47 Search Results for "dangerous"

• ENERGY CRISIS CORE

  • From: tatarlak
  • Description:

    
    
    

    When the international financial crisis erupted in October 2008, and analysts began to see the magnitude of this, there were many who talked about the remaking of capitalism after the traumatic and inexorable decline of the financial system and the need to seek a new system to replace capitalism, which had failed, and while it is true that this crisis is the result of system failure by a chronic disease that suffers and that goes back to its beginnings which we see reflected in the history of economic crises in cases like the bubble of the South Seas, in the England of 1720, which was affected even the illustrious Isaac Newton, or the financial Panic of 1907, after which created the Federal Reserve System or the crack of 29, known as Black Thursday, that saw Keynesianism in all the common factor is the speculative bubble and that it is as I said before, an endemic of the socioeconomic structure, but the point is that the crisis of the system Financial are borne by society and its lasting effects although depending on the virulence with which he has entered the system have solutions that are in the hands of those who run the economy because the financial system in all its aspects no longer an artificial system created by man to regulate the economy at all levels.
    However, there are other crises, energy crises, these according to their virulence may affect a greater or lesser extent to the markets and hence the economies and in this case the solution passed through the procurement of raw material and provided more will depend on the availability, capacity and will supply this field in 1973, we had an energy crisis due to the embargo extent that OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) submitted to the United States and its Western allies have helped Israel in the Yom Kippur War, but that was an artificial crisis in the energy market, another product we had in 1979 the war between Iran and Iraq, which fired again oil prices, and if we reviewing the history we will find more energy crisis that caused fluctuations in oil prices, however in all cases the solution was further open up the faucet, but what happens when the tap is there and he did not leave anything?, that it to be a historical crisis is that what in this article I am going to speak.
    The energy problem in 2008 came to its peak around the month of July of that year, in those days an article in the newspaper El Pais show us a dire socio-economic reality and real-time point, the benchmark index of the Mortgages in Europe, the Euribor, was 5.4%, fuels their highs touched the barrel of oil reached $ 146 a barrel and fuel prices in the euro area were breaking records, a liter of gasoline super cost € 1.26 liter diesel was on the threshold of 1.30 €, stated that in a year, in percentage expensive gasoline was 15% and diesel by 33.5%, while crude reference in Europe was 54 to 92 euros per barrel, 72% more.
    
    

    And is that the energy crisis is a problem if I dug more fundamental to the economic crisis, and that unlike the national or international economic crisis which has a solution since due to the economic structures which are none the less, structures artificial man-made growth therefore manipulated by man. In an energy crisis in which the problem is the lack of raw materials maneuverability of the agents charged with the energy markets remain forever diminished in terms of raw material on which orbits such crises as if the problem is the
    lack of raw materials this will escalate the prices of existing raw materials and in turn a problem for the economic structure, except that in this case the manipulation of man will not give the same results in an economic crisis because it does not can perform the miracle of the loaves and fish oil.
    
    

    For this reason we must understand the concept that as countries emerge from the global economic crisis, inexorably go into an energy crisis since the growth of economies is intrinsically linked to an increased demand for oil, which is that we must take into account that oil is the lifeblood of industry and civil society in countries with emerging economies and countries with economies consolidated, which will in the medium and long term entry into a new crisis, "The Energy" which will be much harder to leave, medium and long term because short-term solution is to increase oil production to meet demand is reducing the cost of a barrel of oil to medium term, which was the solution adopted by OPEC in 2008. Keep in mind that the problem is much deeper and difficult to solve since the increase of oil production to meet demand, will only be exhausted before it reserves on the planet and until that happens we will be doomed to humanity slowly but ineluctably toward an uncertain future in which we will consider the maintenance of energy production methods potentially dangerous as nuclear energy is safe while in the West, not so in countries where controls on the safety of these facilities leaves much to be desired and is to be taken into account that a problem in a nuclear plant in Pakistan for serious character Chernobyl-style may affect everyone if we take into account that the largest oil reserves in the world are coming to this country, without forgetting that wastes generated by these plants, we must also take into account the problem of climate change, which is linked to the use of fossil fuels.
    
    

    The conclusion to be drawn from the energy problem in perspective, is that in July 2008 the energy crisis had plateaued with a barrel of oil to 147 dollars, and that was the end of a process that had begun to take shape long before In August of that year sharply lower oil prices result of increased production, although in those days there was not a G20 soon to find comprehensive solutions to energy problems, no one was willing to put billions in search of energy, cheap, safe and clean to create economic stability in the markets in the medium and long term and that will provide guarantees for the future and stability to the planet and that is a serious error since the energy crisis was overshadowed by the economic crisis and we must bear in mind that the energy crisis requires urgent solutions today since this problem is closely linked to climate change, which is a real and verifiable and that affects us all equally.
    For this reason we take the inflection point that economic crisis has meant to mark a new direction in regard to a solution to global energy problems, as this solution will be the cornerstone around which to build a better tomorrow for all, will be the solution to remedy the major problems of mankind and this solution may combine to create a "sustainable society", with sustainable, effective and inexpensive for the planet that would be the first foundation of the world the morning as the construction of tomorrow starts today.
    
    

    Antonio Garcia Leal ®

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  • 2 weeks ago
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• J. D. Pendry Gets it Right

  • From: rbb50
  • Description:

    Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You’re the runner-in-chief.

    Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the USS Cole and the First Trade Center Bombing and Our Embassy Bombings emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately, they grew bolder, until 9/11/2001.

    John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam . Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You’ve accused our military of terrorizing women and children in Iraq . You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, and the same words you used to describe Vietnam . You’re a fake! You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did to the Vietnamese. Iraq , like Vietnam , is another war that you were for, before you were against it.

    John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can’t win militarily in Iraq . You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof and said we should redeploy to Okinawa . Okinawa, John? And the Democrats call you their military expert! Are you sure you didn’t suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You’re a sad, pitiable, corrupt, and washed up old fool. You’re not a Marine, sir. You wouldn’t amount to a good pimple on a real Marine’s ass. You’re a phony and a disgrace. Run away, John.

    Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot, who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned Southeast Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? Lord help us! See Dick run.

    Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu Ghraib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraqi’s torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news, Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrated another beheading for you. If you truly supported our troops, you’d show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a communist victory there. You’re a bloated, drunken, useless old fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your fat, gin-soaked ass in Washington

    Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Pat Leahy, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, the Hollywood Leftist morons, et al, ad nauseam: Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied, that the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers, that we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers – the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers – cause to think that we’ll run away again, and all they have to do is hang on a little longer. It is inevitable that we, the infidels, will have to defeat the Islamic jihadists. Better to do it now on their turf, than later on ours after they have gained both strength and momentum.

    American news media, the New York Times particularly: Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one united with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can’t strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer..

    You are America ’s ‘AXIS OF IDIOTS.’ Your Collective Stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist-abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don’t ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam . If you want our Soldiers home as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies.

    Yes, I’m questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I’m also questioning why you’re stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don’t deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war, this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it.

    Our country has two enemies: Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within.

    Semper Fi,
    J. D. Pendry – Sergeant Major, USMC, Retired

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  • 3 weeks ago
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• A fine tuned Fiddle

  • From: indispair
  • Description:

    I know most people are not happy with the way I display my American Flag. Some say it is a disgrace. Some probably call me nasty names. I believe you have that right. I am not in any way offended. You should not be either. You should be doing the same thing.

    You should understand why it is in "distress". If you don't feel it appropriate, don't read my blogs. I can respect that. Honestly, I care about you, yet, I know nothing of your nature. We are all human beings, living together in this great country. Great because of the people. not the people running it.

    They, are a disgrace. Yet they only have one motive and you/we/I are not it.

    This has taken me quite some time to come to this conclusion. It didn't happen overnight. This happened because I am a victim of the corruption in our government.

    I know, you may want to blame me for feeling this way? Have you really had that good of a life? Have you not encountered hardships along your lifes journey?

    Maybe you have? Maybe not.

    For those who have, I now know why it has happened. For those it has not happened to? Your time is coming. We can then welcome you to the life of a U.S. CITIZEN. Even though you are now, you will learn what this means.

    I, myself, am a flesh and blood, life breathing American. I am not a CITIZEN.

    My mother gave me my name. The UNITED STATES of AMERICA, is using it in an unauthorized manner. So does that STATE of TEXAS. And I am not alone. You are too. Everyone who reads or does not read this is included. Except for a few.

    This is why I am bound by chains. Not freedom. Do you know what I mean by this?

    Do you call yourself free? Do you really? Are you really free? Really? Can you prove it to me? 

    Who is your master? I know who mine is?

    This is a country of "trained" sheeple. This is not the America our forefathers gave their lives for.

    In my thoughts, most of my forefathers are problably turning in their graves because of what "We the People...." have allowed to take place.

    They even warned us about all that is happening to "We the People..." in the United States of America. Yet, we are so niave, we actually believed our elected officials. We placed out trust in them.

    This part really puzzles me.

    We listen to the TV, radio, or what ever we use to get our propaganda and we base our judgement upon those who are "pegged" as dangerous, criminal, etc. Even though we don't actually know anything about them, we automatically hate/dislike them because of what we've heard. not what we know.

    Let's take a person of foreign origin. Maybe they are from Mexico? Iran, Iraq. Maybe they are Muslim? Maybe Hindu. Does it matter?

    Do we really know who their actual personality is really like? NO! We chose to base our discrimination on some hearsay from some person spreading propaganda, than to really know who that human being really is.

    Funny, there is a story being told all over the world about a man who was murdered just because of what he believed in.

    His father. Now we preach his story many times.

    So, if I believe in something others don't I could end up the same way? Isn't this what is happening all around our country? The world?

    Anyway, the point here is, we are believing hearsay rather than the truth. I suppose it is because the truth hurts, and nobody wants to get hurt. We are comfortable in our world of make believe. We are comfortable with jumping on the bangwagon. We are afraid to stand up against evil. Except for video games.

    We are trained from an early age. Even earlier now.  Note: Let your children be children. Don't make them grown up at an early age. Didn't you enjoy your childhood? Don't you even realize why "WE" want your child to grow up fast?

    We are trained to think one way, work one way, pay one way, my gosh, I can go on forever here. Before you disagree, think about it.

    And "they" are making a killing off of you and I. Disagree? Then continue to be a "Sheeple". I am no longer follwing the heard. I am not falling off the cliff you are headed for.

    I love my country. I love my State.

