annexed.
1918 - Regular airmail service began between Washington, DC, and New York City.
1944 - In France, Pierre Laval released Edouard Herriot.
1944 - Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was killed with his co-pilot when their Navy plane exploded over England. Joseph Kennedy was the oldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.
1953 - The Soviet Union secretly tested its first hydrogen bomb.
1960 - The balloon satellite Echo One was launched by the U.S. from Cape Canaveral, FL. It was the first communications satellite.
1962 - The Soviet Union launched Pavel Popovich into orbit. Popovich and Andrian Nikolayev, who was launch a day before, both landed on August 15.
1969 - The Boston Celtics were sold for $6 million. At the time it was the highest price paid for a pro basketball team.
1977 - The space shuttle Enterprise passed its first solo flight test.
1981 - IBM unveiled its first PC.
1985 - A Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 crashed into a mountain killing 520 people.
1986 - It was announced by NASA that they had selected a new rocket design for the space shuttle. The move was made in an effort at correcting the flaws that were believed to have been responsible for the Challenger disaster.
1990 - The first U.S. casualty occurred during the Persian Gulf crisis when Air Force Staff Sergeant John Campisi died after being hit by a military truck.
1992 - The U.S., Canada, and Mexico announced that the North American Free Trade Agreement had been created after 14 months of negotiations.
1993 - U.S. President Clinton signed a relief package for the flooded areas of the Midwest United States.
1993 - U.S. President Clinton lifted the ban on rehiring air traffic controllers that had been fired for going on strike in 1981.
1994 - Major league baseball players went on strike rather than allow team owners to limit their salaries. The strike lasted for 232 days. As a result, the World Series was wiped out for the first time in 90 years.
1998 - Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion as restitution to World War II Holocaust victims.

VIDEO: Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano 8/11/2010
Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Gary Johnson, Kennedy, more!

Rogue JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater hailed as working-class hero
He is now, for better or for worse, THE JetBlue flight attendant, with the now-infamous tarmac incident dominating the list of top Yahoo! searches. (Among the variations: "jet blue flight attendant," up 9,175% in one day; "steven slater jet blue"; and "fed up attendant jet blue.") And the term "JetBlue flight attendant" is still the top search term on Twitter as of this writing at noon Eastern the day after the fact, not to mention the outpouring of support he's received on Facebook.

WHO List Reveals Flu Advisors With Financial Ties to Pharma, Vaccine Manufactures
After months of stalling, the World Health Organization (WHO) has finally revealed the names of key pandemic advisors who influenced its decision to declare a phase six pandemic last year -- a decision that resulted in a financial windfall for vaccine manufacturers.

Scientists Find New Superbug Spreading From India
A new superbug could spread around the world after reaching Britain from India -- in part because of medical tourism -- and scientists say there are almost no drugs to treat it.

5 Reasons Companies Still Aren't Hiring
The earnings surge is misleading. One reason those earnings numbers are so high is that they're being compared to abysmal lows. Companies reporting quarterly growth rates are comparing sales and earnings with the depressed levels of a year ago, a period close to the bottom of the recession when consumers and businesses alike had stopped most unnecessary spending. Take General Electric. Its earnings per share for the second quarter of 2010 grew a healthy 15 percent from the same period a year earlier. But total revenues and profits are still down sharply from the peaks of 2007 and 2008.

The FCC's Crusade to Keep the Internet Free
Like it or not, Net neutrality may soon be ending. No one senses this more acutely than Julius Genachowski. Ever since a federal court ruling in April gutted his power to regulate Internet service providers, the Federal Communications Commission chairman has struggled to regain authority over carriers like AT&T (T), Verizon, and Comcast by proposing new rules and holding closed-door talks with industry players.

Study finds chemicals in Washington water and fish
Widespread low levels of man-made chemicals used to produce nonstick cookware and breathable waterproof clothing have been detected in Washington water and fish, according to a Department of Ecology study released Tuesday. Ecology officials said the results confirm what they suspected about perfluorinated compounds, known as PFCs, and will help the state come up with a plan to reduce the toxic, persistent chemicals and their risk to residents. "We don't have manufacturers of these chemicals in Washington, yet the Washington environment sees them anyway," said Carol Kraege, who is leading the agency's Toxics Reduction Initiative.

WITH 20% UNEMPLOYMENT, OBAMA ISSUES OVER 1 MILLION GREEN CARDS
The Department of Homeland Security has just reported that during 2009, they issued 1,130,818 new Green Cards to foreign nationals, allowing them to work legally in this country. That number represents the fourth highest number of cards issued in one year.

30,000 line up for housing vouchers, some get rowdy
Atlanta East Point residents began lining up to turn in Section 8 housing applications before daybreak Thursday, a day after a crowd of 30,000 mobbed a shopping center to pick up the forms.

How the Military Destroys the Lives of Soldiers Who Try to Tell the Truth
Bradley Manning is not the first military whistleblower to have his life ruined. The military is infamous for trying to silence soldiers who speak out against the war. “If you are deemed a whistleblower in the Army, there is a very good chance of it ruining not only your career but your life,” says David Debatto, a U.S. Army counterintelligence special agent who saw several such instances while serving in Iraq in 2003.

Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -22

Florida AG Proposes Tougher Illegal Immigrant Curbs
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum on Wednesday proposed tougher curbs against illegal migrants in his melting-pot state which he said would go "one step further" than a similar contested Arizona law.

Fed Downgrades Recovery Outlook
The US Federal Reserve on Tuesday took a first step toward extending its crisis-era monetary policy regime, as it downgraded its view of the economic outlook amid rising fears of a “double-dip” recession.

Fed Looks to Spur Growth by Buying Government Debt
Federal Reserve officials decided to reinvest principal payments on mortgage holdings into long-term Treasury securities, making their first attempt to bolster growth since March 2009 to keep the slowing U.S. economy from relapsing into recession.

US Posts Widest Trade Gap in 20 Months
The US trade deficit widened sharply in June to the highest level in 20 months on rising imports from China, and waning exports, the government said Wednesday.

Democrats, Advocacy Groups Blast Cuts to Food Stamps to Fund $26 Billion Aid Bill
Some Democrats are upset and advocacy groups are outraged over the raiding of the food-stamp cupboard to fund a state-aid bailout that some call a gift to teachers and government union workers.

Dutch Euthanasia Cases Up 13% Last Year
The number of reported Dutch cases of euthanasia or assisted suicide rose 13 percent last year, the government said on Wednesday, spurring talk of a possible “euthanasia hospital” to help people end their lives.

The UN Says Eating Creepy-Crawlies Will Save the Planet
South American ants are huge. Trust me, I’m about to eat one. Until I notice that their eyes are the size of currants and I lose my
appetite.

Russia Battles to Defend Nuclear Sites From Fires
Russia fought a deadly battle Tuesday to prevent wildfires from engulfing key nuclear sites as alarm mounted over the impact on health of a toxic smoke cloud shrouded over Moscow.

HUD Just Announced A Homeowner Bailout
The Obama Administration today announced additional support to help homeowners struggling with unemployment through two targeted foreclosure-prevention programs.

America is 'Bankrupt Mickey Mouse Economy'
America is a "Mickey Mouse economy" that is technically bankrupt, according to Jochen Wermuth, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and managing partner at Wermuth Asset Management.

Cyber security Lie Exposed: Power Plants Are Not Connected to the Internet
Primary justification behind internet takeover bill that would hand Obama power to shut down world wide web is completely fraudulent.

First Signs of Civil War Begin in the US: Sheriff DeMeo Threatens Force Against Federal Agents
It began with one Sheriff speaking with other Sheriffs about their oaths to uphold the constitution. A new movement is growing in this country in support of limited government, constitutional principles, states rights and a stronger role for sheriffs to play against federal abuse of power.

Congressman Calls Vote on $26 Billion Jobs Bill a Sign 'We're not bankrupting the country fast enough'
With a tone of sarcasm, a California Republican congressman said that he “knows” why members of the U.S. House of Representatives were summoned from their home districts back to Washington, D.C., and the halls of Congress.

US Financial Meltdown or Is a Complete Financial Armageddon Coming?
A little more than two years ago, economist John Williams of shadowstats.com predicted a “severe recession” was coming and soon.

Iran to Expunge 'Dirty Dollar' and Euro Reserves
Iran announced plans Monday to get rid of its dollar and euro reserves in response to the latest U.N. sanctions over its contested nuclear program.

The Gulf Plague is Evolving
I have been interviewing family and friends who live along the Gulf of Mexico coast in Louisiana and Mississippi. Many of them had been working on shrimp boats before May 1, 2010 and a cousin is a shrimp boat owner. I have also spoken at length with two RN's working at a Gulf coast Emergency Room and an Emergency Clinic who are close family friends. I am basing what follows on their observations and knowledge along with my own personal research.

Marc Faber: Protect Your Property With High Voltage Fences, Barbed Wire, Booby Traps, Military Weapons and Dobermans
Investment guru and publisher of The Gloom, Boom and Doom report, Marc Faber, regularly discusses investment strategies for protecting and building wealth during times of economic distress.

Drowning in Soda: America's Health Problems Made Far Worse By Massive Soda Consumption
The booming popularity of sugary soft drinks has led to 6,000 more deaths, 14,000 more cases of heart disease and 130,000 new cases of diabetes in the past 10 years, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of California-San Francisco and presented at the annual Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention conference of the American Heart Association.

Zinc Necessary for Eggs to Develop Into Healty Embryos
Researchers from Northwestern University near Chicago have been researching what makes certain human eggs turn into healthy embryos when other eggs do not. Based on findings thus far, high levels of zinc seem to be the deciding factor that spurs an egg to full and healthy development.

Vitamin C Puts the Brakes on Cancer Cell Growth
A half century ago, Linus Pauling began his pioneering research into how vitamin C impacts health (http://www.naturalnews.com/025802.html).

Some Experts Say Barefoot is Best for Small Children
Many parents love to buy cute shoes for their small children, but some experts are now warning that doing so may disrupt a child's cerebral development The best option, they say, is to let children simply walk barefoot.

Chemicals in Water Supply Near Chicago Linked to Cancer
A report by the Chicago Tribune has revealed that officials in the village of Crestwood, just outside Chicago, have been secretly introducing tainted well water into the town water supply for years.

