Congress is losing its patience with the Fed

Lawmakers on both sides question power, handling of Wall Street bailouts

The Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Suddenly the Federal Reserve is everybody’s punching bag.

Strip the Fed of its bank regulation powers, some in Congress are demanding. Get probing audits of its behind-the-scenes operations, others say.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is always fair game for criticism and second-guessing, usually over interest rate actions. But this year the criticism is much broader as Congress responds to widespread public anger that the Fed bailed out Wall Street but not ordinary Americans, and with unemployment in double digits.

Former Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin Jr. famously said that the central bank’s job was to yank away the punchbowl just when everybody is starting to party. And while Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has signaled the Fed will keep interest rates low for now, a round of higher rates inevitably will come.

The Fed finds itself both the punchbowl keeper and the punching bag. Imagine the outcry when it does begin to crank up rates — perhaps just ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Fireworks seem likely at Senate confirmation hearings early next month on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Bernanke to a second four-year term as chairman.

Many economists and Fed watchers say congressional efforts to rein in the Fed’s powers could interfere with the central bank’s ability to help guide the fragile economy to recovery.

The Fed’s very independence and its unique ability among U.S. institutions to create money out of thin air enabled it to act quickly to stabilize the nation’s financial system after it froze up last September after the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment house, Fed backers say.

“It might have been the Fed’s finest moment when it had to jump into the market,” said David M. Jones, a former Fed economist and president of DMJ Advisors, a Denver-based consulting firm. “We still have to wait to see how effective the Fed is in its exit strategy and whether it can keep inflation in check. But this badgering by Congress, even if there is populist sentiment, is inappropriate.”

The Fed’s aggressive intervention also set the stage for the current criticism. Many lawmakers question whether the Fed’s money machine has mainly benefited financial markets and not the broader economy. Lawmakers are also peeved that the central bank acted without congressional involvement when it brokered the 2008 sale of failed investment bank Bear Stearns and engineered the rescue of insurer American International Group.

Bernanke, first appointed by President George W. Bush, has worked closely with both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in confronting the worst financial crisis in decades. Geithner also has gotten his share of congressional wrath, mainly for his administering of the $700 billion bank bailout fund.

“In the past, the Federal Reserve was held in very high esteem,” said Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, a libertarian-leaning Republican who twice ran for president and remains a darling of skeptics of Washington. Now, it’s “the source of our problem,” suggests Paul, author of the best-seller “End the Fed.”

Usually an outlier, Paul suddenly has found an army of at least 307 House colleagues and 30 senators marching behind his legislation to subject the Fed to intense scrutiny by Congress’ Government Accountability Office. The House Financial Services Committee endorsed Paul’s approach 43-26 last week over objections from its chairman, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

The bill would authorize Congress to audit not only the Fed’s lending programs but its basic decisions to set monetary policy by raising or lowering interest rates. Paul has been introducing a version every year since the early 1980s, but this is the first time it has garnered any serious attention.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who will preside over Bernanke’s confirmation hearings, has proposed legislation that would strip the Fed of its bank-regulation authority and give the Senate a role in selecting the 12 regional Federal Reserve bank presidents.

Dodd says his measure would return the Fed to its core mission of setting monetary policy, claiming it proved itself “an abysmal failure” by not cracking down on risky lending practices that led to the financial meltdown.

Dodd is in an extremely tight battle for re-election, even though he has served in Congress for 35 years.

“I don’t think it ever hurts to have a member of Congress stand up and denounce the Fed. There is a lot of anger out there, and this is basically a therapeutic gesture,” said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University.

Still, Baker said, it probably isn’t wise to tamper with the formula that makes the Fed “very much an anomaly in American government. It’s independent, it has to be. You don’t want the Fed to be under the control of the president. And it kind of sits out there — not in the executive branch, not in the legislative branch, not in the judicial branch. Sort of its own little element in the separation-of-powers constellation.”

While the Fed is subject to some congressional oversight, its decisions don’t have to be ratified by the president or Congress. Fed officials are not paid with money appropriated by Congress.

Should Bernanke be worried?