    I do not like those who are abusing their powers as an elected official. I do not like those who used their trickery and lies to get me to vote them into office.

    My suggestion is to get new blood into these positions. Get rid of ALL those who have been there for ages. If they actually were doing something "We the People..." would not be in this mess. That is the truth. Like it or not.

    For those who shrugged off Ron Paul? Maybe you should wake up and hear what that man has to say.

    Now.

    For you people who are Democrats? Wake up.

    For you people who are Republicans? Wake up.

    "They" are playing you like a fine tuned fiddle.

    You act like idiots. You say your party is the best and the other is going to make wrong decisions.

    Don't you even realize that both of these parties are in together on this crap? They look like they are against each other when they are in front of the camera. But let those who have been in office and didn't go along with their escapades, tell you how "buddy-buddy" they are behind the scenes. Laughing at you idiots for going along with their arguments. Please wake up. You are letting them make fools of you.

    You are letting them train you to be against your fellow man/woman. "WE" are all we have. The people running our government are not looking out for us.

    God bless America!

    And

    WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!

     

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  • 3 weeks ago
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• SOLAR ERUPTION

  • From: zackshields
  • Description:

    Two spacecraft observing the sun captured a dramatic eruption from the surface of the sun over a 30-hour period in late September.

    The twin spacecraft, called Behind and Ahead because of their relative positions in space, captured the solar event, known as a solar prominence.

    Prominences, called filaments when they are viewed against the surface of the sun, are clouds of cooler gas suspended above the sun’s surface by magnetic forces. They can travel at 1,000 kilometres per second.

    Promincences, also knonw as coronal mass ejections, are not as dangerous as solar flares, which can disrupt telecommunications on Earth.

    Here are some photos of the eruption.

    

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    

  • Blog post
  • 1 month ago
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• Banking and Federal Reserve Qu

  • From: indispair
  • Description:

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    The Rothschilds

       "The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from it's profits or so dependant on it's favors, that there will be no opposition from that class." — Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863

      "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
     

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    Senators and Congressmen

         "Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States" — Sen. Barry Goldwater (Rep. AR)

        "This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President [Wilson} signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized....the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill." — Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. , 1913

        "From now on, depressions will be scientifically created." — Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. , 1913

        "The financial system has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board. That Board as ministers the finance system by authority of  a purely profiteering group. The system is Private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money" -- Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., 1923

        "The Federal Reserve bank buys government bonds without one penny..." — Congressman Wright Patman, Congressional Record, Sept 30, 1941

    "We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it". — Congressman Louis T. McFadden in 1932 (Rep. Pa)

        "The Federal Reserve banks are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen.
    There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this nation is run by the
    International bankers — Congressman Louis T. McFadden (Rep. Pa)

        "Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are the United States government's institutions.
    They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign swindlers" — Congressional Record 12595-12603 — Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency (12 years) June 10, 1932

    "I have never seen more Senators express discontent with their jobs....I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices in doing something terrible and unforgivable to our wonderful country. Deep down in our heart, we know that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected." — John Danforth (R-Mo)

    "These 12 corporations together cover the whole country and monopolize and use for private
    gain every dollar of the public currency..." — Mr. Crozier of Cincinnati, before Senate  Banking and Currency Committee - 1913

    "The [Federal Reserve Act] as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast inflation of the
    currency... I do not like to think that any law can be passed that will make it possible to submerge the gold standard in a flood of irredeemable paper currency." — Henry Cabot Lodge Sr., 1913
     

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    From the Federal Reserves Own Admissions

        "When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in out account to cover the check,
    but when the Federal Reserve writes a check there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money." — Putting it simply, Boston Federal Reserve Bank

     "Neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities, intrinsically, a 'dollar' bill is just
    a piece of paper. Deposits are merely book entries." — Modern Money Mechanics Workbook,
    Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 1975

    "The Federal Reserve system pays the U.S. Treasury 020.60 per thousand notes --a little over
    2 cents each-- without regard to the face value of the note. Federal Reserve Notes, incidentally, are the only type of currency now produced for circulation. They are printed exclusively by the
    Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the $20.60 per thousand price reflects the Bureau's full cost of production. Federal Reserve Notes are printed in 01, 02, 05, 10, 20, 50, and 100 dollar denominations only; notes of 500, 1000, 5000, and 10,000 denominations were last printed in 1945." —Donald J. Winn, Assistant to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve system

    "We are completely dependant on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar
    we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system.... It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon." — Robert H. Hamphill, Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank
     

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    From General Law

       "The entire taxing and monetary systems are hereby placed under the U.C.C. (Uniform
    Commercial Code)" — The Federal Tax Lien Act of 1966

    "There is a distinction between a 'debt discharged' and a debt 'paid'. When discharged, the debt
    still exists though divested of it's charter as a legal obligation during the operation of the discharge, something of the original vitality of the debt continues to exist, which may be transferred, even though the transferee takes it subject to it's disability incident to the discharge." —Stanek vs. White, 172 Minn.390, 215 N.W. 784

    "The Federal Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities..." — Lewis vs. United States
    9th Circuit 1992

    "The regional Federal Reserve banks are not government agencies. ...but are independent,
    privately owned and locally controlled corporations." — Lewis vs. United States, 680 F. 2d 1239
    9th Circuit 1982

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    Past Presidents, not including the Founding Fathers

       "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and
    commerce." — James A. Garfield, President of the United States

    "A great industrial nation is controlled by it's system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world--no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men." — President Woodrow Wilson
     

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    Founding Father's Quotes on Banking  (Maybe some repeats from "Founding Father's Quotes" / Information tends to converge)

    Thomas Jefferson
         "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
    Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The
    issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to
    whom it properly belongs." — Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President.

    Andrew Jackson
        "If Congress has the right [it doesn't] to issue paper money [currency], it was given to them to be used by...[the government] and not to be delegated to individuals or corporations" — President Andrew Jackson, Vetoed Bank Bill of 1836

    James Madison
        "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance." — James Madison

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    Misc. Sources

    "Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing" — Ralph M.
    Hawtrey, Secretary of the British Treasury

        "To expose a 15 Trillion dollar rip-off of the American people by the stockholders of the 1000
    largest corporations over the last 100 years will be a tall order of business." — Buckminster Fuller

        "Every Congressman, every Senator knows precisely what causes inflation...but can't, [won't]
    support the drastic reforms to stop it [repeal of the Federal Reserve Act] because it could cost him his job." — Robert A. Heinlein, Expanded Universe

        "It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." — Henry Ford

        "[Every circulating FRN] represents a one dollar debt to the Federal Reserve system." — Money
    Facts, House Banking and Currency Committee

      "...the increase in the assets of the Federal Reserve banks from 143 million dollars in 1913 to
    45 billion dollars in 1949 went directly to the private stockholders of the [federal reserve] banks." — Eustace Mullins

        "As soon as Mr. Roosevelt took office, the Federal Reserve began to buy government securities
    at the rate of ten million dollars a week for 10 weeks, and created one hundred million dollars in new [checkbook] currency, which alleviated the critical famine of money and credit, and the factories
    started hiring people again." — Eustace Mullins

        "Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed." — John Maynard Keynes, "Consequences of Peace."
    
        "Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." — SIR JOSIAH STAMP, (President of the Bank of England in the 1920's, the second richest man in Britain):

         "The modern Banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banks can in fact inflate, mint and unmint the modern ledger-entry currency." — MAJOR L .L. B. ANGUS:
    
    
      "While boasting of our noble deeds were careful to conceal the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery. — Horace Greeley

         "People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project (Muscle Shoals Dam) nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest ...But here is the point: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way.  It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan." — THOMAS A. EDISON

    
        "By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people,
    and not one man in a million will detect the theft." — John Maynard Keynes (the father of 'Keynesian Economics' which our nation now endures) in his book "THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE" (1920).

         "Capital must protect itself in every way...Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages
    foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law the common people have lost their
    homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied
    by the central power of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd."--  Taken from the Civil Servants' Year Book, "The Organizer" January 1934.

    "The Federal Reserve banks, while not part of the government..." — United States budget for 1991 and 1992 part 7, page 10

    The Money Power! It is the greatest power on earth; and it is arrayed against Labour. No other power that is or ever was can be named with it... it attacks us through the Press - a monster with a thousand lying tongues, a beast surpassing in foulness any conceived by the mythology that invented dragons, were wolves, harpies, ghouls and vampires. It thunders against us from innumerable platforms and ,Yes, so far as we are concerned, the headquarters of the Money Power is Britain. But the Money Power is not a British institution; it is cosmopolitan. It is of no nationality, but of all nationalities. It dominates the world. The Money Power has corrupted the faculties of the human soul, and tampered with the sanity of the human intellect... Editorial from 1907 edition of The Brisbane Worker (Australia)
     

    ...I am convinced that the agreement [Bretton Woods] will enthrone a world dictatorship of private finance more complete and terrible than and Hitlerite dream. It offers no solution of world problems, but quite blatantly sets up controls which will reduce the smaller nations to vassal states and make every government the mouthpiece and tool of International Finance.  It will undermine and destroy the democratic institutions of this country - in fact as effectively as ever the Fascist forces could have done - pervert and paganise our Christian ideals; and will undoubtedly present a new menace, endangering world peace. World collaboration of private financial interests can only mean mass unemployment, slavery, misery, degradation and financial destruction. Therefore, as freedom loving Australians we should reject this infamous proposal. -- Labor Minister of Australia, Eddie Ward, during the inception of the World Bank and Bretton Woods, he gave this warning.

    "Government spending is always a “tax” burden on the American people and is never equally or fairly distributed.  The poor and low-middle income workers always suffer the most from the deceitful tax of inflation and borrowing." -Congressman Ron Paul

    "Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States" — Senator Barry Goldwater (Rep. AR)
     

     "From now on, depressions will be scientifically created." — Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. , 1913

     

     

    We are in a lot of trouble.......
    

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• watchfree99478

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• New Uniforms and Hollywood Smi

  • From: rbb50
  • Description:

    Seems a whole slew of government regulations has not only forced HVAC contractors to hire the cheapest help they can find without regard to experience at all but they also delegate the authority to those same incompetent technicians to do what ever it takes to make the company money which the incompetent tech knows his own job relies on.

    On drugs alcohol or just plain derelicts can make a killing by having access to what they always call stupid people (The consumers) and swindling them into believing anything they say without question by using a bunch of techno jargon the consumer would never understand and think that tech must know what he is talking about or he would not be working at a large HVAC company like that.