The Daily Bell: US Unemployment Out of Control?
Here at the Bell, we've recited the figures that the US government provides. These claim 10 percent unemployment. We've also cited "shadow statistics" that claim to show that unemployment is closer to 20 percent. Finally, we've indicated that we think the "real" unemployment in the US is closer to THIRTY percent. We have no way of proving this number, but it seems realistic to us. Let it include people who have taken minimum wage jobs that hardly guarantee subsistence because they cannot find anything better and certainly the US workforce might approach that number. We wonder if it is any better in Europe, at least among the PIGS.

Analysis: Deflation poses threat to big-ticket retailers
U.S. retailers' efforts to rebound from the recession could hit a dead end. Deflation risks have risen in the past few weeks, spelling particular gloom for sellers of big-ticket items. While pockets of inflation may be cropping up in food and low-priced items, deflation could be just as much of a concern for sellers of appliances and vehicles, which are often the first items to be struck off shopping lists in a difficult economy.


Today In History Wednesday August 11, 2010
1860 - The first successful silver mill in America began operations. The mill was in Virginia City, NV.
1896 - Harvey Hubbell received a patent for the electric light bulb socket with a pull-chain.
1909 - The American ship Arapahoe became the first to ever use the SOS distress signal off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC.
1924 - Newsreel pictures were taken of U.S. presidential candidates for the first time.
1934 - Alcatraz, in San Francisco Bay, received federal prisoners for the first time.
1941 - The Atlantic Charter was signed by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
1942 - During World War II, Pierre Laval publicly announced "the hour of liberation for France is the hour when Germany wins the war."
1945 - The Allies informed Japan that they would determine Emperor Hirohito's future status after Japan's surrender.
1951 - The first major league baseball game to be televised in color was broadcast. The Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves 8-1.
1954 - Seven years of fighting came to an end in Indochina. A formal peace was in place for the French and the Communist Vietminh.
1956 - Abstract artist Jackson Pollack died in an automobile accident in East Hampton, NY.
1965 - Riots and looting took place in the Watts section of Los Angeles, CA. During the week that followed 34 people were killed. In addition, over 1,000 were injured, 3,000 were arrested and over $40 million in damage was done.
1965 - The U.S. conducted a second launch of "Surveyor-SD 2" for a landing on the Moon surface test.
1975 - The U.S. vetoed the proposed admission of North and South Vietnam to the United Nations. The Security Counsel had already refused to consider South Korea's application.
1984 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan was preparing for his weekly radio broadcast when, during testing of the microphone, the President said of the Soviet Union, "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
1990 - Egyptian and Moroccan troops joined U.S. forces in Saudia Arabia to help protect from a possible Iraqi attack.
1991 - The space shuttle Atlantis ended its nine-day journey by landing safely.
1992 - In Bloomington, MN, the Mall of America opened. It was the largest shopping mall in the United States.
1994 - The Tenth International Conference on AIDS ended in Japan.
1994 - A U.S. federal jury awarded $286.8 million to about 10,000 commercial fishermen for losses as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
1995 - All U.S. nuclear tests were banned by President Clinton.
1995 - A federal investigation was opened concerning the deadly siege at Ruby Ridge, ID, in 1992. The investigation was to find out whether FBI officials approved a "shoot on sight" order.
1997 - U.S. President Clinton made the first use of the line-item veto approved by Congress, rejecting three items in spending and tax bills.
1998 - British Petroleum became No. 3 among oil companies with the $49 billion purchase of Amoco. It was the largest foreign takeover of a U.S. company.
2002 - US Airways announced that it had filed for bankruptcy.
2003 - Charles Taylor, President of Liberia, flew into exile after ceding power to his vice president, Moses Blah.
2003 - In Kabul, NATO took command of the 5,000-strong peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

Nothing depleted about 'depleted uranium'
Need any more evidence?

US almond growers achieve court victory in fight against mandatory fumigation
Three years after the USDA destroyed the U.S. raw almond business by forcing almond producers to fumigate or pasteurize their nuts, a significant victory has been achieved that could overturn that onerous regulation. A federal appeals court has ruled that California almond farmers may now challenge the USDA regulation in the courts.

Facial-recognition technology used to catch identity thieves
If the eyes are the window to the soul, then facial-recognition technology might be regarded as the soul's window cleaner — at least by state officials nationwide who are increasingly using it to catch identity thieves and other fraudsters trying to get driver's licenses.

FOX News Covers Mass Drugging of Society With Lithium
In the remarkable Fox News report posted below, Dr. Archelle Georgiou, described as a well-recognized physician leader who “helps consumers make better health care decisions,” argues the case for adding lithium to the water supply.

US Dollar Now Ripe For Catastrophic Devaluation
Normally when I cover subjects in the economy, I try to take a “macro” approach, giving an overall view of various financial elements around the world and how they are clearly connected to one another in a greater synchronous social force.

The Government Is Dealing With the Oil Spill Like the Soviets Delt With Chernobyl
The Soviet Union was famous for covering up its environmental disasters. As award-winning journalist Dahr Jamail points out in a must-read article about the oil spill:

Sidney Harman's Intelligence Connection
After the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the intensified support for privatization under George W. Bush, logistics, security, and intelligence contracting grew by leaps and bounds.

The Nightmare Charts The Fed Is Looking At Right Now
Today, the FOMC, or Federal Open Market Committee, is meeting to discuss the fate of the U.S. economy and what hand the Fed has to play.

NFIB Survey Indicates Small Business Capitulates: 'Owners Have No Confidence That Economic Policies Will Fix Economy'
The NFIB Small Business Report came in at 88.1, down from 89.0 but just beating the expectation of 88.

Antibiotics: Stalemate Over Developing Antibiotics Shuts Off Pipeline
Nobody knows where Simon Sparrow picked up the bug that killed him.

IMRA - Iran Calls For Formation of Islamic Union to Start New World Order
Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi hoped for the formation of an Islamic Union in a move to start and establish a new
economic order in the world.

Iran Digging Graves For US Troops If They Attack
Iran has dug mass graves in which to bury U.S. troops in case of any American attack on the country, a former commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard said.

Chinese Slowdown Fears Weigh on World Markets
World markets fell Tuesday amid signs China's economy is losing steam and ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting that will be watched closely for rate-setters' views on the slowdown in the U.S. recovery.

Pentagon to Cut Thousands of Jobs, Defense Secretary Says
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that the Pentagon will cut thousands of jobs, including a substantial chunk of its private contractors and a major military command based in Norfolk, as part of an ongoing effort to streamline its operations and to stave off political pressure to slash defense spending in the years ahead.

Proposed Law Would Put Video Cameras in Cars
Lawmakers are considering controversial new legislation this week that would allow vehicles to be equipped with dashboard cameras to record the moments leading up to accidents.

The Black Horse of Famine
Today, an article from the Kansas City Star with the headline, “Russia announces ban on grain exports in response to drought,” reported that, “Russia announced Thursday that it would ban grain exports … in response to a scorching drought that has destroyed millions of acres of wheat and hobbled the country’s agricultural revival.

The Nose Knows If Gulf Seafood Is Safe
Already put off by the thought of oily gulf seafood? Well, it probably won't help your appetite to know that the food is being smelled first.

Former Alaska Sen Stevens Killed in Plane Crash
Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, one of the longest-serving senators in U.S. history and a tireless advocate for his state, was killed in a plane crash southwest of Anchorage Monday.

US State Dept Sends Mosque Imam to Mideast
State Department officials on Monday confirmed Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, will soon be going on a trip of the Middle East and the U.S. government will be picking up the tab.

Gulf Oil Spill: As 39,000 Spill Claims Dangle, BP Defers to the Feds
Sheryl Lindsay's wedding planner business is on the brink, crumbling with each cancellation over concerns about oil. Brides-to-be are walking away from plans for beachside vows, leaving Lindsay waiting to see whether she'll be part of BP's promise to make whole everyone who's suffered from its spill.

VIDEO: Students Told to Stop Singing National Anthem in DC

Vitamin water Revealed As Non-Healthy Beverage By Coca-Cola's Own Lawyers
Do you ever wonder things like "Who is actually gullible enough to think that Vitaminwater is healthy?"

White Button Mushrooms Enhance the Immune System to Fight Infections and Cancer
Scientists have long known that certain types of mushrooms have anti-tumor activity.

FDA Admits Millions of Patients Prescribed Illegal, Unapproved Medications by Doctors
In 2009 alone, more than four million prescriptions were written for nitroglycerin tablets that had not been approved by the FDA, the agency has said, representing 80 percent of all prescriptions written.

Biofuels Emit 400 Percent More CO2 Than Regular Fuels
A recent report issued by the European Union has revealed that biofuels, or fuel made from living, renewable sources, is not really all that beneficial to the environment.

Twelve "worst" and "best" non-organic produce items

Today In History Tuesday August 10, 2010
1821 - Missouri became the 24th state to join the Union.
1846 - The Smithsonian Institution was chartered by the U.S. Congress.
1859 - In Boston, MA, the first milk inspectors were appointed.
1869 - The motion picture projector was patented by O.B. Brown.
1881 - Thomas Edison's exhibit opened the Paris Electrical Exhibition.
1885 - The first electric streetcar, to be used commercially, was operated in Baltimore, MD, by Leo Daft.
1914 - Austria-Hungary invaded Russia.
1921 - Franklin D. Roosevelt was stricken with polio.
1927 - Mount Rushmore was formally dedicated. The individual faces of the presidents were dedicated later.
1944 - U.S. forces defeated the remaining Japanese resistance on Guam.
1945 - The day after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan announced they would surrender. The only condition was that the status of Emperor Hirohito would remain unchanged.
1947 - William Odom completed an around-the-world flight. He set the solo record by completing the flight in 73 hours and 5 minutes.
1949 - In the U.S., the National Military Establishment had its name changed to the Department of Defense.
1977 - The "Son of Sam," David Berkowitz, was arrested in Yonkers, NY. Berkowitz, a postal employee, had shot and killed six people and wounded seven others.
1988 - U.S. President Reagan signed a measure that provided $20,000 payments to Japanese-Americans who were interned by the U.S. government during World War II.
1991 - In Phoenix, AZ, nine Buddhists were found slain in their temple. Two teenagers were arrested for the crime.
1993 - A massive deficit-reduction bill was signed into law by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
1994 - In Germany, three men were arrested after being caught smuggling plutonium into the country.
1994 - U.S. President Clinton claimed presidential immunity when he asked a federal judge to dismiss, at least for the time being, a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Paula Corbin Jones.
1995 - Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were charged with 11 counts in the Oklahoma City bombing.
1995 - Michael Fortier pled guilty in a plea-bargain agreement. The agreement required that he testify for the prosecution in the Oklahoma City Federal building bombing trial.
1995 - Norma McCorvey, "Jane Roe" of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, announced that she had joined the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.
1999 - Near an India-Pakistan border area an Indian fighter jet shot down a Pakistani naval aircraft. Sixteen people were killed.
2006 - In Great Britain, 24 people were arrested for their roles in a plot to blow up airliners traveling between Britain and the United States. In Pakistan, 7 people were arrested for their roles in the same plot.