“Not only should be worried, he’s clearly ratcheted up his game in terms of his communications with Congress,” said Norman Ornstein, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Ornstein said the Fed bashing this time is different from before, with “a broader base of support. And it’s coming from people who in the past would not have hit the Fed. There’s a lot of populist anger out there — on the left, in the center and on the right. And politicians are responsive to that.”

Algeria court acquits two ex-Guantanamo detainees

ALGIERS (Reuters) – Two men who had been held for seven years in the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of belonging to an extremist group were acquitted in an Algerian court on Sunday, state media reported.

The two men alleged during their trial in Algeria on terrorism charges that they were “brutally tortured” while in detention in Guantanamo Bay, Algeria’s official APS news agency cited court documents as saying.

The men were arrested in Pakistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and transferred to Guantanamo Bay where they were held without trial before being sent home to Algeria last year, the agency reported.

The court in Algiers rejected prosecution arguments the two men, named as Faghoul Abdelli and Mohamed Terari, were members of a terrorist group and acquitted them, the agency said.

The United States set up the prison at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, after the September 11 attacks to detain terrorism suspects. Human rights activists say the detentions are in violation of international law.

U.S. President Barack Obama has said the prison will be closed by January 22, 2010, although his officials have since acknowledged it will be difficult to meet that deadline.

Twelve Algerian citizens remain in the prison, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, a U.S. non-governmental group that has represented many of the detainees seeking release.

INCREASE IN MISTAKEN IDENTITY LANDING MORE INNOCENT PEOPLE IN COLLIER, LEE JAILS

By AISLING SWIFT
Published Saturday, November 21, 2009

NAPLES — When Barron Collier High School assistant football coach Johnny Drummond Smith was arrested Monday on a domestic battery charge, it would take several days to clear his name.

He was thrown in jail and held without bond, until defense attorney Michelle Hill provided Collier County Judge Vince Murphy with strong evidence: He couldn’t have been in Jacksonville when the crime occurred.

Murphy reviewed the evidence and Smith’s testimony and decided he should be released on a $1,000 bond. He walked out of jail Wednesday, but still was on leave from his job and faced prosecution in Duval County.

Friday, an assistant state attorney in Jacksonville dropped the case after investigators were unable to find Smith’s accuser and a witness, her sister.

For 38-year-old Smith, it was a quick end to a case of mistaken identity.

“Let’s say this happened to a convenience store employee who didn’t have all these people on his side, do you think this would have happened this quickly?” Hill asked. “The outcome would not have been the same.”

“We also got lucky with Judge Murphy,” she said. “Some other judges would have said, ‘A judge in Jacksonville set no bond, it’s no bond.’’’

For many, untangling a mixup or stolen identity takes weeks, months — even longer.

On Friday, Anthony David Falangas, 25, of North Naples, stood before Collier Circuit Judge Fred Hardt, charged with two counts of attempting to obtain a prescription by fraud, a third-degree felony.

It was a hearing tailored to quickly prove his innocence and end Falangas’ troubles. He’d been thrown in jail July 8 and posted $5,000 bond a day later, but faces up to five years in state prison if convicted.

Defense attorney Donald Day wanted to prove Falangas, a salesman, was at work when someone used his stolen identification to fill two Roxicodone prescriptions at Wooley’s Pharmacy on June 26. The man fled while a pharmacist verified the prescriptions.

But the prosecutor didn’t have the exact time and the pharmacy video wasn’t working that day, so the judge ordered the State Attorney’s Office to provide the records and scheduled another hearing.

It was Falangas’ fourth time in court.

“We were hoping the video would have busted it wide open,” Day said of an arrest he suspects is linked to a recent bust of a large prescription drug ring that used stolen identities.

Like Falangas, Smith’s photograph was in the newspaper. Smith’s story also was on the TV news, where he professed his innocence.

Many charged in mistaken or stolen identity cases lose their jobs or are suspended from work. They suffer embarrassment, depression and anxiety and must pay an attorney and a bondsman.

“The unjustified loss of even a moment’s liberty is a tragedy,” Murphy said Friday. “. . . Sadly, Mr. Smith can never recover what was taken from him, but in the context of an admittedly imperfect system, we were able to allow his release fairly quickly.”