    In short if your a good can artist or an ex politician you can make the big bucks by working for a HVAC company in the tri county area around Austin but if you are a competent experience technician most of them probably will not want a single thing to do with you because you will see the company ripping off customers left and right and be complaining about that while working there.

    How do they rip off the consumers?

    They will tell them they need equipment replaced never mentioning a warranty which normally is 5 years on all seal system work and in some manufactures case 5 years parts and labor warranty and they will tell the consumer there is no warranty and they have to pay for any repairs done.

    They will sell complete system change outs to an unwary consumer who never needed the system replaced to begin with because it only had a simple problem such as ants in the condenser contactor.

    Beware of York that has a five year warranty on certain parts that usually never have any problems while not covering others and only having a 30 day labor warranty of which unscrupulous contractors use to get more work by making sure the system they install does have problems that will make it fail within about 2 months after the installation so they can return and charge that customer outrageous labor rates up to $150 an hour while sending a tech that only makes $10 an hour and is totally incompetent to begin with and will in every case cause even more problems they will want to charge you for also at a later date when the equipment fails again.

    Now days even the manufactures are getting in on consumers ignorance and attempting to sell them extended warranties when they buy the equipment explaining to them if they do not buy that then they are not protected in any way from what I call incompetent technicians working on those systems and which those HVAC companies hire to begin with to install the systems.

    Some how the city inspection departments are dropping the ball so bad I would have to say there is incompetence is in those departments also after seeing thousands of systems installed that were not installed to national or local codes and have come close to or actually burned down houses because of that which had the approval of the city inspection departments as being up to code.

    Want to report those unscrupulous contractors that burned your house down or who later you found ripped you off by charging for work that was warranted by the manufacture or essentially charging you for the work that should have been covered under the warranty while also charging the manufacture for warranty work also and never telling you that?

    Forget it as the contractors seem to know the regulators have deep pockets and they keep them filled with a percentage of the proceeds they get from the unknowing consumers is all I see.

    Want to put that kind of system out of business?

    Simple as can be

    Every consumer has the right to dictate what they want in anything they want including any home improvement contracts and HVAC work in their own homes.

    Require every contractor you use that submits a proposal to you to also sign a waiver requiring that mandatory drug and alcohol testing be done on any employee they have working for them that they send to work in your house with the provision that if they fail that test then all work from their company is then to be completed for free which would also include any service work done in your house.

    They would be required to pay for that testing and the company testing would be required to keep the results secret between only you and the drug testing company unless the idiots actually failed the test and were so stupid as to fight that legal document they signed in which case they would not only lose but also have to pay all court cost as stipulated in that waiver.

    That takes care of about 75% of the unscrupulous contractors and technicians that were only submitting bids as a way to get their foot in your door in the Austin tri county area as a way to rip you off who will decline signing a waver such as that of which I would sign in a split second myself knowing I could pass it any day of the week and get that job.

    Have a lawyer draft that waiver up for you in a way that you the consumer will be protected from any unscrupulous HVAC company and include they also have to disclose all of the warranties by the manufactures of the equipment they are selling and not just be saying stuff like, “Yeah they warranty it” with no other details.

    Include that the company has to disclose everything about any technician they use including anyone working in that company to do that work including criminal back ground checks and qualifications completed in a way they are easily verified such as school transcripts training and how long they have actually been doing work in that field and what their pay scales are and have that company pay for the investigation by a investigator of your choice to verify all of the information to be true and accurate before work can begin.

    If you do accept the bid from that company that supplied you with all the information you requested then make positively sure you do have the list of the named employees that are to be working in your house to check each and every day that only those employees verified are the ones working on that job where as if found an employee is sent that is not on the list then all work ceases and the contractor can and will be sued for breach of contract which stipulates you owe them nothing for any work done by them.

    What will this force those unscrupulous contractors to do?

    They will probably flee the tri county area and move to another county or state as a way to rip of consumers in that county or state with no such provisions and then consumers will only be left with honest hard working contractors that are in the business of giving consumers the best deal and the most competent and drug alcohol free employees left in the market place.

    Most all of them will never even submit a bid to you under those conditions knowing they would be caught trying to rip you off any way they could and if they refused that proposal then that in itself would prove beyond a doubt they could not meet those requirements to begin with and were only looking for a sucker and not someone that knows how to protect their own interest.

    What are the other options?

    Let me show you some of them I have found around the tri county area in and around the Austin area.

    Gas furnace in the attic was mounted on a platform that was only the width of the furnace and no more left for the required platform as per code in front of the furnace for service.
     
    Units installed in dark attics or alcoves with no lighting  not to code
     
    Gas flue pipes cut through the roof or walls with no clearance and touching the wood in the walls or deck of the roof not to code and a fire hazard
     
    Gas pipes up to the furnace in an attic with no gas cock cut off installed using galvanized piping instead of black gas pipes not to code.
     
    Duel systems hooked up backwards where a 2 ton condenser was feeding a 3 ton blower and coil and the 3 ton condenser hooked up to the 2 ton blower and evaporator and had remained that way for 8 years serviced all that time by the same company that installed it until I was called to service it and found that condition could say not to code but has to be total incompetence by the original company on that one.

    Duel systems hooked up backwards where a 3 ton condenser was feeding a 4 ton blower and coil and the 4 ton condenser hooked up to the 3 ton blower and evaporator and had remained that way for 10 years serviced all that time by the same company that installed it until I was called to service it and found that condition could say not to code but has to be total incompetence by the original company on that one.

    Some of the stuff is outright dangerous such as a call on smoke smelled by a customer only to find the contractor had wired the electric furnace in with wire that was about half the size it needed to be to power the electric heat coils in the furnace and had burned up the power wires going to the furnace trying to do so which of course was not to code and almost burned down a house.

    A 2 speed Lennox system hooked up to only run the 1st stage of cooling and heat pump never being hooked up for two stages and run that way for ten years as contractors sent incompetent technicians to service it who only charged it with freon and left a consumer still complaining it just does not seem to keep up with cooling or heating the house until they called me and found out they had spent thousands on their electric bills and service calls during that period only because incompetent technicians had serviced it for ten years

    2 stage York systems only hooked up to run first stage with the same results of incompetent technicians sent for years telling the consumer all they need is some more freon only to find when they called me they had already invested thousands in electric bills and incompetent technicians that were ripping them off not only that but over charging a system like that some times does result in compressor failure and those unscrupulous companies know they can count on people without a clue to call them back and give them more money to fix that problem they caused to begin with.

    The choice is always yours and you either demand what you want or not.

    If not you might meet me someday and find you have already spent thousands to have a company full of derelicts service your HVAC system for years without ever realizing it before you called me and I will have to explain exactly what was happening to your system and why it has cost you so much from day one when it was installed by those unscrupulous contractors that hire incompetent technicians as a way to have cheap labor without regard to what most all of them call “That clueless idiot” (You) that keeps calling them and giving them more money only because they have the biggest ad in the yellow pages.

    If you do demand that I will probably be one of the few guys left around this area that installs or services your system for you that you will find after that will not have any problems with for another 10-20 years and even then it would probably be that age old problem of those darn fire ants getting into those condenser contactors.

    Would that raise the cost of doing business with any contractor?

    No not unless they were totally unscrupulous and thought they would have to charge more to cover the fact they know they have incompetent technicians on drugs and alcohol working for them of which they now know would cost them more money to try to do business with that particular business plan and knowing they may be caught up in a legal system that protects consumers and no longer protects their own incompetence and criminal activities.

    There are plenty of highly experienced HVAC technicians out of work at this time that cannot get hired only because those unscrupulous contractors have opted for the incompetent technicians at the $10 an hour rate of which in itself in not even enough to maintain tools needed to do HVAC work or continuing education to begin with let alone live in the Austin area unless they were just out of high school still living with their parents.

    If your just not for sure what to do after reading this then tell me and I will be glad to meet with you and consult with you to give you a complete report on your own system and how up to par or not and note for you any problems such as the above I find with it and of course I’m not doing that for free and expect me to be there about 4 hours as we go over every part of your entire system including duct and plenum sizing and in some cases large houses with up to eight systems as I have seen might take a couple of days to inspect.

    I might even consider turning that into a business since the need for that type of business seems to grow by leaps and bounds every day for as long as the State of Texas and the cities of Austin, Round Rock, Georgetown and all of the cities in the tri-county area allows unscrupulous contractors to stay in the business of ripping off consumers.

    As a professional HVAC tech I would also be glad to represent you as an expert witness in court to any crimes committed by those companies in their bids that are only submitted to you as a way to get crooks working for them into your house as a way to rip you off.

    They call it getting their foot in your door advertising and many other things but I call it malicious criminal activity myself and compare it to organized crime tied in with State and local agencies taking under the table money to keep quiet about it while telling consumers they have no recourse and passing the buck to different departments who also say they cannot help you in any way.

    Why is this blog so big?

    If I put every thing I know about all of the unscrupulous contractors in business around the Austin area it would fill about a 2000 page book so really this blog is not that big at all compared to that but maybe it will give some consumers an ideal as to how they are getting ripped off left and right and might not even know that until they read this.

    More consumers might start questioning what they really know about the contractors that seem so friendly to them of which they think would never do that only because the contractors always shows up at their home with a smile on his face which they find later was only to hide the incompetence within them.

    Either way an informed consumer is what unscrupulous contractors and technicians with that brand new uniform and a Hollywood smile hate the most but in my case an informed consumer is the one I had just done some work for who now knows they now have an HVAC system that works better than it ever has before but usually my uniform is dirty if the company I work for even supplies one and I have to work so hard fixing what criminals have done to consumers all the time I do not smile much about that.

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• Seller, beware: Feds enforcing

  • From: rbb50
  • Description:

    If you're planning a garage sale or organizing a church bazaar, you'd best beware: You could be breaking a new federal law. As part of a campaign called Resale Roundup, the federal government is cracking down on the secondhand sales of dangerous and defective products and people that did not vote for Obama.

    The initiative, which targets toys and other products for children, enforces a new provision that makes it a crime to resell anything that's been recalled by its Manufacturer and anything sold by companies that do not agree with Obama in any way even if their products are not defective at all.

    "Those who resell recalled children's products or do not support Obama are not only breaking the law, they are putting children's lives at risk," said Heimlich Himmler, the recently confirmed chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission in charge of building the new multi-billion dollar creatoriums to help with the influx of executed people that were in non-compliance of the new Obama dictator laws and we will find them and put them in jail unless they can prove they voted for Obama or have money to pay our extortion demands

    The crackdown affects sellers ranging from major thrift-store operators such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army to everyday Americans cleaning out their attics for yard sales, church bazaars or - increasingly - digital hawking on eBay, Craigslist and other Web sites.