Mexico Offers Online-Degree Programs to THEIR Citizens Living in USA?
The Mexican government will begin offering online college-degree programs this month to its citizens living abroad, many of whom are suffering the effects of stricter immigration controls in the United States.

Angry JetBlue Attendant Exits Plane on Slide
A JetBlue flight attendant lost his cool with a passenger and ended up cursing out a planeload of passengers and using the plane emergency chute to exit onto the tarmac at JFK.

Pet Food Could Be Making Kids Sick
While young children were most often affected, there’s no evidence that they got sick by eating pet food, Behravesh said. They probably became infected by touching affected animals or dirty pet food dishes, and then putting their hands in their mouths, she said. Symptoms included bloody diarrhea and fever. At least 11 people were hospitalized; none died. There were no reports of sick animals but investigators found salmonella bacteria in stool samples from pets without symptoms who ate tainted food.

Early puberty for girls is raising health concerns
American girls are hitting puberty earlier than ever — a change that puts them at higher risk for behavioral problems as adolescents and breast cancer as adults, a new study shows.

Energy Expert Matt Simmons Dies in North Haven
Matthew Simmons, an international oil expert who most recently focused on developing renewable energy from the waters off Maine, died Sunday night of an apparent heart attack, his office is reporting. He was 67.
Related Article: Matthew Simmons' Awesome Presentation on the Coming Oil and Water Shortage

What to do About WikiLeaks? Not Much Can be Done
An online whistle-blower's threat to release more classified Pentagon and State Department documents is raising difficult questions of what the government can or would do, legally, technically or even militarily to stop it. Constrained by the global reach of the Internet, sophisticated encryption software and the domestic legal system, the answer seems to be: Not much.

Two New Regenerative Medicine Studies Offer Ways Damaged Hearts Can Repair Themselves
Heart Tissue You only get so much of it, but researchers are working to help the body regenerate damaged heart cells.

Death toll in China mudslide disaster now more than 700
The landslides hit a remote Gansu province town Sunday, with a slew of mud and rocks engulfing swathes of the mountainside community in the deadliest incident so far in the country's worst flooding in a decade.

Pentagon to shut military command and cut jobs
The Pentagon, trying to free up cash in the face of a yawning U.S. deficit, unveiled a series of cost-cutting measures on Wednesday that will shed thousands of jobs and shut down an entire military command.

Congressman from California: Obama 'enjoying' eligibility dispute
A member of Congress from California says there's no need for the president to be born in the United States – or to have two parents who are United States citizens – to be a "natural born citizen" and be eligible to be president. And U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., told WND today that he believes President Obama, who's been named as a defendant in multiple legal and other challenges claiming he is not eligible to be president, is enjoying the dispute over his background.

ICLEI: Invasive UN Treaty in 600 American Cities
There are over 600 US cities that are members of ICLEI, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, now known as Local Governments for Sustainability.

First Established Populations of Genetic Modified Plants Found in the Wild
Franken-canola has been found growing along roadsides in North Dakota, in one of the first known cases of genetically modified crops taking hold in the wild.

America's First In Vitro Baby
She was the most famous baby in America after her birth in 1981 following in vitro fertilization. Yesterday, Elizabeth Comeau gave birth to a baby of her own, Trevor.

Freddie, Fannie, FHA REO Inventory Increases 13% in Q2 From Q1 2010
The combined REO (Real Estate Owned) inventory for Fannie, Freddie and the FHA increased by 13% in Q2 2010 from Q1 2010. The REO inventory (lender Real Estate Owned) increased 74% compared to Q2 2009 (year-over-year comparison).

FHA Insured Mortgages: A Disaster in the Making
In a previous REAL ESTATE CHANNEL article, I pointed out that there were two main props supporting the housing market now. We examined the first one in detail - the banks withholding most foreclosed homes from the market.

Stocks and Dollar Advance Before Fed Meeting
Global stocks rose and the dollar edged higher on Monday on growing expectations the U.S.Federal Reserve will signal this week it is ready to renew its stimulus efforts to prop up a weakening U.S. economy.

Job of Collecting Evidence Against BP May Go To - BP
Now that BP appears to have vanquished its ruptured well, authorities are turning their attention to gathering evidence from what could amount to a crime scene at the bottom of the sea.

UN Panel: New Taxes Needed for a Climate Fund
Carbon taxes, add-ons to international air fares and a levy on cross-border money movements are among ways being considered by a panel of the world’s leading economists to raise a staggering $100 billion a year to fight climate change.

US Electricity Blackouts Skyrocketing
New York's Staten Island was broiling under a life-threatening heat wave and borough President James Molinaro was seriously concerned about the area's Little League baseball players.

Chart Reveals Insanity of New Health Care Bill
Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) have put together a new visual chart that helps illustrate the complexity of the recently-passed U.S. health care "reform" bill.

Mass Residents Fight Aerial Insecticide Spraying
In response to recent reports about the growing number of Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) and West Nile virus infections occurring from mosquito bites, some municipalities in the Eastern U.S. are planning to conduct aerial insecticide spraying on neighborhoods and farms. But not everyone is pleased with this, including several Mass. organic farmers whose properties could be destroyed by the endeavor.

Pharmacists, Doctors Are the New Drug Dealers Who Flood the Streets With Addictive Drugs
Prescription drug abuse is emerging as the new face of the U.S. drug problem, with unscrupulous pharmacists and doctors taking the place of street pushers or other stereotypical visions of the "drug dealer."

Prayer Can Help Bring Healing, Say Researchers
Researchers from Indiana University (IU) in Bloomington recently conducted a study on the effects of praying directly with someone for healing. According to Candy Gunther Brown, an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at IU and author of the study, "proximal intercessory prayer", as she calls it, can actually help to bring about healing.
 

Today In History Monday August 9, 2010
1790 - The Columbia returned to Boston Harbor after a three-year voyage. It was the first ship to carry the American flag around the world.
1831 - The first steam locomotive began its first trip between Schenectady and Albany, NY.
1848 - Martin Van Buren was nominated for president by the Free-Soil Party in Buffalo, NY.
1859 - The escalator was patented by Nathan Ames.
1892 - Thomas Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph.
1902 - After the death of Queen Victoria, Edward VII was crowned king of England.
1910 - A.J. Fisher received a patent for the electric washing machine.
1944 - The Forest Service and Wartime Advertising Council created "Smokey the Bear."
1945 - The U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The bombing came three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. About 74,000 people were killed.
1945 - The first network television broadcast occurred in Washington, DC. The program announced the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.
1956 - The first statewide, state-supported educational television network went on the air in Alabama.
1965 - Singapore proclaimed its independence from the Malaysian Federation.
1969 - Sharon Tate and four other people were found murdered at Tate's residence in Los Angeles, CA. Charles Manson later convicted of the crime.
1973 - The U.S. Senate committee investigating the Watergate affair filed suit against President Richard Nixon.
1974 - U.S. President Richard Nixon formally resigned. Gerald R. Ford took his place, and became the 38th president of the U.S.
1975 - The New Orleans Superdome as officially opened when the Saints played the Houston Oilers in exhibition football. It cost $163 million to build.
1985 - Arthur J. Walker, a retired Navy officer, was found guilty of seven counts of spying for the Soviet Union.
2000 - Former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin was arrested on a Class B misdemeanor of possession of less than 2 ounces of marijuana.
2001 - U.S. President George W. Bush announced he would support federal funding for limited medical research on embryonic stem cells.
2001 - In Jerusalem, a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated an explosive inside a pizzeria. The lunchtime bombing killed 15 and wounded about 90 others.
2004 - Donald Duck received the 2,257th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
2004 - Trump Hotel and Casion Resorts announced plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

If You Feel You Are Not Properly Sedated, Call 348-844 Immediately, Failure To Do So May Result Prosecution for Criminal Drug Evasion
The establishment media and the scientific dictatorship are promoting brain-eating vaccines that virtually lobotomize people and rewire their brains into a state of subservient compliance so that their natural instinct to get angry and rebel against the tyranny being imposed upon them is neutered and sterilized.

Middle Class in Shambles - More Debt, More Job Losses, More Deceit
On Friday the grim reality of more job losses for Americans was plastered across headlines.

The BP Oil Gusher Was Only the 'Crisis' Used to Shove Another Land Grab Bill Through the House
61 unique organization(s) has/have registered to lobby on this bill. Click on a client’s name to view all the bills on which they reported lobbying.

US Fails to Account for Iraq Reconstruction Billions
A US federal watchdog has criticised the US military for failing to account properly for billions of dollars it received to help rebuild Iraq.

US Employers Shed 131,000 Jobs in July - Surprised?
Is there anyone truly surprised that as the census workers leave the rolls of the workforce that there would be a slump?

Inmates Will Replace Migrants in Colorado Fields
As migrant laborers flee Colorado because of tough new immigration restrictions, worried farmers are looking to prisoners to fill their places in the fields.

Poll: Waning Support for Obama On Wars
Public support for President Obama's Afghanistan war policy has plummeted amid a rising U.S. death toll and the unauthorized release of classified military documents, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.

Another E. Coli Outbreak: 1 Million Pounds of Beef Recalled
On Friday, Valley Meat Company of Modesto California recalled over 1 million pounds of ground beef products after several people were affected by E. coli contamination.

While Gold and Silver Languish, US Dollar Plummets and Other Commodity Prices Soar
In the five weeks from June 28 through August 3, the US Dollar Index fell 5.9%!

US Civil Flags
The first U.S. Flag, which denoted civilian versus military purposes, was designed in 1799 by Oliver Wolcott Jr. the Secretary of the Treasury under John Adams. Wolcott's proposal featured: An ensign, consisting of sixteen alternating red and white stripes representing the number of states that had joined the Union by 1799; and the Union, represented by the small rectangle in the upper left corner, with its Arms (an Eagle) of the United States in dark blue on a white field.

