EARLY 9-11 REPORTAGE REVEALS SURPRISES

PETER'S NEW YORK, December 27, 2008--Married as we seem to be to the digital age, it is a great comfort to be able to occasionally resort to "hard copy," tangible pieces of inked paper upon which much of the literary wealth of the world is recorded.

Recently, while searching my "hard copy" archives, I came across some issues of the New York Times and New York Post published within days of the events of September 11, 2001.

It is interesting to observe that what are often referred to by defenders of the government's 9-11 storyline as "conspiracy theories" were first articulated by mainstream commentators and experts.

What follows are a few snippets of 9-11 related material gleaned from these early accounts.

Interestingly, columnist Robert Novak was among the first to use the phrase "inside job" in connection with the events of 9-11.

New York Post, Sept. 13, page 59
"Beyond Pearl Harbor"
by Robert D. Novak

Novak's first sentence:

Security experts and airline officials agree privately that the simultaneous hijacking of four jetliners was an "inside job," probably indicating complicity beyond malfeasance.

He continues further down:

In the rage and mourning following Tuesday's disaster, few officials wanted to dwell on how a 10-year hiatus of airline hijackings in this country could be followed by four in one hour. At a minimum, the blame can be put on ill-trained, incompetent personnel performing the screening of passengers. At the worst, security experts fear collusion with terrorists, possibly even extending to the cockpit. This is a subject that the airlines are loathe to discuss.

In the last paragraph, Novak reports:

Stratfor.com, the private intelligence company, reported Tuesday, "The big winner today, intentionally or not, is the state of Israel."

The following article indicates there was time to spare to intercept a plane headed toward the Pentagon.

The New York Times, Sept. 13, 2001, p. A5
"Controllers Say Flow of Information on Hijacked Planes' Course Was Slow and Uneven"
by Matthew L. Wald

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 - The controllers assigned to United Airlines Flight 175 on Tuesday suspected that it had been hijacked as it flew off its assigned route, But they did not learn that another plane had been hijacked and had hit the World Trade Center until a minute or two before Flight 175 struck the center, people involved in the air traffic systems said.

In contrast, controllers at the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center had much more warning that something was wrong. Those controllers, who handled American Airlines Flight 77, which dived into the Pentagon, knew about the hijacking of the first plane to crash, even before it hit the World Trade Center, those involved said. That was more than an hour before they watched another hijacked plane, United Flight 93, cross their radar screen on its way to the Pentagon.

Advance knowledge made no apparent difference in the response; nobody intercepted the plane.

"We issue control instructions," one controller said. "Any procedures beyond that point don't lie with us."

Those procedures would, in fact, lie with the Air Force....[etc].

So-called "debunkers" who make their living or idle away their time hounding critics of the government's 9-11 storyline, often disparage comparisons between the collapses of the World Trade Center towers and controlled demolitions. Here's an interesting citation that addresses the issue only days after 9-11:

The New York Times, Sept. 20, 2001, pgs. B1, B8
Engineers Say Buildings Near Trade Center Held Up Well
by Eric Lipton and James Glanz

...the twin towers had collapsed almost straight downward, a circumstance that the engineers said might have reduced the death toll from the terrorist attack.

"It's like controlled demolition," said Matthys Levy, a founding partner at Weidlinger Associates, a structural engineering firm in New York. Mr. Levy, the co-author of "Why Buildings Fall Down" (Norton, 1992), said the collapse of the towers was "an uncontrolled demolition project but it acted like a controlled demolition project."

The following interesting passage is related to ability of the World Trade Center towers to withstand the impact of an airliner:

New York Post, Sept. 13, 2001, p. 18
"Shocked experts ask: Who dropped the ball?"
by Bob Drogin

One unanswered question is whether the attackers read trial transcripts and studies of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. "One of the things we learned was the engineers who built it designed it to withstand the crash from a Boeing 707," said John Parachini, executive director of the Washington office of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "The crash today was a [757], which is a bigger plane."