    Secondhand sellers now must keep abreast of recalls for thousands of products, some of them stretching back more than a decade, to stay within the bounds of the law which has no definition except that if you did not vote for Obama you will be breaking the law even when you never did.

    Staffers for the federal agency are fanning out across the country to conduct propaganda seminars on the regulations at dozens of thrift shops while telling them how much they will have to pay in extortion money as a way to stay in business under the new Nazi regime.

    "Even before this law, we had good mechanisms in place for pulling recalled products," said Adolph Hitler, the chief executive of Goodwill. "The law just kicks it up a notch, so Goodwill’s around the country will continue to improve our process and make sure all of our employees did support Obama and voted for him or we will fire them and have them arrested and executed as the law prescribes".

    Goodwill uses $2 billion in annual sales at its 2,300 thrift shops nationwide to pay extortion money to Obama as a way to stay in business. Adolph said the nonprofit group was accustomed to inspectors from the Consumer Product Safety Commission making unannounced visits to its stores to collect the envelopes they give them with the cash in them to pay off the Obama extortionists.

    Wolfgang, a spokesman for the agency, said it would be dispatching bureaucratic storm troopers into private homes to see whether people were selling recalled products from their garages, yards or churches to make sure no one is making money and arrest anyone that appears they are without paying the proper extortion fees.

    "We're looking to come across as being heavy-handed," he said. "We want to make sure that everybody knows what the rules of engagement are to make sure they know we will shoot them or murder them as a way to spur greater compliance of people believing anything Obama says without question",

    The agency is working with eBay, Wolfgang said, to help the online sales giant install software filters that will flag auction items subject to manufacturers' recalls and gather names and addresses of anyone that post there as a way to investigate people making money in any way.

    The commission's Internet surveillance unit is monitoring Craigslist and other "top auction and reselling sites" for recalled goods. If the agency discovers that a recalled product has been sold online, it will try to find and arrest the buyer or have them put on a hit list to be executed, Wolfgang said.

    To kick off its Resale Roundup, the federal agency released a list of the 11 most dangerous previously recalled children's products. The oldest is the March 10, 1993, recall of 11,600 portable cribs sold as Playskool Travel-Lite Play Yards and made by Kolcraft, an Aberdeen, N.C., firm that's the nation's largest crib manufacturer that Obama abortionist have been trying to put out of business for years but people just keep having babies that need baby cribs.

    The executive director of the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops, which represents more than 1,100 store owners said, "Even before it was criminal to resell recalled goods, our members have always been diligent because children's safety is never on our minds," she said. "But forcing consumers to look out for recalled products that are sold at garage sales and flea markets or people that do not support Obama’s dictatorship, that is a problem, and hopefully this law will help put them all in jail or have them killed also saying, “Hey we have to pay the extortion money to stay in business so they should have to pay it also".

    Nancy, a mother of two in Monroe, Wash., was surprised to learn that she was violating the law by selling about $200 worth of Polly Pocket dolls and accessories on Craigslist that her 12-year-old daughter no longer wants and found her self in a torture chamber being fed drugs all day long for months before escaping to the underground with the help of freedom fighters.

    Sears which sells products on government recall list everyday of the year then leaves customers stuck with dangerous and defective appliances that do not even work or burn their house down is still allowed to rip consumers off for billions of dollars a year as they are is exempt from this because they donated so heavily to the Obama campaign.

    Other companies that donated or still support Obama's communist and socialist programs are also exempt and can sell any defective or dangerous product they want as long as they sell them to people that did not vote for Obama and do not support any of his communist policies.

    Companies that protest his draconian dictatorship policies made to destroy America will not be exempt and will be run out of business on a regular basis even when none of the products they sell are dangerous or defective in anyway unless they pay the extortion fees to Obama's Jack booted thugs.

    People that did not vote for Obama will also be harassed continually for things like, Reporting crack houses and crime activity in their neighborhoods, Protesting the town hall meetings Suddam Hussein,,,, Oh I mean Obama I always get those two confused since they are exactly alike in every way and those who protest his dictatorship will be investigated and put on the terror watch list and harassed on a daily basis with some being murdered execution style.

    Children who say anything contradictory to what Obama has brainwashed them into believing will be checked into brainwashing centers Oh I mean government run public school system special education programs where they will be fed all kinds of experimental drugs as a way to either kill them or turn them into vegetables.

    HVAC companies all across the country that hire liberal democrat morons on drugs who have no clue as to what they are doing and kill many consumers because of that along with illegal aliens that voted for Obama will also be exempt from this law which helps 99% of all the HVAC companies in Travis county that have already been doing that for decades.

    Remember just because you are selling something that is not on a recall list do not forget you will be investigated and asked for extortion money that usually exceeds the sell price of any item you sell by ten times its worth unless you do support Obama and his new Islamic sharia laws.

    Not giving the jack booted thugs Obama sends to collect that money can get you thrown in jail and tortured for trying to make any extra money without Obama’s permission or by not paying the new extortion fees that will be due upon the day of the sale which could also mean an instant execution at your house if you refuse.

    Obama said, “We need to enforce the new Islamic sharia laws I have set forth as a way to make sure radical Muslims like me enough to run for office in this country even when they were never born in this country like I did”.

     

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  • 2 months ago
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• Fans mark would-have-been birt

  • From: cunols
  • Description:

    NEW YORK (AFP) - Hundreds of fans of the late King of Pop Michael Jackson braved the rain to celebrate what would have been his 51st birthday with a party Saturday in a New York park, organizers said.