S510 - Illegal to Grow, Share, Trade, Sell Homegrown Food
S510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US.

FDIC Bank Closures

Gulf Residents Likely Face Decades of Psychological Impact From BP's Oil Disaster
While the devastating ecological impacts of BP's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are obvious, the less visible but also long-lasting psychological, community and personal impacts could be worse, according to social scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists.

CIA Doctors 'Gave Green Light to Torture'
A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals that physicians with the CIA's Office of Medical Services (OMS) played an even greater role in facilitating the torture of detainees than was previously recognized.

Lavish Obama Vacation in Time of Economic Turmoil Raises Eyebrows
As the U.S. economy endures high unemployment and a jittery stock market, President Obama has preached sacrifice and fiscal discipline. But the pictures coming out of a sunsplashed Spanish resort this week may be sending a different message.

Michelle Obama Visits Ronda
The First Lady, her youngest daughter Sasha, and their group of friends left the Spanish coast and travelled to Ronda for a day of sightseeing accompanied by their vast security escort in a 13 car motorcade.

Fidel Castro: Obama Can Avert Impending Nuclear Holocaust
Cuba's Fidel Castro took part in his first government function since he nearly died in 2006, repeating his apocalyptic warnings of a nuclear war that only President Barack Obama can avert as he spoke Saturday to a formal session of parliament.

South Korean Fishing Vessel Held By North: Coast Guard
A South Korean fishing vessel with seven people aboard is being held by North Korea after sailing into the North's exclusive economic waters off the east coast, the South Korean coast guard said on Sunday.

No Nuclear Health Threat From Russian Fires: Experts
Fires that are sweeping across Russia threaten to re-release nuclear contamination from the Chernobyl disaster into the air, but not in levels dangerous to human health, experts said Friday.

Schwarzenegger Calls for Same-Sex Marriage
Lawyers for gay couples, California Gov. Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown filed legal motions Friday telling a federal judge that allowing same-sex marriages to resume immediately in the state was the right thing to do.

BP May Drill Again in Oil Spill Reservoir
BP may drill again in the same undersea oil reservoir that spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a company official said Friday.

Protests Over Cloned Animals in Food Chain
An animal welfare group on Friday delivered a petition of 7,000 names calling on the government to prevent products from cloned animals entering the food chain.

Sliding Towards Infanticide
President Obama has turned America into one of the most barbaric nations on earth: The country is committed to using tax dollars to kill unborn babies, both at home and abroad.

Across Texas, 60,000 Babies of Noncitizens Get US Birthright
As Republican members of Congress press for changes to the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, preventing automatic citizenship for babies born to illegal immigrants, opponents insist the debate is not really about babies.

NOAA Map Shows Surface Waters Clear of Oil, But Crude Sightings Continue Around Coast
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration map showed Gulf of Mexico waters completely clear of surface oil this weekend, yet crude sightings continued around Alabama's coast.

Nanotechnology and Nanochips - Are Populations Being Primed For Nano-Microchips Inside Vaccines?
It's almost surreal, like something out of a sci-fi flick, but nano-microchips invisible to the naked eye are a reality that are already being hosted in wide-range of applications. The question is, how long will it take governments and big pharma to immerse nano-microchips inside of vaccines to tag and surveil global populations?

HFCS - The Poison That Promotes Obesity and Liver Damage
Two new studies have added more reason for concern that high-fructose corn syrup causes significantly more harm to the body than its mere sugar content would suggest.

New Cooling Therapy to Help Cardiac Arrest Patients to Avoid Brain Damage
Emergency responders in New York City will soon start to use a new "cooling" therapy on cardiac arrest patients that will help to decrease their likelihood of brain damage.

Vegan Diets Are Not Always Healthy
Vegetarian or vegan diets are often touted as being healthier than conventional diets, but unless you make a concerted effort to get all your necessary proteins, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, you could be hurting yourself more than you are helping yourself.

Froot Loops Contaminated With 2-Methylnaphthalene Chemical
As cereal lovers sat down to enjoy their bowls of Froot Loops, Honey Smacks, Apple Jacks and Corn Pops, they had no idea they were about to eat a petrochemical called 2- methylnaphthalene.
 

Today In History Friday August 6, 2010
1787 - The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia began. The articles of the U.S. Constitution draft were to be debated.
1806 - The Holy Roman Empire went out of existence as Emperor Francis II abdicated.
1825 - Bolivia declared independence from Peru.
1890 - The electric chair was used for the first time when Auburn State Prison in New York executed convicted murderer William Kemmler.
1890 - Cy Young achieved his first major league victory. He would accumulate 511 in his career.
1914 - Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia. Serbia declared war against Germany.
1939 - Dinah Shore started her own show on the NBC Blue radio network.
1945 - The American B-29 bomber, known as the Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb on an inhabited area. The bomb named "Little Boy" was dropped over the center of Hiroshima, Japan. An estimated 140,000 people were killed.
1952 - Satchel Paige, at age 46, became the oldest pitcher to complete a major league baseball game.
1960 - Nationalization of U.S. and foreign-owned property in Cuba began.
1962 - Jamaica became an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.
1965 - The Voting Rights Act was signed by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
1981 - Fire fighters in Indianapolis, IN, answered a false alarm. When they returned to their station it was ablaze due to a grease fire.
1985 - The 40th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing brought tens of thousands of Japanese and foreigners to Hiroshima.
1986 - William J. Schroeder died. He lived 620 days with the Jarvik-7 manmade heart.
1989 - Jaime Paz Zamora was inaugurated as the president of Bolivia.
1990 - The U.N. Security Council ordered a worldwide trade embargo with Iraq. The embargo was to punish Iraq for invading Kuwait.
1991 - Harry Reasoner died at the age of 68. He was a newsman for CBS-TV.
1993 - The U.S. Senate confirmed Louis Freeh to be the director of the FBI.
1993 - Morihiro Hosokawa was elected prime minister of Japan.
1994 - Randolph County High School, in Wedowee, AL, was destroyed by fire. The principle's stand against interracial dating had caused much tension in the school.
1995 - Thousands of glowing lanterns were set afloat in rivers in Hiroshima, Japan, on the 50th anniversary of the first atomic bombing.
1996 - NASA announced the discovery of evidence of primitive life on Mars. The evidence came in the form of a meteorite that was found in Antarctica. The meteorite was believed to have come from Mars and contained a fossil.
1997 - Apple Computer and Microsoft agreed to share technology in a deal giving Microsoft a stake in Apple's survival.
1998 - Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky spent 8 1/2 hours testifying before a grand jury about her relationship with U.S. President Clinton.
1998 - The last new episode of Magic Johnson's talk show, "The Magic Hour," aired.

VIDEO: ForeclosureHamlet on T.V.
Help for foreclosures!

Ailing vets sue over smoke from trash fires in Iraq, Afghanistan
Some 241 military personnel and contractors who became ill after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are suing a Houston-based firm, claiming they were poisoned by smoke from trash fires, the Washington Post reported.

Russia to impose temporary ban on grain exports
Russia is to ban the export of grain from 15 August to 31 December after drought and fires devastated crops.

Elena Kagan tied to Obama's birth certificate
Yes, the same Elena Kagan nominated by the commander in chief to be the next justice on the U.S. Supreme Court has actually been playing a role for some time in the dispute over whether Obama is legally qualified to be in the White House. Read the connection...

Economic adviser Christina Romer leaving the White House
Christina Romer, chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, is leaving the White House to return to her teaching post at the University of California, Berkeley.

Social Security in the red this year
Social Security will pay out more this year than it gets in payroll taxes, marking the first time since the program will be in the red since it was overhauled in 1983, according to the annual authoritative report released Thursday by the program's actuary.

Birds fuel up on superfoods before long migration flights
Some birds radically change their diets just before their winter migrations, gorging themselves on antioxidant-rich berries to prepare for their long journeys, researchers have found. Researchers realized that many migratory birds were selectively eating darker-skinned fruits, which are known to contain higher levels of many antioxidants.

Congresswoman Wants Ethics Charges Made Public
The second Democrat in the House of Representatives to face an ethics trial in the fall wants the charges against her made public and her trial to begin before the November 2 congressional elections, an aggressive defense that may lead to intra-party squabbling.

Analysis: China poised to set gold market alight as it opens up
China's moves to free up its gold market open the way for foreign players and local banks to tap growing demand for the precious metal, offering citizens a more attractive investment and promising to boost the country's clout over global prices. With the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC down 20 percent this year, and gold prices still up 9 percent despite a correction from a lifetime high hit in June, more retail investors are buying bullion as they diversify their wealth. A clampdown on rampant property speculation could also drive investors to shift some hot money into gold, which many see as a sign of status and good fortune, as hopes for more Chinese demand pushed gold to a two-week high above $1,200 an ounce this week.

What Caused 2009 H1N1 Pandemic?
The H1N1 virus is a combination of four different avian and swine flu viruses that emerged over the past 90 years. It also includes genetic residue of the 1918 pandemic virus that killed as many as 20 million people, Kawaoka explained. Jimm's Comment: Where and how exactly does something from 1918 "just appear"?

U.S. attends Hiroshima memorial for first time
The site of the world's worst atomic bomb attack echoed with the choirs of schoolchildren and the solemn ringing of bells Friday as Hiroshima marked its biggest memorial yet and the first to be attended by the U.S. and other major nuclear powers. Washington's decision to send U.S. Ambassador John Roos to the 65th anniversary of the bombing was seen by many as potentially paving the way for President Barack Obama to visit Hiroshima — which would be unprecedented for a sitting U.S. leader.

Smartphones May Soon Replace Credit Cards
Smartphones may soon displace some of the estimated 1 billion credit and debit cards in American wallets. AT&T (T), Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile are planning a venture to develop a mobile payment system that works with smartphones, posing a new threat to Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA), three people with direct knowledge of the plan say. Comment: This looks like another step towards the global digital currency. This will increase cell phone thefts, until the cell phone is biometrically linked to the owner (which could happen, too).

Forget Instaefi: Here Comes Instaloanforgiveness
As if the main rumor of the prior week, that the government was going to automatically push rates on all mortgages down to market rates (which as of today hit a fresh record low of 4.49%) was not enough, today James Pethokoukis reports that the latest iteration in the "let's make Fannie and Freddie broker than ever" rumor mill is that the "Obama administration is about to order government-controlled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt of millions of Americans who owe more than what their homes are worth."