■ ■ ■

Like Falangas, Smith had an alibi: He was at work.

Shayla S. Evans, 25, of Jacksonville, told police Smith grabbed her hair and dragged her down a staircase at 4:25 p.m. Nov. 13, 2008, kicked her and beat her, then slashed her with a knife. She said they’d had a yearlong relationship, but had broken up four months earlier.

Smith was arrested Monday night after a Collier County deputy conducted a routine check of license tags. He knew nothing about the battery and was allowed to make a few calls, then was booked into the jail to await a hearing at 2 p.m. Tuesday.

In court, Hill asked Smith several questions to prove his innocence. Although Murphy granted a low bond, his release wasn’t quick.

“Jacksonville had to enter the bond into their system on that warrant and they couldn’t reach anyone in Jacksonville,” Hill said. “Thank God, we had a sergeant in the jail here who was a really nice guy and kept calling and calling.”

Duval court records list 209 cases involving Johnny Smiths, including two for Johnny D. Smith, who is only a month younger. Many have middle names or initials, but many are just Johnny Smith.

Evans’ sister believes she just wanted to protect her real boyfriend, so she picked a name, Johnny Smith, and pointed to a photo.

■ ■ ■

Hill said mistakes can occur when someone enters a name wrong in the national police computer, or someone, usually a relative, steals a name to avoid paying a ticket.

Two years ago, defendants with numerous aliases became such a problem in Collier that County Judge Christine Greider created a prototype legal order for judges to remove stolen names from court and county records.

County Judge Mike Carr had so many cases, he pushed the Sheriff’s Office to verify fingerprints of all defendants to confirm identities. He got The Florida Bar to change its professional ethics rules to force lawyers whose clients have provided false information to disclose it in court.

Hill represents a man whose brother used his name when he got a traffic citation.

“Of course, the brother didn’t go to court,” Hill said of the innocent man. “Then months and months later, he gets arrested on a warrant and can’t get out.”

Nowadays, Hill said, mistaken identity cases are straightened out more quickly due to technology.

Information is put through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s driver and vehicle information database which pulls up a driver license photo, Hill said.

Officials also can check fingerprints at the jail, which pulls up a photo and prior arrests if there’s a “hit.” That fingerprint check often reveals suspects who provide fake names.

Although technology helps unravel a mixup, it also prompted an increase in identity theft.

“It’s so perfected now,” Day said. “You could print out a nice ID on your computer. This is happening in every city in the U.S. You’d be shocked at how often it happens. The problem is it’s very difficult to resolve.”

Falangas’ license was stolen and his credit card information also was obtained, Day said, although it’s uncertain how or when.

“It’s very common for someone to call our office and say, ‘I’ve been charged with something in Tallahassee and I’ve never been in Tallahassee,” Day said.

Although a law went into effect a few years ago that requires law enforcement officers to get a thumb print from drivers who don’t provide a license, Day said it’s not always done.

“That law was to protect us,” Day said. “I’ve had clients who have had nine-page driving records in places they’ve never been.”

■ ■ ■

In July 2006, Theodore William Wuschke sued then- Collier County Sheriff Don Hunter and Deputy Charles H. Smith after he was arrested and thrown in jail after a routine traffic stop on July 7, 2002, because his name was an alias used by Robert James Mickens.

It was the second time in less than a year the 38-year-old Golden Gate man had been arrested and jailed on the 1993 warrant for a probation violation, according to his lawsuit in U.S. District Court, which said Wuschke didn’t have the tattoo on his right ankle that Mickens had.

The lawsuit accused Hunter of false arrest, false imprisonment and willfully failing to update inaccurate information in his agency’s computers after Wuschke’s first arrest on Oct. 1, 2001.

It was settled about a year later for $50,000.

“They made sure that wasn’t going to happen again,” said Wuschke’s attorney, Michael R.N. McDonnell of Naples, who said Wuschke had no prior convictions. “The poor guy was so upset. He was pleasant about it the first time. He understood it was a mistake.”