Here's another passage that some might find of interest regarding the same topic:

The New York Times, Sept. 18, 2001, F1, 7
"Defending Skyscrapers Against Terror"
by Kenneth Chang

No one designs a skyscraper to withstand the direct hit of a fully fueled 767, and construction engineers agree that such an attack would have doomed almost any high-rise.

An article describing how easy it is to fly a commercial jet into the World Trade Center towers from distant points:

New York Post, Sept. 13, 2001, pgs. 34-35
"AIMING' A JET IS 'VERY VERY EASY" (this was a banner headline over two pages)
"757s and 767's perfect picks for 'weapons"
[taken from Reuters]

Taking control of a big airliner and flying it into as precise a target as the World Trade Center is easier than most people would imagine, aviation experts said today.

"It's very, very easy to aim the plane," said a senior captain with a U.S. carrier. "It's not very difficult to get the experience you need. In three months, you can get a pilot's license."

Here's a few passages regarding the health effects of 9-11 and warnings about the same:

The New York Times, Sept. 18, page F2
"Dust is a Problem, but the Risk Seems Small"
by Andrew C. Revkin

"We haven't found anything that is alarming to us," said Mary Mears, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency.

...Overall, though, officials said the only significant health risk remained near the destruction. Workers there should wear masks and protective gear and clean their shoes before heading home, they said.

Some officials expressed frustration because many of the workers--most of them hard-bitten construction workers--were ignoring their recommendations.

And from the same article:

Many officials and experts added that decomposing bodies of victims of the attacks posed no danger.

And:

Agency officials and independent experts tried to quell rumors about other hazards, including the possibility that the fires might have turned freon from air-conditioners into a poisonous gas called phosgene.

The chemical reaction that generates phosgene is possible in extremely hot flames, but not in fires like those still burning, agency officials said. Any gas generated by the initial inferno has dissipated, they said.

Back to the The New York Times. "Truthers," as critics of the U.S. government's 9-11 storyline are sometimes referred to, often speak of the total collapse of a third major office tower at the World Trade Center complex, Building 7. But there was another, later, collapse, that of the remainder of the the south tower, in the late afternoon of Sept. 12

The New York Times, Sept. 13, 2008, p. A12
"As Remnants Collapse, Workers Run For Cover,"
by Jennifer Steinhauer:

The stalagmite remnants of the fallen World Trade Center towers collapsed even further yesterday, sending rumbling debris and clouds of smoke billowing again through lower Manhattan and prompting rescue workers to flee from the site of the destruction.

Further down:

The seeming aftershocks began about about (sic) 5 p.m. yesterday, while workers ploddingly cut through twisted steel and heavy forklifts moved rubble across the plaza in front of the fallen towers....First came a rumble, then one firefighter yelled: ":That part will go! We are waiting for it to collapse." Moments later, the remaining floors of the south tower of the World Trade Center fell to the ground in a heap of rubble.

Rescue workers and medical personnel bolted up Broadway and Church street, away from flying debris, concrete and smoke as ambulances began to scream from all directions, responding to the new collapse.

"Everyone started running," said a red Cross worker from Rockland County, who stopped at last at Canal and Broadway. "We were told there was more danger of another building falling. Everyone ran and ran--kept going and didn't look back."

"I started running, and I didn't look back," Mr. Schwartz said. "And I'm not going back. I'm going home because it's too dangerous here."

And:

Frantic calls to the police and Fire Department workers came from all directions, with reports of swaying buildings at John Street and the intersection of Greenwich and liberty Streets.

Over at the West Side Highway, hundreds of people, frightened of falling debris, raced south away from what the believed to be a collapsing building. They pushed past police barricades and dodged rescue equipment that were hastily being thrown into reverse. many searched for a car to dive behind.