    Jazz Fashion Belinda Chappel Ryan Craig The Nouve Itsawhale Twisted Reaction Takiyah Krypton Bling Bling Andrea T. Mendoza featuring Manuela Defective audio vs Ed Real Quintetto Lo Greco The Low Frequency in Stereo Eight to Infinity Hypo and Edh Compuphonic 2v1 Ashram M-Finiti Abi Cruz Bamboo B Behind the Scenes By the End of Tonight Cat Jahnke Chieko Kinbara Chimarruts Cocoa Tunez Conner DJ Nehpets Dan Marciano featuring Paulette Drop Feuerhake V-Sag Wochtzchee Dead O DJ Kiya and Niko Mateos featuring Lucy Eux Autres Fauve Hamburger Arroganz House Device Jahcoustic Jokke Ilsoe La Union MYNC featuring Abigail Bailey Mantaone Markku Peltola Oriental Sunshine Papenburg FX Simioli vs Renzo Arbore and the Orchestra Italiana Monstroplantes Some Random Punk-Wonderbra Soul Flava featuring Katherine Ellis The Boygirls The Operative The Second Death Peter Mergener Romain Didier John Peel and Sheila Peter Buffett Hjalmar Kaya-P Eisherz Life Parade 2006 Moctan Tsutone Asian2 Chehon Per Huseby Clementine Celarie Paul Orta Soil Yoshihiro Ike Ukatrarts FC Slepcy Harpswell Sound P O S K Mystik Journeymen Neila Neila and Acid Reign Nephlim Modulation Systems Nga Fish Nga Fish (of Chillin Villain Empire) Alycia Stefano Cardopusher Christina Bigelow Double F I Love House Jota DJ Lighter Shade of Brown Lord Jamar Marcos Indub Mims Modisco Mountage featuring Nhitto Ngafsh Non-Prophets Norman (Barfly and Onry Ozzborn) Painful Memories Rick L featuring Mck Rodriguez Rodriguez Sig. Andreoni Slash Dash Solomun and Gebruder Ton and Adriano Oc The Saliva Commandos Optimus Rhymes Tiger Sprouts Tonite Only Viggosson and Gibbins Wild Child Tolfrey Sylvester presents Popeye Panic Benjy Wertheimer Bobby Watt DJ Piju and DJ Pok DJ Snortie Derek Lassiter Digital Midget Ecosse Eklips da Hustla Elephant Beach YT Jack da Ripa Jorun Killa Team Kollabo Brothers Kristy Kay Lelo Luisito Quintero Mick Boogie and Rick Ross S.O. Project Sao Paulo Underground The Avett Brothers The Joys Troy Taylor Miou Miou Da Yellow Dogs E L S Pendulum and MC Verse DJ Lion Houseamigos vs Medicine Men Rob Le Pitch Tolfrey and Sylvester presents Popeye Franchising Arilea Gavin Hi-fi Festival 2006 East of the Wall Juan Valentin Pyhimys Rodrigo Espinoza Gerry Rafferty J-Mar Joe featuring Papoose Sabrina Cuie Hyun Young Overfiends Antonio Adolfo and Brazil Brazuka Lee Chun se Miss Melody The Inmates Step by Step Suho Tobala Peep Sho Pep Love Phlegm Pip Skid Cereal Killaz DJ Gone presents. Rincondeldj.Net volume 1 Rob E C Sami Saari Pipi Skid Capriccio Nucleus Roots Poor Righteous Teachers Chus Soler and Gabi Cubero featuring Maraia Rhymesayers Gabrielle Chiararo Discemi Coconut Grooves Vandal Sound Young Sean Asuna DJ Almeida DJ Obliveus DJ Guy Salama featuring Void El Mayo de la Sierra Electronic Resistance aka Djinxx Fathers Children Freddy Montana Ghost Mice I'am Nothing-Without People 3 Light of the World Malichia T-Xign featuring Jax The Spinto Band Heavens Wire vs. Drumroller Leone Di Lernia Lorenzo Mendez Macboney Patrick Turner and Angel Red Smart es Spacifix Steve Skaith Band Timisoara Ben Seultou Manimal The Dad in Common Cool Rush Hee Seung Hyun Iori Yagami ET Liquid Jin Chang Min Lee Hwan Lee Ja Yeon Lee Joo Young Braveheart Prince Malachi Rudy Lee Boccaccio Life Dsa DJ Garry Domanjay Last Mission Core Patrick Sweany Push Push Park Jun A Section Blindee Skeewif Digger and Johnjon featuring Maral Salmassi Franke and Neumann Hot Hands SZ 06s Records Nathan Larson and Nina Persson Toast3d Robin Mckelle Riddlore Sage Frenchkiss Scholar 1 Pawel Grabowski R Y N Secondson and Taskforce Steve Roach and Loren Nerell Science Fiction featuring MF Doom and Nicolay Secondson and Lewis Parker Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf C-90 featuring Red Monkey Mr Mibay Rasiyah The New Congress Shape Shifters Shapeshifters presents Don Mcglashan Shapeshifters vs Mnemotrauma Sirocalot aka Curt Cazal Toneplant River Ocean featuring India Skemen Skeme Team Skinnyman and DJ Flip Skinnyman Mongo Chester P Viro Ashade Bev (Bonifica Emiliana Veneta) Burial Closing the Eternity DJ Dr.Changra Eleven D.O.P.E Mob Farfadet Junior Gong Lil Evil Logic Select Marcus Mixx Marina Pittau Martin EZ featuring Don Wayne Njoy Ozi Meets Tom Mountain Cyrano de Montreal Paula and the Pontiacs Pinetop Perkins Quest for Bass Renk: &Beat featuring Ej Joseph Ricky Sprakket Smooth Quality Excrement The Ed Bickert Quartet Underdog Wick Adam Y and Dor Melody featuring Renana Enrique Morente Robert Lowery Worlds Apart Sleepy John Estes The Victims of Kool Lee Byeong Wook Orkestina Yayuk Khan Backtrax presents Michelle X Danny Tuval and Zigo featuring Carmi D-Men DJ Enne DJ Mehdi featuring Chromeo Mauama Max Aschenbrenner Pornebo Sls Benny Sings Rednose Distrikt Bunker Kinkys Ex Litha Marc Damon and Mike Shiver Max Deejay vs DJ Miko Myst Spinks Yuji Ohno and Lupintic Five-Lupin the Third (Jazz the 10th Ligia Piro Vegetal Cymbalism Recordings Anthony Beep 1Xtra Homegrown Holiday A Roussos vs Roussos Story Agaric and Lawrence Alex Arnout Ali Tcheelab featuring Kaye Styles Beam featuring Michelle Aragon Craze Juju and Infiltrata Crush on Christie Daddy K featuring Stick-E Damon Jee and Olivier Giacomotto DJ Valera featuring Monica Espelt presents Gabry Ponte presents Karmah Gary Boyle Gastema Georgio Schultz Gus Brown and Bruno Lawton Id-Infant Delusions and Dangerous Flocks Ivan Tasler Harpens Kraft Id-Violent Stars Joyfull Kamisshake Kingsway and Mooncussers Lanceolaria I'm Licht Der Laterne Laurila M3 Project Matana Roberts Quartet Outputmessage Priority Quien es Boom Ralf Hildenbeutel Sophie The Orchids Walterino featuring Sisco Norman Luboff Choir Richie Dan Scott Garcia featuring MC Styles Slammin Records presents 2backka (MC Hammer MC Mago DJ Hama) UNLV Bouchees Doubles Choi Jin Woo Savage C Christian Berger The Lil Hospital Concordegt Fonogenico Gaku Punish the Atom Ronnie Ventura featuring Latrice Varrett Jeon Choo Young New Culture Spectaculatius Yamato Ganga Johny Dangerous Julian Liberator and Lenny Dee Native Guns Nugen and Archer Dennis Ferrer featuring K Brooks Sr. Discuss G Bundle Passenger 75 Static Blue Tom Pooks and Joy Kitikonti Tora Tora Big Band DJ Circle featuring Sam Sparro Claude Monnet presents Torre Hardsoul featuring Shaun Escoffery Macamba Terminal4 Beatshifters Goat and Monkey King Kong Ding Dong Damage Crew Denial Tha Danksta Solar Express Ike and Tina Turner Antoine Clamaran vs Philippe B Agora Air Power Andy and Lamboy featuring Michelle Weeks Dedman and Colver Foma Luis radio and System Error Mille and Mr. Hirsch Obscurum Pluramon Sumo featuring Clarisse Muvemba Slick Agent Alvin and Spikey Tee Alex Axx Koss Anton X and da Fresh Bob Evans DJ Jak Rock DJ Lithium presents D Wave and E Mortal Firefly and Kano Flip Locc and Darccyde JDS and DJ Killer Kiila Kubusschnitt Love Grocer Macho Masters of Groove Murphy Lee Naturally 7 One-O and Dubb Cutty aka Heated Pounding Grooves 38 (Pgv038) (10inch) Sebastian Russell Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean Bossa Jazz Trio Causion Afc BPM Remixxx Weekend Don Junior Seu Conjunto E Seu Sax Maravilhoso Mindcrawler vs J.Pepper Ortom Pornocult Richard Lindgren Shatterbreak Swigz Tres Demented aka Carl Craig MC CJ Manyfingers Oikawa Mitsuhiro Vancougar Versluis and Sande Vize Bambee The Circulators Club Squisito Dees Jo Leon Leeza B Oscar Hawkins T P F F Miami Collection featuring Felicia Ross On-X Pat Lowrenzo Road of Major Roberto de Carlo featuring Joshua Sharav Smoosh Alex Raimondi featuring Shana J Skunkhead The Instigater Kenton Slash Demon Uhm Ji Hye Another Black Seasons Timbaland Desert Dwellers Gorillaz vs Freeform Five The Brandy Syndrome Two Atlantic Harlem Hustler Drax Gooding K Wild Massimiliano N E X Kidro and the Clubbers Bwa Band featuring Barbara Evans Pavlo Kosmos Black Spider featuring Penny Foster Polder Pott Art Queen vs Final Faze Hushpuppies Monako Bros Slug and El-P Jack Smooth Veils Bert Bevans presents Nermin featuring Ayah Dario Rohrbach Guillaume and the Coutu Dumonts Mauama featuring Orlando Johnson Nas presents Nashawn Waajeed Emagic Pagano and Marco Gee The Logic Box Too Ti Ki
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• leonelnoble9929

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• jACKOS DOTOR iNDICTED

  • From: CRYSTALCHRIS
  • Description:

    LOS ANGELES – Authorities investigating Michael Jackson's death referred to him as an "addict" and were seeking evidence related to the powerful anesthetic propofol, according to search warrants released Thursday.

    The documents show investigators have cause to believe several California Business and Professions codes had been broken, including "excessive prescribing," a misdemeanor punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to 180 days.

    Los Angeles police and federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents spent much of Tuesday at the Las Vegas home and business of Jackson's personal doctor, Conrad Murray, who is the focus of a manslaughter investigation. The raids sought evidence supporting that charge, as well as code violations, including "prescribing to an addict" and "unprofessional conduct."

    The state codes cover all prescribing professionals, including doctors and dentists, and violations could lead to a revoked or suspended license, said Kimberly Kirchmeyer, deputy director of the Medical Board of California. The codes state a physician cannot prescribe drugs to anyone with a chemical dependency or who is using the drugs for non-therapeutic purposes; they define an addict as someone who continues to use a drug despite harm, shows compulsive use or has impaired control over use.

    The warrants, which had been sealed when the searches were conducted, also said investigators wanted all documentation relating to the "purchase, transfer, receiving, ordering, delivery and storage of propofol."

    A law enforcement official earlier told The Associated Press that on the day Jackson died Murray gave him propofol to help him sleep and that investigators are working under the theory the anesthetic caused Jackson's heart to stop. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

    A cause of death has yet to be announced. The Los Angeles County coroner has twice said toxicology findings on Jackson were imminent but after meeting Thursday with investigators Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter announced an indefinite delay. Winter said further investigation needs to be done; he did not go into detail.

    Propofol, dubbed "milk of amnesia," is commonly used for surgeries and is not meant as a sleep agent or to be given in private homes. Because of its potency, only trained anesthesia professionals are supposed to administer it and patients are to be monitored at all times.

    Murray, a cardiologist, has spoken to police but not commented publicly since Jackson died June 25. His attorney, Edward Chernoff, did not comment Thursday, but has previously said the doctor did not prescribe anything that "should have" killed Jackson.

    Jackson was given anesthesia for numerous medical procedures over the years and had a long history of prescription drug use.

    Search warrants issued last week in Houston allowed authorities to search Murray's clinic and a storage unit. They were the first public acknowledgment that investigators consider Jackson's death a possible manslaughter and that Murray is the target of the investigation.

    The Las Vegas warrants were far more detailed and authorized authorities to look for medical and other records related to Jackson or any of the apparent 19 aliases he used, including the names Omar Arnold, Josephine Baker, Paul Farance, Jack London and Michael Amir Williams Muhammad.

    Among the items seized in the Vegas searches were an iPhone, copies of several computer hard drives, a CD with the name Omar Arnold on it and a binder containing invoices for medical equipment and supplies. No propofol was found.

    The warrant also shows investigators are seeking correspondence from seven doctors it names. One, Dr. Allan Metzger of Los Angeles, is an internist and rheumatologist who had a close relationship with Jackson beginning in 2002 and was godfather to one of the singer's children, said his attorney, Harland Braun.

    Braun said Jackson invited Metzger to his home April 18. He spent about an hour and a half with him, during which time Jackson asked about sleep medication, particularly propofol.

    Metzger told him it was dangerous, could be life threatening and should not be used outside a hospital, and suggested Jackson use some other sleep medication, Braun said.

    Metzger's experience echoed Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse who gave Jackson nutritional counseling earlier this year, who said he complained of insomnia and asked her repeatedly for Diprivan, the brand-name version of propofol. Lee said she also warned him of the drug's dangers and rejected his requests.

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• Gates moves on from arrest

  • From: CRYSTALCHRIS
  • Description:

    BOSTON – Black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. says he's ready to move on from his arrest by a white police officer, hoping to use the encounter to improve fairness in the criminal justice system and saying "in the end, this is not about me at all."

    After a phone call from President Barack Obama urging calm in the aftermath of his arrest last week, Gates said he would accept Obama's invitation to the White House for a beer with him and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley.

    In a statement posted Friday on The Root, a Web site Gates oversees, the scholar said he told Obama he'd be happy to meet with Crowley, whom Gates had accused of racial profiling.

    "I told the president that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative," Gates said. "I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sergeant Crowley for a beer with the president will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige."

    It was a marked change in tone for Gates, who in the days following his arrest gathered up his legal team and said he was contemplating a lawsuit. He even vowed to make a documentary on his arrest to tie into a larger project about racial profiling.

    In an e-mail to the Boston Globe late Friday, he said: "It is time for all of us to move on, and to assess what we can learn from this experience."

    In a statement to The Associated Press, Gates promised to do all he could so others could learn from his arrest.

    "This could and should be a profound teaching moment in the history of race relations in America," Gates said. "I sincerely hope that the Cambridge police department will choose to work with me toward that goal."