■ ■ ■

Jill Lennon, courts director for the Collier court clerks office, said people often come to the courthouse to say they received a notice their license was being suspended for something they didn’t do.

“We help and go above and beyond because that person is a victim,” Lennon said. “We walk them over to be fingerprinted at the Sheriff’s Office and to go to the State Attorney’s Office to straighten it out.”

Usually it’s a relative, she said, or the victim suspects someone and can’t prove it. Deputies try to find the real suspect, she said, but sometimes they can’t, “so we change them to John Doe in our computer.”

Scroll through the Collier Court criminal records at www.collierclerk.com and you’ll find 38 John Does and two Jane Does.

“There are people who have been arrested over and over again in multiple counties they’ve never been in,” she said. “They carry paperwork in their vehicle to prove they’re not that person.”

* * * * *

For information on identity theft and how to correct credit card or driver license identity theft, go to: www.flhsmv.gov/idtheft.html

Unfortunately, cases such as these are becoming far too common. Identity theft is a serious problem.
You can also learn more about identity theft, please go to http://www.prepaidlegal.com/idt/bking62. -truthwillrise

Dems Have 60 for Health Care; Lincoln a ‘yes’

WASHINGTON (AP) – Democrats have hit the magic number of 60 to move ahead on historic health care legislation.

Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln said on the Senate floor that she will vote with her party, hours before the 8 p.m. EST roll call.

She said it was important that the Senate begin debate on a critical issue.

The centrist Democrat was the lone holdout. Facing unanimous Republican opposition, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needed the 58 Democrats and two independents to vote to move forward on the sweeping bill to remake the nation’s health care system.

Shortly before 1 p.m. EST, another centrist fence-sitter, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, said she would vote yes.

1.5 Million Medical Files At Risk in Health Net Data Breach

By Matthew Sturdevant
The Hartford Courant
November 19,2009

A hard drive with seven years of personal and medical information on about 1.5 million Health Net customers, including 446,000 in Connecticut, was lost six months ago and was first reported Wednesday, state and company officials said.

The insurance company informed the state attorney general’s office and the Department of Insurance Wednesday of the security breach that puts personal medical records at risk in a historic lapse, the first of its kind to be publicly reported.

A portable, external hard drive with Social Security numbers and medical records “disappeared” and is still missing from the insurer’s Northeast headquarters in Shelton, a Health Net spokeswoman said Wednesday.

A hard drive with seven years of personal and medical information on about 1.5 million Health Net customers, including 446,000 in Connecticut, was lost six months ago and was first reported Wednesday, state and company officials said.

The insurance company informed the state attorney general’s office and the Department of Insurance Wednesday of the security breach that puts personal medical records at risk in a historic lapse, the first of its kind to be publicly reported.

A portable, external hard drive with Social Security numbers and medical records “disappeared” and is still missing from the insurer’s Northeast headquarters in Shelton, a Health Net spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The hard drive contains Social Security numbers, medical records and health information dating to 2002 for 1.5 million customers — past and present — in Arizona, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, the spokeswoman said.

The data were compressed, but not encrypted. The information is formatted as images and requires a special computer program to be read, state and company officials said. Health Net plans to send out letters to its customers notifying them of the breach.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Insurance Commissioner Thomas Sullivan each said he is investigating what happened, and why the company waited six months to report the incident.

The data breach is another in a series of information security lapses involving Connecticut residents in recent months. Most, including a large breach of People’s United Bank customer information, have included bank records or Social Security numbers. The missing hard drive at Health Net is the first publicly reported, widespread release of patients’ medical records, at least in recent state history.

“Health Net’s incomprehensible foot-dragging demonstrates shocking disregard for patients’ financial security, as well as loss of their highly sensitive and confidential personal health information,” Blumenthal said in a prepared statement.

Sullivan said his office is requiring Health Net to offer credit protection monitoring through Debix, a company that provides identity-theft protection services.

“My main concern is protecting the members and participating providers,” Sullivan said. “We are currently working with Health Net to ensure adequate notification and protections for all involved.”

Health Net suggests that customers with questions call the company phone number on the back of their benefits card, said Alice Chaves Ferreira, a spokeswoman for Health Net of the Northeast Inc.