Firefighters and police officers led the stampede, struggling to race along streets thick with dust, empty water bottles, bits of metal and wire. Firefighters in heavy bunker gear yelled at colleagues, who stood looking toward a rolling pillar of smoke to move. "Get out of here!" screamed one investigator. "Run! Run!"

The the fashioning of an archetypal 9-11 villain and the storyline of the passenger revolt on Flight 93 were already taking shape the day after the "attacks." The New York Post, reporting on Sept. 13 (about the events of Sept. 12, of course), devotes its entire back page to a portrait of Mohamed Atta. The caption describes Atta's expression as "The face of utter hatred," and tells us that his name "was listed on a passenger manifest for one of the four death planes."

"In Phone Calls From Airplane, Passengers Said They Were Trying to Thwart Hijackers" (The New York Times, Sept. 13, A21) by Jodi Wilgoren and Edward Wong identifies at least one source for the saga of Flight 93 that would later form the basis for a movie.

"I would conclude there was a struggle, and a heroic individual decided they were going to die anyway and, 'Let's bring the plane down here,'" Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., was quoted as saying in the above-cited article, only a day after 9-11.

The same article identifies Lyzbeth Glick and Deena Burnett and Alice Hogland as three individuals who said they received phone calls from passengers on Flight 93. Another passenger, Lauren Grandcolas, left a message on an answering machine, while still another placed a call to an emergency switchboard, the article quotes sources as saying.

Turning to graphics, we have some of the earliest photos of the damaged Pentagon building in Arlington, Va. appearing in the next day's press. Government sources alleged that a "terrorist" caused the damage by flying a commercial airliner into the building. However, the photos are not what one might expect for a crash site. The absence of aircraft debris is striking. The most plausible explanation is that the Pentagon was not hit by an airliner.

On the bright side, we have Rep, Peter DeFazio, D.-Ore., questioning so-called "anti-terrorist" legislation already in the works by the time the anthrax scare hit the country in October of 2001. "This could be the Gulf of Tonkin resolution for civil liberties, instead of a measure meant to fight terrorism," DeFazio was quoted as saying in an article in the New York Post for October 13, 2001, page 7. One sane voice in a sea of predatory spin and political opportunism.

(Original, with photos, corrections and additions, may be found at www.petersnewyork.com.)

By Peter Duveen

高金素梅「抗日」 胡錦濤：不屈不撓

（中央社記者張銘坤北京19日電）立法委員高金素梅日前帶領「還我祖靈隊」到日本闖入靖國神社抗議，中共總書記胡錦濤今天接見高金素梅，肯定台灣少數民族為抵禦外來侵略進行不屈不撓的鬥爭。

　　胡錦濤下午在北京人民大會堂會見立法委員高金素梅率領的「台灣少數民族代表團」。中國國務院副總理回良玉、國務委員戴秉國及國務院台灣事務辦公室主任王毅等陪見，用大陸最高規格接見這個訪問團。

　　由於近年來高金素梅多次在日本發起「還我祖靈」運動，要求靖國神社停止合祀台灣原住民祖先靈位。8月11日她才率領「還我祖靈隊」闖入靖國神社，今天大陸最高規格接見高金素梅引起日本駐北京媒體重視，多家日本媒體都派記者採訪。

胡錦濤會見時說：「台灣少數民族同胞是中華民族大家庭的重要成員，長期以來，為抵禦外來侵略，捍衛民族尊嚴，進行了不屈不撓的鬥爭」。

他表示，「你們（原住民）為中華民族的發展和台灣開發建設做出不懈努力，為推動兩岸關係發展做出重要的貢獻。你們以自己的行動證明，兩岸同胞合衷共濟，齊心協力，就一定能夠保護好、建設好我們的共同家園，就一定能開創兩岸關係和平發展新局面」。