Feds Admit Storing Checkpoint Body Scan Images
For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they're viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."

Food Stamp Use Hit Record 40.8m in May
The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday.

Initial Claims Surge to 479K, Trounce Expectations of 455K, Severe Deterioration From Last Week's 460K
The week ended July 31 saw 479K initial jobless claims, obliterating the expectation of a minor improvement of 455K from the prior week's 460K (revised from 457K). Continuing claims continue rising, and are now at 4537K versus expectations of 4515K.

The US Isn't Leaving Iraq, It's Just Rebranding the Occupation
Obama says withdrawal is on schedule, but renaming or outsourcing combat troops won't give Iraqis back their country

IRS Reorganizes Unit to Focus on International Tax Evasion
The Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday that it would overhaul a unit devoted to scrutinizing large corporations and wealthy individuals, a shift that would bolster the agency’s growing focus on international tax evasion.

Aid Package Aimed at Saving State Jobs Passes Key Hurdle in Senate
An emergency plan to save the jobs of tens of thousands of public school teachers and other government workers overcame a key Senate hurdle Wednesday, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would summon lawmakers back from their August break to finish work on the measure.

Geithner Blasts Bush Policies for Debt
The Bush administration's "misguided" policies are to blame for huge U.S. budget deficits, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner charged on Wednesday as he sought to build an election-year case for ending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

'Gender Bending' Chemical in Food Tins May Cut Male Fertility
A ‘gender bending’ chemical in food and drinks containers could be behind rising male infertility, scientists say.

Proposition 8: Ruling Against Prop. 8 Could Lead to Federal Precedent On Gay Marriage
Judge says the same-sex marriage ban was rooted in 'moral disapproval' and violates constitutional rights to equal protection and due process. Opponents vow to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.

With Russia's Wildfires and Pakistan's Floods, Is 2010 the Year of Extreme Weather?
While Pakistan has been hit by catastrophic flooding, Russia has endured a lethal heatwave.
Some 1,200 people have been killed in the deluges sweeping Pakistan, but in Moscow more than 30 are reported to have died in wildfires as temperatures have soared to a new record for the region of 38C (100F).

Obama Tells Students: 'It's true I'm not American I come from Kenya'

Cancer Cells Love High Fructose Corn Syrup
Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) recently conducted a study revealing that cancer cells have a particular liking for refined fructose. In tests, pancreatic cancer cells quickly fed on refined fructose and used it to divide and proliferate rapidly within the body.

FDA Warns that Zocor Can Cause Fatal Kidney Damage
The FDA has issued a warning that the risk of severe muscle and kidney damage from the cholesterol drug simvastatin is higher than previously thought.

Use Pink Slips to Pursue Your Real Passions
With the unemployment rate apparently stuck near double digits, more people seem to be choosing a passion over a steady paycheck. Rather than waiting for companies to open up their payrolls, these people are taking matters into their own hands and defining their own jobs, going online to find each other, leverage each other’s capabilities and services, and learn faster by working together. That is a big risk, but these people realize that they’ll be far happier if they can find something they love doing and figure out creative ways to make a living from it. Focusing on work that offers greater meaning makes it easier to withstand the perils and roadblocks they will face as they leave the corporate fold.

British X-Files describe secret UFO encounters
Britain released hundreds of previously secret "UFO files" on Thursday including a letter saying that Winston Churchill had ordered a 50 year cover-up of a wartime encounter between a UFO and military pilot. The files, published by the National Archives, span decades and contain scores of witness accounts, sketches and classified briefing notes documenting mysterious sightings across Britain.

Dog chews off Michigan man's toe, saves his life
A Michigan man credited his dog with saving his life by chewing off his diseased big toe as he lay passed out in a drunken stupor. Jerry Douthett, 48, woke up on a Saturday night in late July in his Rockford, Michigan home to find his Jack Russell Terrier, Kiko, had gnawed off his right big toe. "The moral of the story is that the dog saved my life, because otherwise I never would have gone in to see a doctor."

Obama Cabinet No-Shows for Veterans Panel - Spring to Life on Death Benefit
A half-dozen members of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet sit on an advisory council overseeing life insurance for U.S. military forces, a program facing investigations of whether insurers are unfairly profiting from policies of dead soldiers and veterans. The last time the Advisory Council on Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance met, in November 2009, none of the Cabinet members attended. Aides accustomed to handling the issue for their agencies went as representatives.


Today In History Thursday August 5, 2010
1833 - The village of Chicago was incorporated. The population was approximately 250.
1861 - The U.S. federal government levied its first income tax. The tax was 3% of all incomes over $800. The wartime measure was rescinded in 1872.
1864 - During the U.S. Civil War, Union forces led by Adm. David G. Farragut were led into Mobile Bay, Alabama.
1884 - On Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor, the cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid.
1914 - The electric traffic lights were installed in Cleveland, Ohio.
1923 - Henry Sullivan became the first American to swim across the English Channel.
1944 - Polish insurgents liberated a German labor camp in Warsaw. 348 Jewish prisoners were freed.
1953 - During the Korean conflict prisoners were exchanged at Panmunjom. The exchange was labeled Operation Big Switch.
1960 - For the first time two major league baseball clubs traded managers. Detroit traded Jimmy Dykes for Cleveland's Joe Gordon.
1962 - Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home. The "probable suicide" was caused by an overdose of sleeping pills. Monroe was 36.
1963 - The Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union. The treaty banned nuclear tests in space, underwater, and in the atmosphere.
1964 - U.S. aircraft bombed North Vietnam after North Vietnamese boats attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
1969 - The Mariner 7, a U.S. space probe, passed by Mars. Photographs and scientific data were sent back to Earth.
1974 - U.S. President Nixon said that he expected to be impeached. Nixon had ordered the investigation into the Watergate break-in to halt.
1981 - The U.S. federal government started firing striking air traffic controllers.
1989 - In Honduras, five Central American presidents began meeting to discuss the timetable for the dismantling of the Nicaraguan Contra bases.
1990 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush angrily denounced the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
1991 - An investigation was formally launched by Democratic congressional leaders to find out if the release of American hostages was delayed until after the Reagan-Bush presidential election.
1991 - Iraq admitted to misleading U.N. inspectors about secret biological weapons.
1992 - Federal civil rights charges were filed against four Los Angeles police officers. The officers had been acquitted on California State charges. Two of the officers were convicted and jailed on violation of civil rights charges.
1998 - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein began not cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors.
1999 - Mark McGwire (St. Louis Cardinals) hit his 500th career homerun. He also set a record for the fewest at-bats to hit the 500 homerun mark.
2002 - The U.S. closed its consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. The consulate was closed after local authorities removed large concrete blocks and reopened the road in front of the building to normal traffic.

A message from Pete Hendrickson - August 4, 2010
Here you will also find Pete's contact information.

How to freeze tomatoes from your garden - easy and illustrated!
Thanks to Frank and all the many other who e-mailed their version on how to freeze tomatoes.

Ford Brings Work Back In House
"We're bringing jobs back to America," said Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields, speaking at the Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City. Ford says modern agreements with the UAW now make it cost competitive to do the work in house. About two thirds of the jobs have already been brought back. Fields says 635 more jobs will be insourced to nine plants over the next two years. He says that number has grown larger. Comment: They were fired via outsourcing and rehired at a lower wage by bringing the jobs back. The untold story is that this may all be due to a weaker dollar, which is bringing the fiat dollar in line with other fiat currencies.

After 107 years in Milwaukee, Harley could leave
It's the roar that made Milwaukee famous -- the distinctive throaty rumble of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. But that much-loved racket could be rumbling away to another state if the company cannot bring down its labor costs. Harley-Davidson warned employees in April that it will move its Wisconsin manufacturing operations elsewhere if it cannot cut millions of dollars at the factories that build the bikes known as "Milwaukee Iron." Harley's corporate headquarters would remain here, but that's small consolation to a community that has already endured repeated blows to its civic identity. "When you think of Milwaukee you think of beer, brats and Harley-Davidson," said Steve Daily, a researcher at the Milwaukee County Historical Society. "Right or wrong, that's what it is." Comment: Speechless and sad.

Republicans Want Review Of Birthright Citizenship
Leading Republicans are joining a push to reconsider the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Tuesday he supports holding hearings on the 14th Amendment right, although he emphasized that Washington’s immigration focus should remain on border security. Comment: Could this be the backdoor to prove that Barry Soetoro is not a U.S. born citizen?

Another ‘Mike Tawse Original’ Thought For The Day
The True Strength Of Your Belief

Dangers of Flea and Tick Problems

EXCLUSIVE: Fannie and Freddie's Foreclosure Barons
How the federal housing agencies—and some of the biggest bailed-out banks—are helping shady lawyers make millions by pushing families out of their homes.

Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images
It turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

Personal Bankruptcy Filings Up 9% In July
The 137,698 consumer bankruptcies filed in July represented a 9 percent increase nationwide over the 126,434 filings recorded in July 2009, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI), relying on data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center (NBKRC).

Iran's Ahmadinejad Unhurt After Blast Near Motorcade
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was unharmed by an attack with a homemade explosive device on his motorcade during a visit to the western city of Hamadan on Wednesday, a source in his office said.

As BP Plugs Leak, Report Says Most of Oil Gone
BP claimed a key victory Wednesday in the effort to plug its blown-out well as a government report said much of the spilled oil is gone—though what's left is still nearly five times the amount that poured from the Exxon Valdez.

Missouri Residents Vote Against Health Care Law
Missouri voters on Tuesday easily approved a measure aimed at nullifying the new federal health care law, becoming the first state in the nation where ordinary people made known their dismay over the issue at the ballot box.

How Do You Tell Someone He Can't Drink Water On His Own Land?
This is Agenda 21 in action, folks. Bushmen are being driven off their land because “the Bushmen’s presence in the reserve is not compatible with preserving wildlife and that living in such harsh conditions offers few prospects.”

Feds Admit Storing Checkpoint Body Scan Images
For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they're viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."

VIDEO: Girl Discovers Royal Blood Runs Deep With US Presidents

9 Killed In Shooting at Conn Beer Distributorship
One of two survivors shot in a beer warehouse rampage in Connecticut tells The Associated Press the gunman was "cold as ice" as he started firing his weapon shortly after being forced to resign for stealing beer.

