TheWalk.com

Not content with spying on other countries, the NSA (National Security Agency) will now turn on the US’s own government agencies thanks to a fresh directive from president George Bush.

Under the new guidelines, the NSA and other intelligence agencies can bore into the internet networks of all their peers. The Bush administration pulled off this spy expansion by pointing to an increase in the number of cyber attacks directed against the US, possibly from foreign nations. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) will spearhead the effort around identifying the source of these attacks, while the Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon will concentrate on retaliation. Continue reading »

Last week in Currituck County, N.C., Superior Court Judge Russell Duke presided over the final step in securing the first criminal conviction stemming from the deadly actions of Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration’s favorite mercenary company. Lest you think you missed some earth-shifting, breaking news, hold on a moment. The “criminals” in question were not the armed thugs who gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded more than 20 others in Baghdad’s Nisour Square last September. They were seven nonviolent activists who had the audacity to stage a demonstration at the gates of Blackwater’s 7,000-acre private military base in North Carolina to protest the actions of mercenaries acting with impunity — and apparent immunity — in their names and those of every American. Continue reading »

Drug War Beginning to Look Like One Giant Cover Story
By Bill Conroy
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

January 29, 2008

On a fall evening in a cotton field in Nicaragua, a group of armed men placed a series of torches in a line of planters along a makeshift runway.

About half an hour later, around 9 p.m. that evening, Friday, Nov. 26, 2004, a twin-prop Beechcraft King Air 200 touched down on that rural runway and came to a stop. The assembled men began to unload the plane, which was packed with cocaine, while holding the sole witness to the event, a local field hand, captive.

The Beechcraft King Air 200 on a runway in Nicaragua. Photo: Humboldt Rescue Organization

Before departing, the men attempted to set fire to the plane, but miraculously it did not burn. They departed the area in trucks with the plane’s valuable payload, leaving behind the lone witness, alive, and more than a half dozen AK-47 automatic rifles. Continue reading »

Americans’ distrust of societal institutions continues to grow, and now comes evidence of yet another burgeoning scandal: Fluoride-Gate. A torrent of recent bad news about the safety of fluorides has brought key names to the surface from the murky alphabet soup of players in the fluoride game at EPA, CDC, FDA, NIDCR, USDA, ADA, and AMA. The inevitable questions have begun about who knew what, when, and why was certain information kept quiet.

The first ominous drumbeats started in 2006, when a National Research Council committee recommended that the Environmental Protection Agency lower the allowable amount of fluoride in drinking water - to an unspecified level. As if that wasn’t unnerving enough, the committee specifically stated that kidney patients, diabetics, seniors, infants, and outdoor workers were susceptible populations especially vulnerable to harm from fluoride ingestion. Continue reading »

I have some personal knowledge of Congressmen like Charlie Wilson (D-2nd District, Texas, 1973-1996) because, for close to twenty years, my representative in the 50th Congressional District of California was Republican Randy “Duke” Cunningham, now serving an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence for soliciting and receiving bribes from defense contractors. Wilson and Cunningham held exactly the same plummy committee assignments in the House of Representatives — the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee plus the Intelligence Oversight Committee — from which they could dole out large sums of public money with little or no input from their colleagues or constituents.

Both men flagrantly abused their positions — but with radically different consequences. Cunningham went to jail because he was too stupid to know how to game the system — retire and become a lobbyist — whereas Wilson received the Central Intelligence Agency Clandestine Service’s first “honored colleague” award ever given to an outsider and went on to become a $360,000 per annum lobbyist for Pakistan. Continue reading »

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - A private firm funded by Google Inc launched its Web-based DNA test in Europe on Tuesday, hoping to build on a successful start in the United States, where the $999 (510 pounds) service went on sale in November.

Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki, co-founders of 23andMe, will showcase their service at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which starts on January 23. Continue reading »

Experts encourage facing reality that stocks are overvalued due to weak dollar, but Fed set to continue with dangerous sweeping rate cuts

The Fed’s continued obsession with slashing interest rates and printing money in order to maintain the facade of the grossly overvalued stock market while the dollar collapses is precipitating a financial holocaust. Yuppies need to cut their losses and accept a soft crash now or place the very pillars of the American economy in danger.

Sentiment is widespread that yesterday’s shock 75 basis points cut in the federal funds rate served only to instill more panic in an already fragile environment Continue reading »

The Problem Reaction Solution Paradigm  (The Hegelian Dialectic)

1) The government creates or exploits a problem blaming it on others

2) The people react by asking the government for help willing to give up their rights

3) The government offers the solution that was planned long before the crisis

Historical Evidence of Problem Reaction Solution

Nero Burnt Rome, Blamed It on the Christians and Then Savagely Butchered Them.

Nero Claudius Caesar (37-68 CE) - University of Texas History - In 64 C.E., a fire swept through Rome, burning for a week and destroying a large portion of the city… According to some sources, when he found that he did not have enough land to build his palace, he set fire to the city a second time. It is at this point that he is said to have “played his fiddle [lyre] while Rome burned.” To avert suspicion, he blamed the fires on the Christians and proceeded to kill them in horrendous ways. Continue reading »

Is this the quarter when banks finally admit all of their problems?

On Jan. 15, Citigroup (C, news, msgs) announced it would take an $18.1 billion write-down on its portfolio of subprime mortgages and other risky debt, and the bank cut its dividend 41%.

With other banks following suit — Merrill Lynch (MER, news, msgs) reported $16 billion in write-downs and other charges two days later, and Wells Fargo (WFC, news, msgs) delivered similarly huge losses — will they throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into their losses? That kind of quarter always marks the bottom in a crisis like this. Continue reading »

For some reason, Fox News continues to disregard the fact that Ron Paul is one of the GOP presidential candidates and he didn’t ignore Nevada like most of the presidential candidates. Continue reading »