    Gates, 58, did not say in his statement if he planned to file a lawsuit.

    Crowley did not return a telephone message seeking comment Saturday.

    The outcry began Monday, when word broke that Gates had been arrested five days earlier at the two-story home he rents from Harvard.

    Supporters called the arrest an outrageous act of racial profiling. Public interest increased when a photograph surfaced of the handcuffed Gates being escorted off his porch amid three officers.

    Cambridge police moved to drop the disorderly conduct charge on Tuesday — without apology, but calling the case "regrettable."

    Obama, who had said Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates, sought to tamp down the uproar Friday. He spoke to Crowley and Gates during separate telephone calls and declared that Crowley was a good man.

    Obama invited the officer and the professor to the White House for a beer. He conceded his words had been ill-chosen, but he stopped short of a public apology.

    A trio of Massachusetts police unions released a joint statement shortly after Obama's latest comments, saying Crowley had a friendly and meaningful conversation with the president.

    "We appreciate his sincere interest and willingness to reconsider his remarks about the Cambridge Police Department," according to the statement. "It is clear to us from this conversation, that the President respects police officers and the often difficult and dangerous situations we face on a daily basis."

    Gates added that he hoped his arrest would lead to a greater understanding about racial profiling in America.

    "If my experience leads to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling, then I would find that enormously gratifying," Gates said on The Root. "Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which 'equal justice before law' is a lived reality."

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• NKorea 2 ways to make bomb

  • From: CRYSTALCHRIS
  • Description:

    After repudiating negotiations on dismantling its plutonium-based nuclear program, North Korea admitted this month to having an even more worrying way to make bombs.

    Following nearly seven years of adamant denials, North Korea announced it can enrich uranium — a simpler method of building nuclear weapons than reprocessing plutonium. Uranium can be enriched in relatively inconspicuous factories that can better evade spy-satellite detection, and uranium bombs may work without test explosions.

    The admission — made in a threatening response to a June 12 U.N. Security Council resolution punishing Pyongyang for an underground plutonium bomb test last month — poses a new challenge to the U.S., China, South Korea, Russia and Japan as they seek to stem the reclusive country's atomic ambitions.

    Since 2003, they have focused on persuading the North to disable a nuclear reactor north of Pyongyang, where the communist regime had been laboriously extracting plutonium, not a naturally occurring material, from spent fuel rods.

    Natural uranium, on the other hand, is readily available. North Korea has said it has an estimated 26 million tons of natural uranium deposits, of which about four million tons can be economically extracted. The Washington-based Federation of American Scientists also said an estimated 4 million tons is high-quality uranium ore.

    That doesn't mean North Korea can make a uranium bomb overnight. The uranium must be highly enriched first, and making enough for a bomb requires operating 1,000 to 3,000 centrifuges for a year, said Lee Choon-geun, an expert at South Korea's state-funded Science and Technology Policy Institute.

    But its recent announcement suggests the country has begun heading in that direction.

    And once the weapons-grade enriched uranium is in hand, it is "significantly easier" to build a bomb from it than from plutonium, said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Federation of American Scientists.

    Uranium also can be enriched in a facility like an ordinary factory and doesn't release much heat compared with the plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang. That makes it difficult for spy satellites to detect, according to South Korea's Institute of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Control.

    And testing is not as essential for bombs built from uranium as for plutonium bombs. The North has conducted two nuclear tests of plutonium-made bombs, in 2006 and in May, which drew international condemnation and garnered U.N. sanctions.

    Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank, noted that the United States' first uranium bomb wasn't tested until it was dropped on Japan in August 1945.

    In contrast, "a plutonium bomb generally is more sophisticated and needs to be tested before it can be used with confidence," he said.

    Little concrete information is available about North Korea's uranium program and how far they've come in developing it. Oelrich estimated it is "in its infancy."

    One senior South Korean official said he suspects the North has already embarked on uranium enrichment with the ultimate purpose of building bombs. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

    "I don't believe they have a commercial-scale plant up and running, and it will take them some time," Pinkston said. "However, they could cooperate with Iran and reduce the time required to build and operate a large-scale facility since Iran has made significant progress and is already operating a large facility."

    North Korea and Iran are believed to be trading information about nuclear and missile technology, making proliferation a key concern.

    "The more fissionable materials they have ... the more dangerous is the situation," said James Kelly, a former assistant U.S. secretary of state who confronted North Korean officials about uranium enrichment during a 2002 visit to Pyongyang.

    North Korea claimed earlier this month it was "compelled to go nuclear" because of hostility from Washington.

    "It has become an absolutely impossible option for the DPRK to even think about giving up its nuclear weapons," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by state media, using the initials for the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

    The statement did not make clear whether the regime has secretly built up the program over the past seven years that it has denied its existence — or started it recently.

    "The process of uranium enrichment will be commenced," the June 13 statement said. "Pursuant to the decision to build its own light-water reactor, enough success has been made in developing uranium enrichment technology to provide nuclear fuel to allow the experimental procedure."

    Building a light-water reactor, ostensibly for civilian energy purposes, would give the North Koreans a premise for enriching uranium. Uranium enriched to low levels is used in power reactors; left spinning, centrifuges will enrich uranium to the high levels needed for bombs.

    Suspicions about a North Korean uranium enrichment program date back years.

    North Korea worked with A.Q. Khan, creator of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to obtain the centrifuges needed for uranium enrichment before his operation was disrupted in 2003, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said.

    He wrote in his 2006 memoir that Khan transferred nearly two dozen centrifuges — the main equipment used for uranium enrichment — to North Korea, as well as nearly 18 tons of materials, including centrifuges, components and drawings, to Iran and Libya.

    Khan also "provided North Korea with a flow meter, some special oils for centrifuges, and coaching on centrifuge technology, including visits to top-secret centrifuge plants," Musharraf wrote in "In the Line of Fire."

    In addition, North Korea bought 150 tons of aluminum tubes from Russia, another material used to build the centrifuges required to enrich uranium, said Lee, of the Science and Technology Policy Institute.

    In 2007, then-U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill said Washington knew Pyongyang had purchased equipment only used for uranium enrichment.

    The future of nuclear disarmament negotiations with North Korea — known as the six-party talks and involving the two Koreas, the U.S., Russia, China and Japan — remained unclear weeks after North Korea abandoned the process and vowed to restart its plutonium reprocessing plant.

    The decision to reveal its capability to enrich uranium now is most certainly tied to the succession campaign believed under way in North Korea, said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at Sejong Institute security think tank.

    The country is in the middle of a "150-day battle" to build up the country's economy; many see it as a political campaign for Kim Jong Un, the 26-year-old reportedly slated to succeed his father, 67-year-old leader Kim Jong Il.

    "Uranium enrichment can be used as a propaganda campaign to show Kim Jong Un's boldness as well as the North's determination not to buckle under pressure and solve its energy shortages, Cheong said.

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• Teen anti smoking Bill

  • From: CRYSTALCHRIS
  • Description:

    No more "light" cigarettes or candy-flavored smokes. Bigger, scarier warning labels. Fewer ads featuring sexy young smokers.

    Historic anti-smoking legislation sped to final congressional passage on Friday — after a bitter fight lasting nearly a half-century — and lawmakers and the White House quickly declared it would save the lives of thousands of smokers of all ages. Even more important, they said, the measure could keep countless young people from starting in the first place.

    President Barack Obama, admittedly still struggling with his own nicotine habit, saluted passage of the bill, which he will soon sign. He said, "For over a decade, leaders of both parties have fought to prevent tobacco companies from marketing their products to children and provide the public with the information they need to understand what a dangerous habit this is."

    Specifically, the measure for the first time will give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate what goes into tobacco products, demand changes or elimination of toxic substances and block the introduction of new products.

    Will it matter as much as supporters say? Smokers lighting up outside Washington offices had mixed reactions.

    Government researcher Reginald Little, 47, who said he swiped his first cigarette from his grandfather at age 15, thought regulation was needed "because you don't know exactly what's in it."

    But Becky Cook, a 22-year-old program analyst, said that, while she supported limits on ads aimed at children, "I already know it's bad for me, so I don't think knowing how much is really in one cigarette is really going to make a difference."

    And nonsmokers?

    Yan Meek, 42, a finance analyst from Jacksonville, Fla., who was visiting the nation's capital with her 8-year-old son, Jesse, doesn't smoke and suggested the legislation would lead to "too much government control over personal lives, personal choices."

    Lionel Richardson, 26, an electrical engineer visiting from Huger, S.C., is a a nonsmoker, too, but called the legislation a good thing. "It's a drug," he said, and "the FDA plays a big part in what drugs are sold." As for restricting advertisements, he said, "They make it sexy so kids think it's the cool thing to do."

    The thousand health and consumer groups that endorsed the bill say that, combined with other anti-smoking efforts, it can significantly reduce the 400,000 deaths and $100 billion in health care costs attributed every year to smoking in the U.S.

    Under the legislation:

    • Cigarette packages will have warning labels that cover 50 percent of the front and rear. The word "warning" must be included in capital letters.

    • Any remaining tobacco-related sponsorships of sports and entertainment events will be banned, as will giveaways of non-tobacco items with the purchase of a tobacco product. A federal ban will be imposed on all outdoor tobacco advertising within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds.

    • Point-of-sale advertising will be limited to adults-only facilities, and remaining vending machines will disappear except in places restricted to adults. Retailers who sell to minors will be subject to federal enforcement and penalties.

    • Smokers, particularly the younger crowd, will find they can no longer buy cigarettes sweetened by candy flavors or any herb or spices such as strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon or vanilla. Cigarettes advertised as "light" or "mild," giving the impression that they aren't as harmful to health, will no longer be found on store shelves.

    With an estimated 3,500 young people smoking their first cigarette each day, the ban on flavorings alone could have significant health benefits, said Dr. Adam Goldstein, director of the University of North Carolina Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program.

    In the longer run, aggressive FDA efforts to reduce nicotine content — the bill prohibits an outright ban on nicotine or cigarettes — could "stimulate as dramatic a change in the product as anything we've seen in the last 50 years."

    He said it was not inconceivable that adult smokers, now more than 20 percent of the population, could be reduced to less than 5 percent in 20 years.

    Other factors that could cut into tobacco use include the sharp rise in prices — Congress earlier this year approved a 62-cent a pack increase in the federal cigarette tax to pay for a children's health program — and measures by the states to ban smoking in public places. Goldstein noted that even North Carolina, the nation's biggest tobacco grower, recently moved to ban smoking in public areas.