Leading Republicans Push for Review of Birthright Citizenship
Leading Republicans are joining a push to reconsider the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States

Static Kill Won't End Gulf Oil Spill Drama - Even If It Works
BP launched its “static kill” operation Tuesday as part of its two-pronged effort to kill the runaway Macondo well. The goal is to push the oil back down into the reservoir below the sea floor, setting the stage for a relief well to permanently cement the well in mid-August.

Lunch Meat May Cause Bladder Cancer
A recent study published in the journal Cancer links nitrate-containing cold cut meats to bladder cancer.

Your State of Mind Affects Your Ability to Heal
A new study published in the journal Diabetologia has found that one's mental state of mind affects his or her ability to heal from an illness.

Mirroring Bush-Era Police State, Obama Supports DNA Sampling of Public When Arrested
In an interview with John Walsh of "America's Most Wanted," President Obama voiced his support for the mandatory collection of DNA samples from U.S. residents who have not been convicted of any crime.

Tocotrienols (rice bran solubles) Deliver a Powerhouse of Plant Based Nutrition
Among all the superfoods available today, some are quite well known such as acai and spirulina, but others are lesser known even though they offer remarkable nutritional density.
 

Today In History Wednesday August 4, 2010
1790 - The Revenue Cutter Service was formed. This U.S. naval task force was the beginning of the U.S. Coast Guard.
1821 - "The Saturday Evening Post" was published for the first time as a weekly.
1892 - Andrew and Abby Borden were axed to death in their home in Fall River, MA. Lizzie, Andrew's daughter, was accused of the killings - later acquitted. 1914 - Britain declared war on Germany in World War I. The U.S. proclaimed its neutrality.
1944 - Nazi police raided a house in Amsterdam and arrested eight people. Anne Frank, a teenager at the time, was one of the people arrested. Her diary would be published after her death.
1949 - An earthquake in Ecuador destroyed 50 towns and killed more than 6000 people.
1958 - The first potato flake plant was completed in Grand Forks, ND.
1972 - Arthur Bremer was found guilty of shooting George Wallace, the governor of Alabama. Bremer was sentenced to 63 years in prison.
1977 - U.S. President Carter signed the measure that established the Department of Energy.
1987 - The Fairness Doctrine was rescinded by the Federal Communications Commission. The doctrine had required that radio and TV stations present controversial issues in a balanced fashion.
1987 - A new 22-cent U.S. stamp honoring noted author William Faulkner, went on sale in Oxford, MS. Faulkner had been fired as postmaster of that same post office in 1924.
1988 - U.S. Rep. Mario Biaggi of New York was sentenced to prison. The conviction included charges of extortion, tax evasion, and acceptance of bribes in relation to the Wedtech scandal. Biaggi was paroled in 1990.
1989 - Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani offered to assist end the hostage crisis in Lebanon.
1990 - The European Community imposed an embargo on oil from Iraq and Kuwait. This was done to protest the Iraqi invasion of the oil-rich Kuwait.
1991 - The Oceanos, a Greek luxury liner, sank off of South Africa's southeast coast. All of the 402 passengers and 179 crewmembers survived.
1993 - Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell, Los Angeles police officers were sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating Rodney King's civil rights.
1994 - Yugoslavia withdrew its support for Bosnian Serbs. The border between Yugoslavia and Serb-held Bosnia was sealed.
1997 - Teamsters began a 15-day strike against UPS (United Parcel Service). The strikers eventually won an increase in full-time positions and defeated a proposed reorganization of the companies pension plan.
2009 - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il pardoned two American journalists, who had been arrested and imprisoned for illegal entry earlier in the year.

YouTube: Obama says his father served in World War II
Which father was this? The one that was 9-1/2 years old when WWII ended, or the one that was 10 years old when it ended?
Barack Hussein Obama Sr. (Obama's father) Born 4/4/36 Kenyan citizen?
Lolo Soetoro (Obama's step father) Born 1935 Indonesian citizen?

PTSD Victims Include Military Dogs, Too
Gina was a playful 2-year-old German shepherd when she went to Iraq as a highly trained bomb-sniffing dog with the military, conducting door-to-door searches and witnessing all sorts of noisy explosions. She returned home to Colorado cowering and fearful. When her handlers tried to take her into a building, she would stiffen her legs and resist. Once inside, she would tuck her tail beneath her body and slink along the floor. She would hide under furniture or in a corner to avoid people. A military veterinarian diagnosed with her post-traumatic stress disorder — a condition that some experts say can afflict dogs just like it does humans.

VA rule on Agent Orange, heart disease due soon
A new compensation rule for Vietnam veterans with ischemic heart disease, Parkinson’s disease and B-cell leukemias should be out within 30 days, based on a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Military wants to know if tests broke rules on human experiments
The Department of Defense inspector general is investigating whether medical tests on wounded U.S. military personnel may have violated government rules on human experiments. The research focused on traumatic brain injuries and whether an over-the-counter dietary supplement might be a possible treatment. The number of brain injuries from improvised explosive devices and other battlefield blasts has soared in recent years in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pending Home Sales Sink 2.6 Percent in June as Poor Economy Keeps Buyers Away
The number of buyers who signed contracts to purchase homes dropped in June, as the weak economy and tight lending standards kept consumers away from the housing market. The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that its seasonally adjusted index of sales agreements for previously occupied homes dipped 2.6 percent to a reading of 75.7.That was the lowest on records dating back to 2001 and down nearly 19 percent from the same month a year earlier. The index has fallen by more than 40 percent from its peak in April 2005. May's reading was revised slightly downward to 77.7.

NASA Scientists Braced for 'Solar Tsunami' to Hit Earth
The solar fireworks at the weekend were recorded by several satellites, including Nasa’s new Solar Dynamics Observatory which watched its shock wave rippling outwards.

Debate Begins on Kagan; Confirmation In Sight
Supporters and opponents of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan are getting their final say on the Senate floor, although she seems a safe bet for confirmation.

Republicans detail wasteful U.S. stimulus spending
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, asked about the Coburn-McCain report, said it wasn't credible. He told reporters, "Maybe the best person for Senator McCain to debate on this would be the chief economic adviser of his own presidential campaign (Mark Zandi), who not only weighed in on the president's recovery plan but in the last week has written an analysis of what our economy would look like without the steps we took." Economists like Zandi have speculated that without the economic stimulus and other steps to right the sinking U.S. economy, the United States would have lost an additional 8.5 million jobs and may have plunged into a second "Great Depression." Jimm's Comment: This is to show that the phrase "Great Depression" is being used more and more in the media, conditioning us for the inevitable.

Dollar hits 4-month low on reports of Fed shift Currencies
The U.S. dollar fell Tuesday to its lowest level since April, weighed down by a news report that Federal Reserve officials will consider a slight policy shift next week amid concerns over the strength of the U.S. economic recovery. The Wall Street Journal said Fed policy makers will consider using cash from maturing mortgage-bond holdings to buy new mortgage or Treasury bonds instead of allowing its portfolio to shrink. The decision will likely depend largely on upcoming economic data, including the July jobs report on Friday, the newspaper said.

More Procter & Gamble Pet Food Recalled for Salmonella
The expanded recall includes all dry sizes and varieties, all UPC codes, and “Best-By” dates 01Jul10 through 01Dec11 for Iams Veterinary Dry formulas, Eukanuba Naturally Wild, and Eukanuba Pure. Also Eukanuba Custom Care Sensitive Skin in all dry sizes, all UPC codes, and “Best-By” dates 01Jul10 through 01Dec11 are involved.

Mexicana Airlines files for bankruptcy
Debt-ridden carrier announces filings in Mexico and the U.S. one day after suspending 31 flights in the two countries. It blames much of its financial trouble on high labor costs. Mexicana Airlines, the busiest foreign carrier at Los Angeles International Airport, announced Tuesday that it had filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Mexico, blaming much of its financial trouble on high labor costs.

Oops! Obama Mama Passport 'Destroyed'
Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the State Department has released passport records of Stanley Ann Dunham, President Obama's mother – but records for the years surrounding Obama's 1961 birth are missing.

US Factory Orders Drop for Second Straight Month
Factory orders fell in June for the second straight month due to lower demand for steel, construction machinery and aircraft.

Pending Home Fall to Record Series Low in June
The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator, declined 2.6 percent to 75.7 based on contracts signed in June from an upwardly revised level of 77.7 in May [revised from 77.6], and is 18.6 percent below June 2009 when it was 93.0. The data reflects contracts and not closings, which normally occur with a lag time of one or two months.

The Mandatory Service Bill and the Impending Attack on Iran
Rep. Charles Rangel may be in trouble because he is your standard corrupt district of criminals opportunist, but that has not killed his mandatory slavery bill.

A Tale of Two Goose Eggs (Income and Spend)
Personal income increased $3.0 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $5.1 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, in June, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $2.9 billion, or less than 0.1 percent.

45 Died in Revenge Attacks in Pakistan City
Gunmen killed at least 45 people in Pakistan's largest city after the assassination of a prominent lawmaker set off a cycle of revenge attacks, officials said Tuesday. Dozens of vehicles and shops were set ablaze as security forces struggled to regain control of Karachi.

Army's Vaccine Plan: Inject Troops With Gas-Propelled, Electro-Charged DNA
The Army’s got a one-two punch to perfect vaccinations and offer scientists the ability to quickly develop inoculations that stave off new dangers.

Junk Food Starts Allergies: Western High-Fat Diets Are Blamed for Surge in Illnesses
The rise of junk food and high-fat diets could be behind the explosion of allergies sweeping Britain, scientists claimed last night.

Drug-Resistant Strain of E. Coli Emerges in US
A new, virulent and drug-resistant strain of E. coli bacteria is infecting people in the United States and posing a significant public health threat, doctors reported on Friday.

Minority Report-Style Advertising Billboards To Target Consumers
Advertising billboards similar to those seen in the film Minority Report, which can recognise passers-by, target them with customized adverts and even use their names, are being developed by computer engineers.

EPA to Crack Down on Farm Dust
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so senators have signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations.

Treasury Sectretary Timothy Geithner: Unemployment Could Go Up Before It Comes Down
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledged that it is still a "tough economy" for most Americans, and warned it's possible the unemployment rate will go up for a couple of months before it comes down as more people enter the labor force.

Americans Who Swap Passports
At the US Embassy in London, there is a waiting list that none of the officials likes to discuss. On the list are Americans hoping to give up their citizenship, as they seek shelter from the Internal Revenue Service.