胡錦濤下午會見一進場就與高金素梅握手寒喧，致詞結束後也與高金素梅談話一段時間，互動頻繁。

台灣風災 胡錦濤：提供援助支持災後重建

（中央社記者張銘坤北京19日電）中共中央總書記胡錦濤今天表示，「台灣同胞的困難就是我們的困難，我們將繼續向台灣同胞提供救災援助，支持台灣同胞搞好災後重建」。 　　胡錦濤下午在北京人民大會堂會見立法委員高金素梅率領的台灣少數民族代表團。中國國務院副總理回良玉、國務委員戴秉國及國務院台灣事務辦公室主任王毅等陪見，用大陸最高規格接見這個訪問團。 胡錦濤在致詞時首先對台灣風災表示，台灣遭受歷史罕見風災，台灣民眾生命財產蒙受重大損失，特別是一些少數民族民眾受災嚴重，對此感同身受，十分關切也十分牽掛。 胡錦濤說：「我謹代表大陸同胞向遭受颱風襲擊的台灣父老鄉親表示深切慰問，向不幸遇難的台灣同胞表示深切哀悼」。 他表示，「兩岸同胞是血脈相連的一家人，台灣同胞的困難就是我們的困難，我們將繼續向台灣同胞提供救災援助，支持台灣同胞搞好災後重建」。

用鼻子找屍體鬧笑話 國防部喊停

「台灣國軍為尋找罹難者遺體，連鼻子都用上了」，用這種原始方法找屍體，新聞上到國外媒體，鬧成大笑話。8/18日國防部表示，已通令各救災部隊，嚴禁再以搜救人員嗅聞方式搜尋罹難者遺體，將改以科學儀器執行任務。
搜尋遺體 搜救犬入列（2）國軍18日持續在高雄縣六龜鄉新開部落尋找罹難者遺體，高雄市消防局帶來搜救犬，加入搜尋遺體的工作。中央社記者張皓安攝 98年8月18日

國防部指出，已協調退輔會支持5套可燃氣氣體探測器、清雲科技大學支持3套大氣探測雷達、中油公司支持3套甲烷探測器，上述儀器並有相關操作人員，協助執行遺體搜尋任務。

穿著軍服趴在地上用鼻子找屍體「怎麼看都是怪怪的」，國防部指出，這應該是防災中心出的主意，對執行這項任務官兵，將儘速安排實施相關健康檢查及心理輔導。

台軍找屍體，連鼻子都用上中國媒體登出"台軍找屍體，連鼻子都用上 ,照片格外諷刺。國防部已下令禁止，並對士兵做"心理輔導"。

外媒報導，台灣國軍海軍陸戰隊中被稱為「黑衣部隊」的特勤部隊，在高雄縣那瑪夏鄉受創最重的民族村救災，因挖土機無法挺進，以鼻嗅聞，拿鏟子一鏟一鏟地接力開挖，先後找到3具遺體。

中國最大海外資產收購 中石化收購Addax

（中央社台北19日電）中國石油化工集團公司以每股52.8加幣的價格完成對Addax石油公司的收購，交易總金額83.2億加幣（約合75.6億美元）。這是迄今為止中國公司進行海外資產收購最大一筆交易。

中國證券報報導，收購完成後，中石化海外權益原油產量每年將因此增加約700萬噸，原油總產量將增加16.7%。

今年第2季數據顯示，Addax公司平均原油產量每日14.3萬桶，約合每年700萬噸，其中奈及利亞的權益油佔72.2%。根據初步開發方案設計，公司近期產量每年將超過1000萬噸。

中石化表示，收購Addax石油公司，有利於改善中石化集團的資源結構，進一步優化海外油氣資產結構，實現海外油氣探勘開發的跨越式發展，提高中國原油供應的安全性和穩定性。

Addax公司總部設在瑞士，在多倫多和倫敦上市，普通股股數1.576億股，油氣資產集中在奈及利亞、加彭和伊拉克庫爾德地區，擁有25個探勘開發區塊，其中有17個在海上。