“Health Net will provide credit monitoring for over two years — free of charge — to all impacted members who elect this service, and will provide assistance to any member who has experienced any suspicious activity, identity theft or health care fraud between May 2009 and their date of enrollment with our identity protection service,” Chaves Ferreira said.

The company didn’t know what information was on the hard drive, which is why the information wasn’t reported sooner, Chaves Ferreira said. Health Net conducted a lengthy investigation, including a forensic review by computer experts, she said.

It was only then that the company concluded the lost data included a vast trove of information.

Earlier this month, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Connecticut reported that a laptop was stolen this summer in the Chicago area, compromising personal information of nearly 850,000 doctors, therapists and other health care providers in 50 states, including 19,000 in Connecticut.

Last year, Bank of New York Mellon lost computer tapes that jeopardized information on more than 600,000 state residents, including many account holders at People’s United Bank.

Yet another data breach has exposed millions potentially to identity theft. If you concerned that you may be affected by this latest data breach, know someone who may be , or want to learn more about identity theft, log on to http://www.prepaidlegal.com/idt/bking62

Olbermann, Huffington Suggest “Teabaggers” Should Be Censored

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
November 20, 2009

On Thursday, the Mockingbird corporate media operative Keith Olbermann played the race card (again) to demonize the Tea Party movement. Olbermann had the limousine liberal Arianna Huffington on his show. Huffington said the First Amendment does not protect people who shout fire in a crowded theater. Huffington said racist “teabaggers,” led by Fox News’ Glenn Beck, are shouting fire.

Huffington and Olbermann did not provide any evidence. Instead, they cited the same old tired propaganda issued by the ADL. “Beck has made a habit of demonizing President Obama and promoting conspiracy theories about his administration,” an ADL report clams. Beck “has even gone so far as to make comparisons between Hitler and Obama and to promote the idea that the president is dangerous.” Olbermann rolled a clip of Beck claiming Obama has a problem with white people to supposedly make the point.

Beck “repeatedly stokes the fires of anti-government anger” by providing a platform for people opposed to the government, according to the ADL.

 

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t
• 

In fact, this anti-government anger — characterized as racist and dangerous by Olbermann and Huffington — would exist with or without Glenn Beck. Millions of people would oppose health care at gunpoint and the Federal Reserve without Beck.

 

Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are birds of a feather — Mockingbird operatives tasked with demonizing and delegitimatizing the opposition. Beck is on one side of the false right-left paradigm and Olbermann and his sidekick Huffington are on the other. Olbermann steers the left into a futile process of spinning wheels and Beck commandeers the so-called right.

Instead of attacking the bankers, Beck attacks the “Marxists” of the Obama administration, as if former members of the Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs are Marxists. Olbermann, on the other hand, attacks the “racists” and supposedly violence-prone right, a fiction created by the corporate media and the government with the help of the ADL.

Now that it looks like Ron Paul’s audit the Fed effort will pass and become law, it is imperative that the government and its controlled media attack the anti-government Tea Party and patriot movements and attempt to demonize them as dangerous and potentially violent radicals, never mind there is scant evidence of racism or calls for violent revolution.

Olbermann’s handlers want to impose censorship on the Tea Party and patriot movements. In order to do that, these movements and millions of Americans need to be demonized as violent and racist.

Aspirin kills 400% more people than H1N1 swine flu

Mike Adams
Natural News
November 20, 2009

The CDC now reports that nearly 4,000 Americans have been killed by H1N1 swine flu. This number is supposed to sound big and scary, motivating millions of people to go out and pay good money to be injected with untested, unproven H1N1 vaccines. But let’s put the number in perspective: Did you know that more than four times as many people are killed each year by common NSAID painkillers like aspirin?

The July 1998 issue of The American Journal of Medicine explains it as follows:

“Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone.” (Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Recent Considerations in Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Gastropathy”, The American Journal of Medicine, July 27, 1998, p. 31S)

So for every person the CDC claims was killed by H1N1 swine flu this year, common painkillers like aspirin have killed four! Yet you don’t see the CDC, FDA, WHO or mainstream media running around screaming about the extreme dangers of aspirin, do you? All those deaths apparently don’t matter. Only swine flu deaths lead to hysteria.