Obamacare Only Looks Worse Upon Further Review
One of the more illuminating remarks during the health-care debate in Congress came when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told an audience that Democrats would “pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

Women: Before Getting Pregnant, Check Out Your Man's Diet
The day will soon come that informed women will refuse to date, marry or have children with men who follow poor nutritional habits. "You eat junk foods? Put your pants back on and get out!"

Brains That Are Relaxed Are Able to Learn and Remember Better
Brains in a state of relaxation are better able to remember new information, according to a study conducted by researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and published in the journal Nature.

Harvard Medical School Rolls Out New Rules to Stop Its Faculty From Accepting Bribes From Big Pharma
It is common practice for medical professionals to accept gifts, free travel, meals and other forms of indirect compensation from drug companies and medical device manufacturers for giving speeches that endorse their products. But Harvard Medical School has now made a new rule that prohibits its 11,000 faculty members from engaging in this activity.
 

Today In History Tuesday August 3, 2010
1492 - Christopher Columbus left Palos, Spain with three ships. The voyage would lead him to what is now known as the Americas. He reached the Bahamas on October 12.
1900 - Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. was founded.
1914 - Germany declared war on France. The next day World War I began when Britain declared war on Germany.
1922 - WGY radio in Schenectady, NY, presented the first full-length melodrama on radio. The work was "The Wolf", written by Eugene Walter.
1923 - Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th president of the U.S. after the sudden death of President Harding.
1933 - The Mickey Mouse Watch was introduced for the price of $2.75.
1936 - The U.S. State Department advised Americans to leave Spain due to the Spanish Civil War.
1949 - The National Basketball Association (NBA) was formed.
1956 - Bedloe's Island had its name changed to Liberty Island.
1958 - The Nautilus became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater. The mission was known as "Operation Sunshine."
1981 - U.S. traffic controllers with PATCO, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, went on strike. They were fired just as U.S. President Reagan had warned.
1988 - The Iran-Contra hearings ended. No ties were made between U.S. President Reagan and the Nicaraguan Rebels.
1988 - The Soviet Union released Mathias Rust. He had been taken into custody on May 28, 1987 for landing a plane in Moscow's Red Square.
1989 - Shiite Muslim kidnappers suspended their threat to execute another hostage. It had been reported that the terrorist in Lebanon had hung Lt. Col. William R. Higgins three days before.
1989 - Hashemi Rafsanjani was sworn in as the president of Iran.
1990 - Thousands of Iraqi troops pushed within a few miles of the border of Saudi Arabia. This heightened world concerns that the invasion of Kuwait could spread.
1992 - The U.S. Senate voted to restrict and eventually end the testing of nuclear weapons.
1992 - Russia and Ukraine agreed to put the Black Sea Fleet under joint command. The agreement was to last for three years.
1994 - Arkansas executed three prisoners. It was the first time in 32 years.
1995 - Eyad Ismoil was flown from Jordan to the U.S. to face charges that he had driven the van that blew up in New York's World Trade Center.
2004 - In New York, the Statue of Liberty re-opened to the public. The site had been closed since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
2004 - NASA launched the spacecraft Messenger. The 6 1/2 year journey was planned to arrive at the planet Mercury in March 2011.
2009 - Bolivia became the first South American country to declare the right of indigenous people to govern themselves.

The Long Walk Home
The Long Walk Home is a non-profit organization formed by Ron Zaleski in 2006 to call attention to the need for mandatory PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) counseling for all military troops prior to discharge. As of June 1, 2010, RON IS WALKING BAREFOOT ACROSS AMERICA, wearing his sign saying 18 VETS A DAY COMMIT SUICIDE; he is willing to do whatever it takes to raise awareness about this epidemic, to get your help for veterans’ well-being, and to tell our elected officials what we want done about it.

YouTube: NATIONAL MEMORIAL DAY CONCERT - Dedicated to those who served for the right reasons

Drug-resistant strain of E. coli emerges in U.S.
A new, virulent and drug-resistant strain of E. coli bacteria is infecting people in the United States and posing a significant public health threat, doctors reported on Friday. The new strain is called ST131 and caused many of the E. coli infections resistant to antibiotics in the fluoroquinolone and cephalosporin classes, the researchers said.

Congressman At Town Hall: 'The Federal Government can do most anything in this country.' 
Rep. Pete Stark takes questions at a town hall meeting.

YouTube video: Gold Dinar, Silver Dirham
Welcome to the metals backed currencies!

Nielson: The End Game is Either Hyperinflation or Debt Implosion - Got Gold?
"The collapse of the U.S. economy is a certainty - only the manner in which it will happen has yet to be determined. It is just a matter of time before the global derivatives bubble will produce the same result that has occurred to every other currency not backed by gold throughout history - those currencies, our 'money', will become worthless." Those were the alarming words of Jeff Nielson of BullionBullsCanada.com in a recent speech* which has been edited and reformatted below (with his permission) for the sake of brevity and clarity.

Cancer cells slurp up fructose, US study finds
Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same. Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found. They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.

6 cities to train mail carriers to dispense anti-terror drugs
The Postal Service is ready to deliver lifesaving drugs to about a quarter of the residents of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the only metropolitan area in the nation where letter carriers have been trained to dispense medication after a large-scale terrorist attack involving biological weapons.

100 clone cows on UK farms: Shocking evidence of how 'super calves' have secretly spread into our food system
More than 100 cows descended from cloned cattle have been born on British farms, sparking alarm about their secret spread into the food system.

The New Face of Foreclosures
Move over Las Vegas and Phoenix. The foreclosure crisis is entering a second phase, moving into smaller metropolitan areas. During the first half of this year, 74% of metropolitan areas posted year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity, according to RealtyTrac. In total, more than 1.6 million properties have foreclosure filings, up 8.3% from the first half of 2009.

Two ‘Mike Tawse Original’ Thoughts For the Day:  When You Feel Negative  and  Challenge Your Own Beliefs.

New Push to Prop Up Housing Market Via Mass Refis?
In case you’ve been paying attention to market action rather than economic news, some key data releases for July have been less than cheery.

Believe It or Not, Freddie Mac Is Still Promoting No-Down Payment Mortgages
2005 called, it wants its mortgage lunacy back. This just came out today from Freddie Mac:

Skidding Toward Fall
This economy has a destination for sure, but it's not in the direction where all eyes are trained in moist hopefulness: that glimmering horizon of longed-for growth.

NASA Says Large CME on Sun Headed for Earth
On Sunday, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a complex magnetic eruption on the sun. The NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) also spotted a large coronal mass ejection (CME).

Alan Greenspan: 'The Financial System Is Broke'
For the definitive confirmation that the Fed is and has always been very open to, at least philosophically, pushing the market higher no matter what the cost (if not in practice – they would never do that, oh no, Liberty 33 would never stoop so low), is this quote from former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan who was on Meet The Press earlier, where he said the following stunner: “if the stock market continues higher it will do more to stimulate the economy than any other measure we have discussed here.”

Stealthy Government Contractor Monitors US Internet Providers, Worked With Wikileaks Informant
Updated with IDG's confirmation from Adrian Lamo, changes in wording to address Vigilant staff's volunteer status.

Hidalgo County Justice of the Peace Arrested
An Hidalgo County Judge finds herself on the other side of the bench after being indicted.

Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal
Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City.

Mexican Drug Cartel Allegedly Puts a Price on Arizona Sheriff's Head
PHOENIX - He's been at the center of the discussions and controversies surrounding illegal immigration enforcement in Arizona for quite a while.

Men Run Onto Citi Field With Mexican Flags
NEW YORK - Two men carrying Mexican flags in protest of Arizona's immigration law ran into the outfield during the seventh inning of the New York Mets' game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night at Citi Field.

Iran's Ahmadinejad Calls for TV Debate With Obama
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday to face him in a televised one-on-one debate to see who has the best solutions for the world's problems.

Are Signs of 2010 Galactic Alignment Evident Now?
As the media focuses on the failing economy, there isn’t much mainstream discussion about the climatic and geological changes Earth is now experiencing.

Corexit Kills; Update on the Oil Disaster and the Chemical Rape of the Gulf
People need to wake up! Corexit is killing the Gulf at an alarming level and yet the corporate news is still taking very little notice.

Butt Jobs Gone Bad: Women Have Their Rear Ends Injected With Household Caulk
Six New Jersey women ended up hospitalized after having their rear ends injected with bathroom caulk in low-budget buttocks-enhancing procedures.

Unilever Stalks Its Customers With GPS
The household cleaning product giant Unilever has secretly placed GPS tracker transmitters in laundry detergent boxes to track consumers to their homes.

Proof Well A Capped Well B Exploded
You will find this very interesting. This is new but backed with the public documents BP filed when it planned to drill 2 wells a few hundred feet from each other in MC252. Testimony says they abandoned the 1st well.


Today In History Monday August 2, 2010
1824 - In New York City, Fifth Avenue was opened.
1858 - In Boston and New York City the first mailboxes were installed along streets.
1861 - The United States Congress passed the first income tax. The revenues were intended for the war effort against the South. The tax was never enacted.
1876 - "Wild Bill" Hickok was killed (shot from behind) while playing poker in Deadwood, SD. Jack McCall was later hanged for the shooting.
1887 - Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire.
1892 - Charles A. Wheeler patented the first escalator.
1922 - Alexander Graham Bell died.
1934 - German President Paul von Hindenburg died. His successor was Adolf Hitler.
1939 - Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging the U.S. to have an atomic weapons research program.
1939 - U.S. President Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act. The act prohibited civil service employees from taking an active part in political campaigns.
1943 - The U.S. Navy patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, sank after being attacked by a Japanese destroyer. The boat was under the command of Lt. John F. Kennedy.
1945 - The Allied conference at Potsdam was concluded.
1964 - The Pentagon reported the first of two North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
1974 - John Dean was sentenced to 1-4 years in prison for his involvement in the Watergate cover-up.
1980 - A bomb exploded in a train station in Bologna, Italy. 85 people were killed.
1983 - U.S. House of Representatives approved a law that designated the third Monday of January would be a federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The law was signed by President Reagan on November 2.
1988 - U.S. military investigators concluded that "crew errors" were the cause of the shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet on July 3, 1988.
1990 - Iraq invaded the oil-rich country of Kuwait. Iraq claimed that Kuwait had driven down oil prices by exceeding production quotas set by OPEC.
1995 - China ordered the expulsion of two U.S. Air Force officers. The two were said to have been caught spying on military sights.
1999 - In eastern India, at least 278 people were killed when two trains collided at a station.