數據顯示，Addax公司2008年總收入37.62億美元，淨利潤7.84億美元，經營活動現金流15.21億美元。收購完成後，Addax公司將從兩地退市。

　　此外，中石化集團聯合中海油股份公司，以13億美元代價收購安哥拉一個海上油田區塊20%的權益。同時，中石化還積極競標伊拉克油田區的開採權。

巴菲特：美政府赤字對經濟與美元造成威脅

（中央社台北19日綜合外電報導）投資名人巴菲特 (Warren Buffett)表示，在美國政府注資金融體系後，數量龐大的「貨幣藥方」如今對美國經濟與美元造成威脅，美國必須妥善處理。

巴菲特在紐約時報撰文表示，政府資金泉湧而出，拯救了金融體系，美國經濟如今正緩慢復甦。雖然他讚許聯準會、布希政府及歐巴馬政府官員採取的措施，但美國財政正陷入「未知領域」中。

美國政府試圖透過7870億美元的振興計畫刺激企業與消費支出，內容包括減稅、基礎建設等項目。財政部與聯準會也已在不同的計畫中斥資數十億美元以上，用來解救金融機構及復甦銀行體系。至9月底為止的美國政府年度預算赤字料將寫下1.841兆美元的最高紀錄。

巴菲特寫道：「劑量龐大的貨幣藥方仍在繼續服用，不久之後，我們便需要處理它們帶來的副作用。多數副作用目前仍然隱而未現，也的確可能會長期潛伏。不過，它們的威脅可能會跟金融危機本身造成的威脅一樣可怕。」

他指出，狂灑美元將使今年度的預算赤字膨脹至相當於美國國內生產毛額 (GDP)規模的13%，國債淨額則將擴增至GDP的56%。

巴菲特表示：「一旦經濟獲得復甦，國會便必須終止國債佔GDP比率節節上升的走勢，讓債務與資源的成長速度相符。」

他同時指出：「無節制地狂灑美元，必將導致美元購買力消失。美元命運繫於國會。」(譯者：中央社安原良)

全球公司債突破1兆美元 銀行仍緊縮放款

（中央社台北19日綜合外電報導）華爾街日報 (WSJ)引用Dealogic的數據報導說，全球不含銀行與金融機構的公司債金額在7月間突破1兆美元，顯示傳統放款管道仍然緊縮，迫使企業自行擴大發債。

報導指出，公司債發行金額在7月15日超越1兆美元。過去偏好向銀行貸款的歐洲企業，今年已發債4265億美元，比去年的2904億美元增加47%。

該報表示，向來為歐洲業者所偏好的銀行聯貸，今年至今的金額減至2350億歐元，相較於去年是6510億歐元(9213億美元)。(譯者：中央社安原良)

American Militias Demonization - Militias On The Rise In US - MSNBC & CNN

New Drug Czar Makes Huge Mistake on National TV! (8/6/09)

Check this link ...... http://bit.ly/4o9XZM

Fake Al Qaeda Actors EXPOSED! Adam Gadahn & Yousef al-Khattab

Check this link ...... http://bit.ly/bMtEg

THE SECRET OF CHINA'S MIRACLE ECONOMY: THE GOVERNMENT OWNS THE BANKS RATHER THAN THE REVERSE

To the extent that China's stimulus plan is working better than in the U.S. and the U.K., this seems to be because the government is using the banks for public ends, rather than allowing the banks to use the government for private ends.

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"The banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. They frankly own the place."