Understanding risk

According to death statistics tables available on the ‘net, you are ten times more likely to die in a car accident this year than be killed by swine flu.

Nearly 100,000 Americans die every year from adverse reactions to FDA-approved prescription drugs. That’s twenty-five times the number of people killed by H1N1 swine flu (even if you believe the CDC’s numbers). So where’s the big warning about the dangers of prescription drugs? Why isn’t the CDC warning Americans about an “epidemic of dangerous drugs” that poses a far greater threat to your health?

The answer, of course, is that health authorities want to push people to buy vaccines that are about to become worthless (they’re only good before swine flu fizzles out). And the only way to sell more vaccines to people who don’t need them is to hype up a bunch of scare stories by citing bold statistics that make H1N1 swine flu seem really, really dangerous.

But the flu is no more dangerous than aspirin. In fact, H1N1 swine flu may be safer than aspirin.

Here’s another quote from the New England Journal of Medicine:

“It has been estimated conservatively that 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur among patients with rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis every year in the United States. This figure is similar to the number of deaths from the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and considerably greater than the number of deaths from multiple myeloma, asthma, cervical cancer, or Hodgkin’s disease. If deaths from gastrointestinal toxic effects from NSAIDs were tabulated separately in the National Vital Statistics reports, these effects would constitute the 15th most common cause of death in the United States. Yet these toxic effects remain mainly a “silent epidemic,” with many physicians and most patients unaware of the magnitude of the problem. Furthermore the mortality statistics do not include deaths ascribed to the use of over-the-counter NSAIDS.” (Wolfe M. MD, Lichtenstein D. MD, and Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Gastrointestinal Toxicity of Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs”, The New England Journal of Medicine, June 17, 1999, Vol. 340, No. 24, pp. 1888-1889.)

 

Did you catch that? The 16,500 figure for deaths each year doesn’t even include over-the-counter painkiller drugs! If you add in those numbers, you’re probably looking at something closer to 40,000 Americans kills each year by these drugs. And that makes these drugs 1000% more deadly than swine flu (because 40,000 is ten times greater than 4,000).

Swine flu vs. seasonal flu

Also according to CDC statistics, swine flu is only approximately one-tenth as dangerous as regular seasonal flu. That’s because the CDC maintains that seasonal flu kills 36,000 Americans each year (a figure that I’ve already pointed out is highly suspect, but that’s what they claim).

But even seasonal flu is nothing to get all worked up over. Unless you’re in a state of terrible health with a compromised immune system, obesity and asthma, beating seasonal flu is a no-brainer: Just nourish your body with vitamin D, zinc, superfoods and natural health supplements and let your built-in immune technology do its job. Your immune system has already saved your life countless times. It knows how to do it if you give it the right nutrition.

There are lots of things that are far more dangerous than swine flu and yet are openly sold to consumers. Over 400,000 Americans die each year from smoking and yet you can buy cigarettes at Walgreens, Wal-Mart and CVS pharmacies. That means statistically, these pharmacies knowingly sell a product that kills 400 times as many people as swine flu has this year. Where’s the alarm about the epidemic of tobacco-related deaths? Nowhere. Not a word from the CDC or WHO.

Also, if pharmacies really cared about your health, why do they openly sell a product that causes cancer and heart disease? Think about it…

They’re just trying to sell you something that will harm you

The fact is, pharmacies will sell anything that makes money: Tobacco, processed junk food, and of course H1N1 vaccines. If they could make money selling influenza, they’d sell that, too. To the pharmaceutical retailers, it doesn’t matter how many people die from the products they sell. They’re just in business to sell anything that turns a profit, regardless of the consequences to public health.

And the vaccine industry is similarly motivated to sell you false ideas that make money. By selling you on the concept that swine flu is extremely dangerous, they can manipulate you into buying yet more harmful stuff they’re hawking at pharmacies… like H1N1 vaccines. And they’re counting on the fact that the American people won’t do the math (or can’t).