    Paul Billings, vice president at the American Lung Association, agreed that pricing, education and laws are all needed to drive down smoking and reduce the health consequences. FDA regulation has been "a huge missing piece in the arsenal against tobacco," he said.

    New FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said the agency was ready to "roll up our sleeves" to meet the new obligations. "We really do feel, by being able to regulate tobacco and tobacco products, we can reduce the burden of disease," especially by preventing teen smoking, she said.

    The Senate passed the FDA bill on Thursday by a 79-17 vote and the House followed suit on Friday, with a 307-97 vote. Despite those one-sided tallies, the bill has been years in the making.

    The FDA tried to exert authority over tobacco products in the 1990s, but the industry fought back and the Supreme Court in 2000 ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that the agency did not have regulatory powers over tobacco under then-existing law. Several efforts by lawmakers since then had fallen short, victims of industry lobbying and opposition from the Bush White House.

    Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., sponsor of the bill and chairman at a memorable 1994 hearing where tobacco industry executives denied that nicotine was addictive, relished the long-sought victory.

    "I think we are today at the last gasp of the tobacco industry's efforts to protect their profits at the expense of the health and lives of the American people and to get children to take up this habit," he said.

    Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest tobacco company, came out in support of the bill, saying it was behind tough but fair regulation. Its chief rivals were opposed, saying that FDA restrictions on new products would lock in Philip Morris' share of the market.

    Costs of the new program will be paid for by a new user fee imposed on the industry. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that assessments could rise from $235 million in 2010 to $712 million in 2019.

    There was some opposition from Republicans who questioned the ability of the FDA to handle tobacco regulation and criticized what they said was another Democratic-led intrusion of the federal government in private business. North Carolina Republican Howard Coble said the bill is unpopular in his state, with its 12,000 tobacco farmers. "Their fear is tobacco today, the family farm tomorrow."

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• No trace of French Plane

  • From: CRYSTALCHRIS
  • Description:

    – Fri Jun 5, 7:59 pm ET

    RECIFE, Brazil – Days after Air France Flight 447 vanished, an intensive international effort has failed to recover any confirmed wreckage and concern grew Friday about whether searchers were even looking in the right place.

    Air France, meanwhile, told its pilots in a memo obtained by The Associated Press that it is replacing instruments that affect flight speed in all its bigger jets. Investigators have focused on the equipment's possible role in the disaster.

    Brazilian officials first reported Tuesday that military pilots had spotted wreckage from Flight 447 scattered across the ocean's surface, but pieces pulled out Thursday turned out to be unrelated to the plane.

    Air Force Brig. Gen. Ramon Cardoso insisted Friday that at least some of the debris spotted from the air — an airplane seat, a slick of kerosene and other pieces — are from the plane that vanished Sunday with 228 people on board. The Brazilian air force also distributed images pinpointing where the material was found.

    "This is the material that we've seen that really was part of the plane," Cardoso said.

    But officials said extremely poor visibility has hampered efforts to guide ships to the spot where the debris was sighted, and France's Transportation Minister Dominique Bussereau said his own country's searchers have found no signs of the Airbus A330.

    "French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent," Bussereau told France's RTL radio. "Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing."

    A French Defense Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, also questioned the Brazilian claims, saying French teams "cannot precisely confirm the zone where the plane went down."

    A statement issued jointly by Brazil's Air Force and Navy said that to "avoid errors in interpretation" from now on any debris recovered in the area will only be divulged after being "positively identified" by Air France as coming from the ill-fated flight.

    Aviation officials have said the crash investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and leading computers to set the plane's speed too fast or slow — a potentially deadly mistake in severe turbulence.

    Airbus has said the French agency investigating the crash found the doomed flight received inconsistent airspeed readings by different instruments as it struggled with severe turbulence in a massive thunderstorm.

    The Air France memo says the company will finish replacing the instruments — known as Pitot tubes — in "coming weeks." It does not say when the replacement process started and the company declined to comment on the advisory, saying it was meant for pilots only.

    The L-shaped metal Pitot tubes jut from the wing or fuselage of a plane, and are heated to prevent icing. The pressure of air entering the tubes lets sensors measure the speed and angle of flight.

    An iced-over, blocked or malfunctioning Pitot tube could cause an airspeed sensor to fail, and lead the computer controlling the plane to accelerate or decelerate in a potentially dangerous fashion.

    Questions about speed sensors are only one of many factors investigators are considering. Automatic transmissions from the plane showed a chain of computer system failures that indicate the plane broke apart in midair.

    The cause may be hidden on "black box" voice and data recorders that could lie miles deep on the ocean floor.

    But with satellites blocked by thick clouds and heavy rain reducing visibility in an ocean full of floating garbage, searchers have so far been unable to find any confirmed wreckage from the plane.

    Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that severely limits the investigation.

    "Until you have the piece of debris on board and it is conclusively identified as coming from the doomed aircraft, everything is speculation," Goelz said. "The searchers are back to square one with only a best guess at where to start their search for the recorders."

    Goelz said searchers need to quickly target an area and drop listening devices into the ocean in hopes of picking up the recorders' signals, which may only continue for 30 days.

    French officials have warned the black boxes — and the answer to why the jet crashed — may never be found.

    On Thursday, European plane maker Airbus sent an advisory to all operators of the A330 reminding them of how to handle the plane in conditions similar to those experienced by Flight 447.

    Goelz said that advisory and the Air France memo about replacing flight-speed instruments "certainly raises questions about whether the Pitot tubes, which are critical to the pilot's understanding of what's going on, were operating effectively."

    Meteorologists say the Air France jet entered an unusual storm with 100 mph updrafts that created turbulence while sucking water up from the ocean to high altitude, where it quickly froze in minus-40 degree temperatures.

    France is sending a submarine to the area to try to detect signals from the black boxes, said military spokesman Christophe Prazuck. The Emeraude will arrive next week, he said.

    Brazil's Air Force flew relatives of victims Friday to the search command post in the northeastern city of Recife, where they toured the operation and asked questions but decided not to speak with the media and then returned to Rio de Janeiro. Recife has a large air force base where debris and any human remains would be brought.

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• Austin Bike Plan Petition call

  • From: Former member
  • Description:

    The cycling community in Austin at a cross roads right now, and Marcus and I believe cyclists are in a unique position to ensure the City of Austin makes biking for transportation a priority and builds the necessary infrastructure to support this growing community.

    Blessed with sun days, an absence of true winter, and natural beauty, Austin has always been well positioned to have a thriving cycling culture. While recreational cycling dominated the scene in the last decade, rising fuel costs, global warming, and an economic downturn have caused a record number of Austinites to turn to cycling to meet many of their transportation needs. Unfortunately, Austin’s infrastructure has not kept up with this demand forcing cars and bikes to share the same road space, at times in dangerous ways.

    Indeed, the last Bicycle Plan was adopted by the City of Austin in 1996. A recent City of Austin Street Smarts Task Force found that only 1/3rd of the facilities proposed in the twelve year old plan have actually been completed. This lack of progress occurred at the same time the Austin area was growing at the breakneck speed of 4000 new residents/month.

    In addition to the increasing numbers of transportation cyclists, Austin’s bike culture is on the rise. Visit the local award winning cycling blog ATXBS on any day, and you’ll find as many as a dozen non-racing cycling events in the upcoming week to attend. From Critical Mass to bike-in movies to moonlight cruises, Austin cycling is on the move in a very organic, self-organizing way.

    Marcus and I find all of these developments to be very exciting and a great opportunity to build a great cycling city. In the coming months, the City of Austin will adopt a new Bicycle Plan. How that plan is written will determine whether we’ll get twelve more years of inaction and 1/2 efforts, I mean 1/3rd efforts, or if we’ll get a city government committed to making bicycle transportation a viable alternative for the population at-large.

    In response to all of these developments, Marcus and I have create a petition to demand the City of Austin include several key measures in the new plan.

    These include:

    • 

      Adopting of a Bike Plan with clear timelines for full implementation

    • Establishing both an initial North-South and East-West cross town dedicated bike trail or bicycle boulevard.
    • Prohibiting vehicle parking in marked bicycle lanes and establish these lanes as “tow away” zones.
    • Committing to building bicycle facilities/infrastructure on all new roads and improvements to current arterial roads where these facilities/infrastructure do not already exist.
    • Funding for full time staffing of the Bicycle Coordinator and a minimum of two paid positions charged with educational and promotional activities in accordance with best practices of other cities.
    • Establish a permanent City Council appointed advisory Bicycle and Pedestrian Commission to make ongoing recommendations.
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• Pakistan takes Taliban Base

  • From: CRYSTALCHRIS
  • Description:

    DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Intelligence officials say clashes between the Pakistani military and the Taliban have left around 50 insurgents dead in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

    The officials say two soldiers also died and 23 were wounded in the fighting in various parts of South Waziristan since Saturday night.

    Fighting in South Waziristan has heated up in recent days amid a Pakistani military offensive against the Taliban in the nearby Swat Valley. South Waziristan is the main base of Pakistan's Taliban chief.

    The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. The information could not be independently verified because of restricted access to the remote, dangerous area.

    THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

    ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban have fled the Pakistani army's advance on the main town in the Swat Valley, delivering the military a strategic prize in its offensive against militants in the country's northwest, commanders said.

    Taliban fighters had dug themselves into bunkers built into hotels and government buildings in Mingora, and initially offered stiff resistance as troops first closed roads leading to the town then began moving in earlier this week, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said.

    Pakistan's defense secretary said Sunday that the military operations in Swat Valley "have met almost complete success."

    "Only 5 to 10 percent job is left and over the next two or three days this area will be cleared," Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Syed Athar Ali told an annual meeting of defense ministers, officials and experts in Singapore.

    Aid was being distributed Saturday to some of the estimated 20,000 people who were trapped in Mingora, and water and gas supplies were being restored. But Abbas said it would be at least two weeks before power is switched back on, and refugees were not yet being encouraged to start returning to their homes.

    About 3 million people have fled the fighting in Swat, and the exodus has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis.

    Abbas said an unknown number of militant fighters were able to escape Mingora town despite the military having it surrounded, raising the prospect that they could return to the fight elsewhere.

    The military launched a major offensive about one month ago in the Swat Valley and neighboring areas to oust Taliban militants who had been extending their control over the northwestern region near the border with Afghanistan.

    U.S. and other officials say the lawless border region is being used by al-Qaida and the Taliban as a base to plan and launch attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan, and see the offensive as a test of Pakistan's resolve to fight extremism on its soil.