-- U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Democratic Party Whip, April 30, 2009

While the U.S. spends trillions of dollars to bail out its banking system, leaving its economy to languish, China is being called a "miracle economy" that has decoupled from the rest of the world. As the rest of the world sinks into the worst recession since the 1930s, China has maintained a phenomenal 8% annual growth rate. Those are the reports, but commentators are dubious. They ask how that growth is possible, when other countries relying heavily on exports have suffered major downturns and remain in the doldrums. Economist Richard Wolff skeptically observes:

"We now have a situation in the world where we have a global capitalist crisis. Everywhere, consumption is down. Everywhere, people are buying fewer goods, including goods from China. How is it possible that in that society, so dependent on the world economy, they could now have an explosive growth? Their stock market is now 100 percent higher than at its low -- nothing remotely like that hardly anywhere in the world, certainly not in the United States or Europe. How is that possible? In order to believe what the Chinese are saying, you would have to agree that in a matter of months, at most a year, no more, they have been able to transform their economy from an export-based powerhouse to a domestically focused industrial engine. Nowhere in the world has that ever taken less than decades."

How can China's stimulus plan be working so well, when ours is barely working at all? The answer may be simple: China has not let its banking system run roughshod over its productive economy. Chinese banks work for the people rather than the reverse. So says Samah El-Shahat, a presenter for Al Jazeera English who has a doctorate in economics from the University of London. In an August 10 article titled "China Puts People Before Banks," she writes:

"China is the one leading economy where the divide "" the disconnect between its financial sector and the world normal Chinese people and their businesses inhabit "" doesn't exist. Both worlds are booming again and this is due to the way the government handled its banks. China hasn't allowed its banking sector to become so powerful, so influential, and so big that it can call the shots or highjack the bailout. In simple terms, the government preferred to answer to its people and put their interests first before that of any vested interest or group. And that is why Chinese banks are lending to the people and their businesses in record numbers."

What Wolff calls a "global capitalist crisis" is actually a credit crisis; and in China, unlike in the U.S., credit has been flowing freely, not just to the financial sector but to industry and local government. State-owned banks have massively increased lending, with local governments and state enterprises borrowing on a huge scale. The People's Bank of China estimates that total loans for the first half of 2009 were $1.08 trillion, 50% more than the amount of loans Chinese banks issued in all of 2008. The U.S. Federal Reserve has also engaged in record levels of lending, but its loans have gone chiefly to bail out the financial sector itself, leaving Main Street high and dry. Writes El-Shahat:

"In the UK and US, the financial sector is booming, while the world of normal people seems to be going from bad to worse, unemployment is high, businesses are folding and house foreclosures are still taking place. Wall Street and Main Street might as well be existing on different planets. And this is in large part because banks are still not lending money to the people. In the UK and US, banks have captured all the money from the taxpayers and the cheap money from quantitative easing from central banks. They are using it to shore up, and clean up their balance sheets rather than lend it to the people. The money has been hijacked by the banks, and our governments are doing absolutely nothing about that. In fact, they have been complicit in allowing this to happen."

Cracks in the Chinese Wall?

The Chinese economy is not perfect. The push to make profits, particularly from foreign investment capital, has encouraged speculative ventures, with a great deal of money going into high-rise apartments and other real estate developments that most people cannot afford. Chinese workers are now complaining of too much capitalism, since they are having to pay for housing, health care and higher education formerly picked up by the State. And while efforts are being made to make more loans available to medium-sized and small businesses, state-owned businesses and large corporations are still getting most of the loans. This is because the banks have been told to tighten their lending standards, and these larger entities are safer credit risks.

Wolff thinks China's "miracle" is a bubble that is about to burst, with catastrophic consequences. Historically, however, when bubbles have collapsed suddenly it has been because they were punctured by speculators. When the Japanese stock market bubble burst in 1990, and when other Asian countries followed in 1998, it was because foreign speculators were able to attack their currencies with exotic derivatives. The victims tried to defend by buying up their own national currencies with their foreign currency reserves, but the reserves were soon exhausted. Today, China has accumulated so much in the way of dollar reserves that it would be very difficult for speculators to do the same thing to the Chinese stock market. A gradual stock market decline due to natural market forces is something an economy can take in stride.

Economic Role Reversal?