Most people have a very poor understanding of risk, and the vaccine industry is counting on precisely that risk assessment ineptitude to push its dangerous vaccines. If people knew that they are 40 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to have their life saved by a swine flu vaccine, very few would line up to be injected with one. But they don’t grasp the difference between numbers that are very far apart such as 10^2 versus 10^5. To many people, those factors are “about the same” and it’s worth getting injected with a vaccine “just in case.”

That’s why I’ve always stated a simple truth that still holds true today: People who seek out vaccine shots are the same kind of people who regularly play the lotto. Both decisions demonstrate a complete lack of understanding risk vs. reward. In fact, if you get a swine flu vaccine injection on the same day you buy a lotto ticket, you have a greater chance of buying a winning lotto ticket than being saved by the swine flu vaccine.

Playing the lotto is actually smarter than getting a swine flu vaccine shot. Plus, the lotto ticket won’t potentially cause neurological damage that puts you in a coma or causes the spontaneous abortion of your baby — both of which have been happening to people after receiving H1N1 vaccine shots.

New Computer Operating System Stores All Data On Google Servers

Jonathan Fildes
BBC
November 20, 2009

Internet search giant Google has lifted the lid on its operating system, known as Chrome OS.

 

The free and open source system is initially aimed at low-cost netbooks and does away with many of the features of a traditional program.

All applications are designed to run in a web browser and all the user’s data is stored on Google’s servers.

Engineers from the firm said the first computers running the system would be available before the end of 2010.

“We are trying to offer a choice for users,” said Sundar Pichai, vice-president of product management, during an event at the firm’s headquarters in California.

Read entire article

Commodity Rally Drives Mining Stocks Higher as Dollar Drops

By Stephen Voss

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — Commodities rose as the recovering world economy spurred demand for raw materials, sending gold to a record and mining stocks higher. Oil advanced for a third day as the dollar fell.

Crude oil climbed to $79.92 a barrel at 10:07 a.m. in London as gold for immediate delivery reached a record for the second day this week, touching $1,147.72 an ounce. Copper jumped 2.3 percent to a 14-month high as the Dollar Index declined. Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Basic Resource Index gained 1.3 percent, led by shares of BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, and Rio Tinto Group.

“For commodities as a whole, now there is no fear that there will be an economic calamity,” Amrita Sen, a commodities analyst at Barclays Capital, said in London. “Investor sentiment remains extremely robust. We will continue to see that continue through the fourth quarter.

Signs the global economy is recovering from its worst recession since World War II stoked demand for fuel amid output reductions by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, while China’s expansion sucked in imports of copper, aluminum and iron ore. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index has doubled from its low point on March 2.

Industrial metals rallied on the London Metal Exchange, with copper for three-month delivery rising to $6,985 a metric ton, the highest price since Sept. 25, 2008. Nickel jumped 3 percent on speculation Chinese demand for stainless steel will counter lower consumption in the U.S.

Platinum Demand

Platinum for immediate delivery gained as much as 0.4 percent to $1,463.10 an ounce, the highest level since Aug. 29, 2008. Demand for platinum jewelry has risen to a six-year high on record consumption in China, Johnson Matthey Plc said yesterday.

President Barack Obama was scheduled to meet today with Premier Wen Jiabao at the end of his first trip to China. In talks yesterday with President Hu Jintao, Obama said China played a key role in helping to end the global recession and urged Hu to make good on a commitment to allow the yuan to appreciate.

Oil rallied after the American Petroleum Institute said yesterday that crude inventories fell by 4.37 million barrels last week to 333.1 million. The U.S. Energy Department will release its own weekly inventory report at 10:30 a.m. in Washington.

UBS AG raised its forecast for oil because of a weaker dollar and improved demand from developing nations, particularly China, the world’s second-largest energy consuming-nation.

Yen Declines

The dollar and the yen fell against the euro as stocks rose. The U.S. currency weakened 0.4 percent to $1.4942 per euro and the yen dropped 0.3 percent to 133.14. The pound slid 0.5 percent to 88.95 pence per euro after minutes from the Bank of England’s Nov. 5 meeting showed policy makers split three ways in a vote to extend the bond-purchase program to 200 billion pounds ($336 billion) and discussed lowering the deposit rate.