More Evacuations Near K-zoo River Spill
Calhoun County health officials Friday were evacuating dozens of additional homes in the area surrounding the big oil spill Friday, due to concerns over air quality in the area south of Battle Creek. In addition, about one hundred families along the contaminated Kalamazoo River have been asked to drink bottled water. Estimates of the amount of oil lost from the line now range from 800,000 gallons to 1 million gallons. Residents of the hard-hit area are outraged by the response to the oil spill.

EPA to Crack Down on Farm Dust
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so senators have signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations. The letter dated July 23 to the EPA states, "If approved, would establish the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history."

Five More Failed Banks Cost US Government An Additional $334 Million in Losses
The losses from the mortgage securities frauds and the subsequent bubble collapse continue to debilitate the US financial system, particularly the regional banks, in a slow bleed costing the US government additional millions each week.

Unofficial Problem Bank List Over 800 Institutions
FDIC actions this week led to many changes in the Unofficial Problem Bank List as they closed five institutions and finally released their enforcement actions for June 2010. The list total finally pushes through the much anticipated 800 level and finishes the week at 808 with aggregate assets of $414.8 billion.

Christian Woman Stops Robbery With Faith
When a man tried to rob a MetroPCS cell phone store at gunpoint in Pompano Beach, Fla., store manager Nayara Goncalves, 20, calmly talked to the man about Jesus and her faith until he left without taking any money.

Maxine Waters to Face Ethics Trial
The House Ethics Committee is expected to announce today or tomorrow that it has formed an "adjudicatory subcommittee" to try Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters on charges of ethics violations.

MILITARY HOMOSEXUAL SCANDAL TIED TO WIKILEAKS TREASON
As the military and the FBI attempt to get to the bottom of what Manning allegedly did and for what reason, the need for an investigation of homosexual misconduct in the Armed Forces—before any change in policy is adopted by Congress—has been presented in dramatic fashion.

DC Sniper Lee Boyd Malvo Tells William Shatner Other Shooters Involved in Plot
Police will once again question DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, after the convicted serial killer said for the first time in a TV interview with actor William Shatner that two other men were initially part of the bloody plot that terrorized the Washington area and left 10 people dead in 2002.

YouTube - The Truth is Alive
911 Song dedicated to the truth movement.

Netherlands began pulling its 2,000 troops out of Afghanistan on Sunday
The Netherlands began pulling its 2,000 troops out of Afghanistan on Sunday after a political row brought down the Dutch government in February and as other Western nations review their future roles in the war. While the withdrawal is unlikely to be felt on the battlefield, it hurts the "international" image that Washington promotes for the U.S.- dominated, 150,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Is Your Detergent Stalking You?
Unilever's Omo detergent is adding an unusual ingredient to its two-pound detergent box in Brazil: a GPS device that allows its promotions agency Bullet to track shoppers and follow them to their front doors. consumers who buy one of the GPS-implanted detergent boxes will be surprised at home, given a pocket video camera as a prize and invited to bring their families to enjoy a day of Unilever-sponsored outdoor fun.

The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets
A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers.

Tons of Toxic Chemicals Flow from China to Russia
On Wednesday, approximately 7,000 containers of hazardous substances were washed away to a tributary of the Amur River with floods from the territory of chemical plants in China.

David Copperfield could not have performed better
So instead “of going on a public stage with a final trump card of 30% chance of success” and risking everything BP stands for, a magic show will be set up so that what ever happens, it will be a success.

Should We Release Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Into the Environment?
Scientists in the US have managed to genetically engineer a malaria-resistant mosquito. The tremendous event has been hailed as the first of its kind and a breakthrough in the scientific community, but is all the speculation true?

Researcher Detained at US Border, Questioned About Wikileaks
A security researcher involved with the Wikileaks Web site was detained by U.S. agents at the border for three hours and questioned about the controversial whistleblower project as he entered the country on Thursday to attend a hacker conference, sources said on Saturday.

Ron Paul Introduces SEC Transparency Act
Congressman Ron Paul yesterday introduced the SEC Transparency Act of 2010 (HR 5970), a bill designed to force greater transparency in the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Latest Surprise in Obamacare Bill: Your Taxable Income Will Be Redefined Higher
Starting in 2011, next year-the W-2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are provided. It doesn’t matter if you’re retired.

Gingrich: Roosevelt Would Have Attacked Iran, N. Korea
n a speech Thursday before the conservative American Enterprise Institute, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich charged that the United States had failed to take George W. Bush's 2002 "axis of evil" speech seriously when it ignored the opportunity to attack Iran and North Korea following the invasion of Iraq

Foreclosures Continue to Increase Dramatically in 2010
In a very alarming sign for the U.S. economy, foreclosures have continued to dramatically increase in 2010.

Five More Failed Banks Cost US Government An Additional $334 Million in Losses
The losses from the mortgage securities frauds and the subsequent bubble collapse continue to debilitate the US financial system, particularly the regional banks, in a slow bleed costing the US government additional millions each week.

Memo Outlines Backdoor 'Amnesty' Plan
With Congress gridlocked on an immigration bill, the Obama administration is considering using a back door to stop deporting many illegal immigrants - what a draft government memo said could be "a non-legislative version of amnesty."

US Causalities in Afghanistan Soar to Record Highs
KABUL, Afghanistan – In a summer of suffering, America's military death toll in Afghanistan is rising, with back-to-back record months for U.S. losses in the grinding conflict. All signs point to more bloodshed in the months ahead, straining the already shaky international support for the war.

IMF Says US Financial System May Need $76 Billion in Captial
The U.S. financial system remains fragile and banks subjected to additional economic stress might need as much as $76 billion in capital, according to the results of
International Monetary Fund stress tests.

Possible False Flag? Japanese Say Oil Tanker Attacked Near Hormuz
Bloomberg is reporting this morning that an oil tanker owned by the Japanese company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., operator of the world’s second-largest oil-tanker fleet, may have been attacked near the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically important waterway between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf bordering Iran.

Voters Split on Immigrants US Born Children
Arizonans are evenly divided about denying automatic citizenship to children who are born in the state but whose parents aren't U.S. citizens, an Arizona Republic poll indicates.

GM Crop Contamination Insurance?
The issue of crops that have been genetically modified (GM) contaminating surrounding crops is one that is growing in severity, and triggering lawsuits by farmers whose crops have been contaminated.

California Rep Waters May Face Fall Ethics Trial
WASHINGTON – A second House Democrat, Rep. Maxine Waters of California, could face an ethics trial this fall, further complicating the election outlook for the party as it battles to retain its majority.

Mullen Says US Has Iran strike Plan Just in Case
WASHINGTON – The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says the U.S. military has a plan to attack Iran, although he thinks a strike is probably a bad idea.

Timing of National Guard's Deployment to Southwest Border stirs Confusion, Anger
The 1,200 National Guard troops expected to arrive Sunday on the southwest border for reinforcement won't finish deploying until late September, federal officials say, stirring confusion and anger among Arizona lawmakers who thought the deadline was Aug. 1.

Will Washington's Failures Lead to Second American Revolution?
The Internet is a large-scale version of the "Committees of Correspondence" that led to the first American Revolution — and with Washington's failings now so obvious and awful, it may lead to another.

Mexican Drug Cartel Leader 'Nacho Coronel' Linked to CIA Yucatan Cocaine Operations
How did a Mexican drug trafficker manage to use a CIA rendition aircraft to smuggle drugs into the U.S.? The death of drug cartel leader, Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel reveals surprising (or not so surprising) connections.

Ex-Homeland Security Boss Joins Gas Drilling Group
The nation's first Department of Homeland Security secretary has agreed to serve as strategic adviser to an industry group led by companies drilling for natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation.

Wetlands Front Group Funded by Big Oil Wants Taxpayers to Foot the Bill for Bp's Gulf Destruction
A group of oil companies including BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Citgo, Chevron and other polluters are using a front group called "America's WETLAND Foundation" and a Louisiana women's group called Women of the Storm to spread the message that U.S. taxpayers should pay for the damage caused by BP to Gulf Coast wetlands, and that the reckless offshore oil industry should continue drilling for the "wholesale sustainability" of the region.

GDP Report: Economic Growth Slows With 2.4% Rate in Second Quarter
The recovery is fading, and a troubling new pattern is setting in: economic growth that is too slow to put Americans back to work.

Coast Guard Ok'd Using Too Much Toxic Dispersant in Gulf Oil Spill
NEW ORLEANS – As BP inched closer to permanently sealing the blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, congressional investigators railed the company and Coast Guard for part of the cleanup effort, saying too much toxic chemical dispersant was used.

Why is BP's Mocondo Blowout So Disastrous & Beyond Patch-Up
There has been so much information (or mis-information) on the disaster it is difficult to separate the facts from the myths, let alone decide who is or are to be held responsible for the oil spill disaster.

SEIU to Illegal immigrants: Republicans Will Round You Up Like Nazis and Put You In Internment Camps
Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m. local time, Arizona’s well publicized anti-illegal-immigration law will finally go into effect.

Flu Vaccine Push Already Underway; First Batch Causes Seizures in Children
As ridiculous as it seems, retailers across the U.S. are already stocking their stores with Christmas goods. It's all about the big commercial push, of course, since retailers make about 50 percent of their profits during the Christmas season.

Vitamin D More Effective Than Vaccines At Preventing Flu Infections
A vitamin D supplement is more effective at reducing the risk of flu infection than vaccines or antiviral drugs, according to a study conducted by researchers from Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Long-Term Breasteeding Good for Babies, Mothers
"Breastfeeding should continue for up to two years of age or beyond," the World Health Organization recommends -- yet in many countries such as the United Kingdom or United States, breastfeeding a child past the age of a few months is still considered odd or deviant, even by some doctors.

Unborn Babies' Heartbeats Synchronize With Their Mothers
BBC News recently reported that the heartbeats of unborn babies synchronize with the heartbeats of their mothers when the mothers breathe rhythmically. Researchers from the University of Aberdeen say that this finding will help doctors be better able to detect developmental problems during pregnancy.

Feds Raid Amish Dairy and Threaten Action Over Raw Milk Sales
The U.S. government gestapo is at it again in its crusade against raw milk. Recently, the jackboots swarmed a Pennsylvania Amish man's private dairy farm for the second time, falsely accusing him of violating the ridiculous prohibition on selling raw milk across state lines.