For the time being, at least, China's stimulus plan is clearly working better than those of the U.S. and the U.K.; and a chief reason it is working better is that the government has a grip on its banking sector. The government can operate the banks' credit mechanisms in a way that serves public enterprise and trade, because it actually owns the banks, or most of them. Ironically, that feature of China's economy may have allowed it to get closer to the original American capitalist ideal than the United States itself. China is often referred to as communist, but it has never really been communist as defined in the textbooks, and it is far less so now than formerly. Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping, who opened China to foreign investment after 1978, famously said that it doesn't matter what color the cat is, so long as it catches mice. Whatever the Chinese economy is called, today it provides a framework that effectively encourages entrepreneurs.

Jim Rogers is an expatriate American investor and financial commentator based in Singapore. He wrote in a 2004 article titled "The Rise of Red Capitalism":

"Some of the best capitalists in the world live and work in Communist China. . . . No matter how long China's leaders persist in calling themselves Communists, they seem quite intent on creating the world's dominant capitalist economy."

Meanwhile, the U.S. has sunk into what Rogers calls "socialism for the rich." When ordinary U.S. businesses go bankrupt, they are left to deal with the asphalt jungle on their own; but when banks considered "too big to fail" go bankrupt, we the taxpayers pay the losses while the banks' owners keep the profits and are allowed to continue speculating with them. The bailout of Wall Street with taxpayer money represents a radical departure from capitalist principles, one that has changed the face of the American economy. The capitalism we were taught in school involved Mom and Pop stores, single-family farms, and small entrepreneurs competing on a level playing field. The government's role was to set the rules and make sure everyone played fair. But that is not the sort of capitalism we have today. The Mom and Pop stores have been squeezed out by giant chain stores and mega-industries; the small private farms have been bought up by multinational agribusinesses; and Wall Street banks have gotten so powerful that Congressmen are complaining that the banks now own Congress. Giant banks and corporations have rewritten the rules for their own ends. Healthy competition has been replaced by a form of predator capitalism in which small fish are systematically swallowed up by sharks. The result has been an ever-widening gap between rich and poor that represents the greatest transfer of wealth in history.

The Best of Both Worlds

The Chinese solution to a failed banking system would be to nationalize the banks themselves, not just their bad debts. If the U.S. were to adopt that approach, we the people would actually get something of value for our investment "" a stable and accountable banking system that belongs to the people. If the word "nationalize" sounds un-American, think "publicly-owned and operated for the benefit of the public," like public libraries, public parks, and public courts. We need to get our dollars out of Wall Street and back on Main Street, and we can do that only by and we can do that only by breaking up our out-of-control private banking monopoly and returning control over money and credit to the people themselves. If the Chinese can have the best of both worlds, so can we.

by Ellen Brown

Liberty and Economics - Ludwig von Mises

Unemployment Spike Compounds Foreclosure Crisis

The country's growing unemployment is overtaking subprime mortgages as the main driver of foreclosures, according to bankers and economists, threatening to send even higher the number of borrowers who will lose their homes and making the foreclosure crisis far more complicated to unwind.

Economists estimate that 1.8 million borrowers will lose their homes this year, up from 1.4 million last year, according to Moody's Economy.com. And the government, which has already committed billions of dollars to foreclosure-prevention efforts, has found it far more difficult to help people who have lost their paychecks than those whose mortgage payments became unaffordable because of an interest-rate increase.

"It's a much harder nut to crack, unemployment," said Mark A. Calabria, director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute. "It's much easier to bash lenders than to create jobs."

During the first three months of this year, the largest share of foreclosures shifted from subprime loans to prime loans, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The change to prime loans -- traditionally considered safer -- reflects the growing numbers of unemployed who are being caught up in the foreclosure process, economists say.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has proposed using $2 billion in government rescue funding to provide emergency loans to these borrowers. "We are going to be seeing more foreclosures because of prolonged unemployment," he said. "These are people who weren't in trouble and wouldn't be in trouble if they hadn't lost their job."