The MSCI World Index added 0.3 percent. Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index gained 0.3 percent amid speculation Cadbury Plc may receive a joint bid from Hershey Co. and Ferrero SpA. Cadbury advanced 1.1 percent to 797 pence.

U.S. stock-index futures were little changed before reports due at 8:30 a.m. in Washington that may show builders in October broke ground on houses at the fastest pace in 11 months, while consumer prices held below the Federal Reserve’s long-range goal.

Micex Rallies

The Micex Index of stocks in Russia, the world’s biggest energy-exporting economy, jumped 1.1 percent to a four-week high. Qatar’s DSM 20 Index increased 1.5 percent, leading gains in global benchmarks, after the government yesterday sold $7 billion of international bonds in the biggest emerging-market debt sale this year.

Treasuries were little changed, with the yield on the 10- year note at 3.34 percent. The U.S. will probably sell $44 billion of two-year notes on Nov. 23, a record $42 billion of five-year debt on Nov. 24, and $32 billion of seven-year securities on Nov. 25, also the most ever, according to Wrightson ICAP LLC, a Jersey City-based research firm that specializes in government finance. The two-year note auction would match the record amount sold last month.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stephen Voss in London at sev@bloomberg.net

The London Times – “Smallpox Vaccine ‘Triggered AIDS Virus.’”

The London Times – May 11, 1987

 

Dr Alan Cantwell, M.D.

 

 

Article from Dr Alan Cantwell, M.D. reproduced here

 

 

On May 11, 1987, The London Times, one of the world’s most respected newspapers, published an explosive article entitled, “Smallpox vaccine triggered AIDS virus.”

 

The story suggested the smallpox eradication vaccine program sponsored by the WHO (World Health Organization) was responsible for unleashing AIDS in Africa. Almost 100 million Africans living in central Africa were inoculated by the WHO (World Health Organization). The vaccine was held responsible for awakening a “dormant” AIDS virus infection on the continent.

 

An advisor to the WHO admitted, “Now I believe the smallpox vaccine theory is the explanation for the explosion of AIDS.”

 

Robert Gallo, M,D., the co-discoverer of HIV, told The Times, “The link between the WHO program and the epidemic is an interesting and important hypothesis.

 

I cannot say that it actually happened, but I have been saying for some years that the use of live vaccines such as that used for smallpox can activate a dormant infection such as HIV.” Despite the tremendous importance of this story, the U.S. media was totally silent on the report, and Gallo never spoke of it again.

 

In September 1987, at a conference sponsored by the National Health Federation in Monrovia, California, William Campbell Douglass, M.D., bluntly blamed the WHO for murdering Africa with the AIDS virus.

 

In a widely circulated reprint of his talk entitled “W.H.O. Murdered Africa” , he accused the organization of encouraging virologists and molecular biologists to work with deadly animal viruses in an attempt to make an immunosuppressive hybrid virus that would be deadly to humans.

 

From the Bulletin of the World Health Organization (Volume 47, p.259, 1972), he quoted a passage that stated: “An attempt should be made to see if viruses can in fact exert selective effects on immune function. The possibility should be looked into that the immune response to the virus itself may be impaired if the infecting virus damages, more or less selectively, the cell responding to the virus.”

 

 

According to Douglass, “That’s AIDS. What the WHO is saying in plain English is Let’s cook up a virus that selectively destroys the T-cell system of man, an acquired immune deficiency.’” The entire article can be read on google.com (“WHO Murdered Africa”).

 

 

In his 1989 book, ‘AIDS: The End of Civilization,’ Douglass claims the WHO laced the African vaccines. He blames “the virologists of the world, the sorcerers who brought us this ghastly plague, and have formed a united front in denying that the virus was laboratory-made from known, lethal animal viruses. The scientific party line is that a monkey in Africa with AIDS bit a native on the butt. The native then went to town and gave it to a prostitute who gave it to a local banker who gave it to his wife and three girl friends, and wham – 75 million people became infected with AIDS in Africa. An entirely preposterous story.”