    Government troops had been advancing steadily into the Swat region for about a month, bombarding towns from the air and fighting house-to-house with Taliban gunmen in some places.

    "When they realized that if they did not leave these areas the noose would tighten around them and they would not find a way to leave ... they decided to end the fight and leave," Abbas said.

    Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said the number of people uprooted from their homes by the fighting had reached "around 3 million," and that more than 190,000 of them were living in refugee camps. The rest are staying with relatives or relying on goodwill from local residents.

    The widespread domestic support for the campaign so far could sour if the government is perceived to have failed the refugees, or if a high number of civilian casualties is revealed.

    Abbas said an emergency medical team had been flown to Mingora and would work to reopen the town's hospital and treat civilians wounded in the fighting.

    The Taliban has warned it will launch terrorist strikes in Pakistani cities in retaliation for the campaign, and claimed responsibility for last Wednesday's gun and suicide bomb attack in the eastern city of Lahore that killed at least 30 people. A day later, three suicide bombings killed at least 14 people in two cities in the northwest.

    Abbas said on Saturday that 1,217 militants have been killed in the Swat offensive and 79 arrested, and 81 soldiers have died. The military has not released civilian casualty numbers and says all care is being taken to protect the innocent.

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• The Price of Clean Air

  • From: austinrealestatenews
  • Description:

    The term "cap-and-trade" is heard a lot these days when discussing global warming and environmental policy. What exactly is cap-and-trade? Well, it's the government giving companies an allowance (the cap) on pollution by setting CO2 emission standards. Companies that stay under the cap can sell (the trade) their leftover allowances to companies that go over the pollution standards. It sounds like a win-win, but cap-and-trade has its opponents.
    
    In recent weeks the Environmental Protection Agency has declared carbon dioxide as dangerous to public health, and in all likelihood will move to regulate CO2 emission under the Clean Air Act. With that in mind, U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts have drafted a bill that would establish a U.S. greenhouse gas policy.
    
    The Waxman-Markey bill, also known as The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, would use cap-and-trade to set CO2 standards across the nation. The ultimate goal of the bill is to reduce the number of available allowances each year in order to achieve an 83 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. That's an impressive goal.
    
    It's also a goal that many deem too expensive, especially in the midst of a recession. Some house Republicans have put the price per household as high $3000 a year to comply with the Waxman-Markey bill. A recent post on a Wall Street Journal blog stated that the EPA puts the cost at less than $150 per household each year. "According to Lisa Jackson's number-crunching crew at EPA, households would pay between $98 and $140 a year through 2050 for overhauling the country's energy landscape. Economy-wide, the impacts also seem pretty modest. It will take until 2030 for the national GDP to reach $22.6 trillion; if cap-and-trade is passed, that will just take three months longer."
    
    The other concern is how the so called pollution allowances are set by the government. University of North Texas professor Bernard L. Weinstein stated in a recent Austin-American Statesman column that the government could either auction off the allowances or allocate them with a set standard. Weinstein believes that auctioning off the allowances to the highest bidder will put undo financial pressure on companies and consumers alike. He is a proponent of a cap-and-trade system with the government allocating allowances, at least initially.
    
    The other concern with cap-and-trade is that it allows some companies, and thus some parts of the country, to continue to be big polluters. While overall air quality standards may be met, poor air quality could still exist in some parts of the nation. This seems incredibly unfair, not to mention unhealthy, to cap-and-trade opponents.
    
    So what does all of this mean for Texas? Well, it could mean more money and even jobs for the state. While Governor Rick Perry remains staunchly against cap-and-trade policies, saying it will hurt the Texas economy, others point to the opportunity for Texas companies to be at the forefront of these clean air policies. New policies often require new technology and Austin is a perfect place for that technology to be developed.
    
    Ki has an office in central Austin. His website has general information about Austin real estate. His website provides a graphical search of the Austin MLS. He also writes about Austin Texas real estate news and statistics on his blog.

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• Obama send troops only for war

  • From: CRYSTALCHRIS
  • Description:

    ANNAPOLIS, Md. – President Barack Obama promised graduating midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy on Friday that, as their commander in chief, he will only send them "into harm's way when it is absolutely necessary." In his first address to military graduates, Obama also pledged to invest in the men and women who defend America's liberty, not just in the weapons they would take with them into battle against 21st century threats.

    "I will only send you into harm's way when it is absolutely necessary, and with the strategy, the well-defined goals, the equipment and the support that you need to get the job done," the president told more than 1,000 graduates during a sun-splashed ceremony at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

    Obama said he has halted reductions in the Navy, is building up the Marine Corps and investing in the hardware — combat ships, submarines and fighter aircraft — they'll need to do their jobs. He promised higher pay, enhanced child care and improved support and other benefits.

    "In short, we will maintain America's military dominance and keep you the finest fighting force the world has ever seen," Obama said, as more than 30,000 watched from the stands.

    The president also praised the role of Navy SEALS in freeing a U.S. sea captain by killing his Somali pirate captors last month.

    "The extraordinary precision and professionalism displayed that day was made possible, in no small measure, by the training, the discipline and the leadership skills that so many of those officers learned at the United States Naval Academy," Obama said in his first public comments on the matter.

    Among those receiving degrees was John S. McCain IV, the son of Obama's presidential rival, Sen. John McCain, who watched from a front-row seat on the grassy field with his wife, Cindy, his mother, Roberta, and several of his children. Had the Arizona Republican, who also graduated from the academy, defeated Obama, McCain could have addressed the Class of 2009 himself.

    Obama and "Jack" McCain, a fourth-generation academy graduate, shared a handshake, an embrace and a few words when the young man was called up to receive his diploma, following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

    Obama did not recognize Sen. McCain in his speech; the White House says it was out of respect for the family's wishes. But the president did say a few words about his rival for the presidency before he left the White House. He praised the senator as he signed legislation giving the Pentagon new power to curtail wasteful defense spending. McCain was a sponsor of the bill.

    "Senator McCain couldn't be here today because he's making sure he has a good seat to watch his son graduate from the Naval Academy in a few hours, and that's where I'm headed as soon as I catch my ride over here," Obama said at the bill signing in the Rose Garden.

    Presidents typically deliver the commencement address at one of the service academies each year. Friday's speech was the third graduation address by Obama in the past nine days. He used the previous two to tackle issues that threatened to overshadow both events.

    At the University of Notre Dame last Sunday, abortion opponents protested Obama's appearance because he supports abortion rights. Obama took on the debate, telling graduates of the Roman Catholic university that people on both sides of the issue must stop demonizing one another.

    At Arizona State University, where Obama spoke on May 13, the issue was the school's decision not to award him an honorary degree on grounds that he hadn't accomplished enough. Obama said he agreed, saying no one's body of work is ever complete.

    On Thursday, Obama delivered a different kind of speech, one in which he sought to regain control of the emotional debate over closing the detention center for suspected terrorists in Cuba. He denounced "fear-mongering" by political opponents and insisted that maximum-security prisons on the U.S. mainland can safely house the dangerous detainees he wants transferred from Guantanamo Bay.

    Former Vice President Dick Cheney countered the same day with a speech denouncing some of Obama's actions as "unwise in the extreme" and repeating his contention that the new president is endangering the country by turning aside Bush-era policies.

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• 4 citizens killed in Tijuana

  • From: CRYSTALCHRIS
  • Description:

    TIJUANA, Mexico – The slayings of four young Americans in Tijuana sowed fear in Southern California on Friday as Mexican prosecutors tried to determine whether the youths were involved in the country's violent drug trade or innocent victims of a brutal crime.

    The victims, two men and two women in their teens and early 20s, said they were headed for a night of partying across the border only to be found strangled, stabbed and beaten a few days later.

    Mexican officials are investigating whether any of the four San Diego-area victims had ties to the drug trade, after a toxicology report tested positive for cocaine on the body of Brianna Hernandez, who was either 18 or 19.

    Another victim, Oscar Jorge Garcia, 23, was apprehended in the San Diego area in January 2008 with six illegal immigrants in the car, but never charged in the case, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack said.

    The parents of 20-year-old victim Carmen Jimena Ramos Chavez on Friday described a vibrant Chula Vista High graduate who worked at an amusement park for children and planned to become a hair stylist.

    "She was a happy girl, with a desire to explore the world," said her father, Rogelio Ramos Camano, of Chula Vista. "Young people are like that. They think nothing will happen. I was like that, too."

    Mexican prosecutors said the victims had been bound and tortured — common tactics by Mexican drug gangs — before being left in a van in a dusty slum on the outskirts of Tijuana.

    Jose Manuel Yepiz, a spokesman for the Baja California state prosecutor's office, said investigators were examining a threatening letter to one of the victims from a jail inmate in San Diego.

    Prosecutors said they had ruled out the possibility that the killings were a case of drug gangs targeting tourists.

    Tijuana, which sits across the border from San Diego, has a reputation as one of Mexico's most violent border cities. Authorities said 843 people were slain there in 2008, many in drug-related violence.

    Since taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 45,000 soldiers to combat drug cartels in the country whose turf battles have killed more than 10,750 people over the last two-and-a-half years.

    Violence had diminished in Tijuana in recent months, only to pick up a few weeks ago with seven police officers killed in brazen attacks on one day.

    Victor Clark, a professor at San Diego State University's Center for Latin American Studies, said criminal ties with any one of the Americans could have spelled disaster for the group.

    "Maybe they broke the rules, which means death" when dealing with Mexico's drug cartels, said Clark, a Tijuana resident and native. "And they dragged their friends down with them."

    Relatives said the victims were familiar with both sides of the border and navigating the area's bilingual culture — but may have taken their safety for granted.

    Ramos said he had often told his daughter, who was born in Tijuana but raised from a young age in the U.S., that Tijuana was too dangerous, and she assured him she was always careful.

    But Ramos said he didn't offer any warnings as his daughter got ready ready to go out with her friend Brianna on May 7, even as he watched a news program about killings in Tijuana on Mexican television.

    "I think God put that out there so I would do something, but I didn't dare," he said in Spanish, shaking his head, recalling how they were already primped and ready to go.

    U.S. tourists, already warned by the U.S. State Department to be cautious in Mexico because foreign bystanders have been killed, now appear even less likely to visit once-popular destinations like Tijuana.

    "I'm not going to T.J. unless it's absolutely necessary," Amelia Lopez, a friend of a victim told television station San Diego 6. "Before, you know, you go to eat or have a good time or shopping. Nothing like that."

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