Unlike the borrowers with subprime mortgages who helped ignite the housing downturn more than two years ago, Deepak Malla, 42, fell behind on his payments when his information technology job was shipped overseas late last year. He does not have a subprime loan, and he made a 20 percent down payment when he bought his five-bedroom house in Ashburn in 2005. The payments were affordable -- until he lost his job.

Last year, about 40 percent of borrowers who sought help at NeighborWorks, a large housing counseling group, cited unemployment or a pay cut as a primary reason for their delinquency. Now it is about 65 percent. The number citing a subprime loan fell significantly.

"Rising unemployment, for the sake of this downturn, has magnified things considerably," said John Snyder, manager of foreclosure programs for NeighborWorks. "It's less about the payment adjustment."

When a subprime borrower becomes delinquent because of a hefty payment increase, the fix often involves lowering the interest rate to its original level. Unemployment poses a more difficult challenge, industry officials and consumer advocates said. During extended periods of joblessness, the borrower accrues large late fees that drive up monthly payments. And a new job often comes with lower pay, making it more difficult to catch up.

When Malla landed another job earlier this year, he took a pay cut of more than 25 percent. He launched a six-month campaign to get Wells Fargo to lower his mortgage payments from $3,500 to reflect his new financial reality, but he was rebuffed repeatedly. "I wanted to work out with them based on my current scenario," Malla said.

He considered refinancing his mortgage, which had a 5.8 percent interest rate, but his home's value had fallen significantly since the market peak, making that impossible. Instead, the lender recommended that he sell the house in a short sale. That would mean selling for less than he owed and walking away with nothing.

"They didn't say why -- just that [a loan modification] is outside the investor guidelines," Malla said. "I was very, very frustrated." (After being contacted by The Washington Post, a Wells Fargo spokesman said Malla does qualify for a loan modification after all.)

Banks and government regulators are studying how to address the shifting nature of the crisis, which has been exacerbated by falling home prices. When the housing crisis began in 2007, the unemployment rate was about 4.6 percent. It hit 9.4 percent last month, and many economists expect it to reach 10 percent by the end of the year.

Hope Now, a government-backed group of mortgage lenders, has established a task force to look at how to best help unemployed borrowers; one strategy involves creating new types of loan modifications. The Obama administration is also studying the issue as it considers how to make its foreclosure prevention program, known as Making Home Affordable, more effective.

Many housing experts say it will take more than the $75 billion the administration has already said will be spent on foreclosure prevention. Several economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston have proposed creating a government lending or grant program for unemployed borrowers, lowering their payments for up to two years while they look for work. Such a program could cost $25 billion annually and help 3 million homeowners, lowering their payments by 50 percent on average, according to the economists' proposal.

Currently, unemployed borrowers have few options to save their homes. Banks often will allow two or three missed payments, known as forbearance, to give borrowers time to find a job. Others offer to temporarily lower their payments by 50 percent. But both of these options are not permanent and are ill-suited to the current crisis, consumer advocates and industry officials say.

Part of the problem is that it is taking longer for borrowers to find new employment -- a three-month suspension of payments often is not enough. The number of unemployed people who have been looking for a job for more than 26 weeks rose more than 500,000 last month. And under the current system, once borrowers resume payments, their monthly balances rise to make up for overdue amounts.

"Who knows what's going to happen at the end of the [forbearance], even if they can get it?" said Paul S. Willen, senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Citigroup established a test program for unemployed workers in March, offering to lower their payments to $500 a month for three months.

But few of the 600 or so borrowers who have qualified for the plan have reported that they were able to find new jobs, and Citigroup is considering lengthening the period, company officials said. The test has shown that borrowers are at their most motivated shortly after losing their job, so the company may also lift a requirement that homeowners miss at least two payments to qualify for assistance. No decision on the changes has been made, company officials said.

The program has reinforced Citigroup's conclusion that "unemployment is in fact the root cause of many of the delinquencies," said Sanjiv Das, chief executive of CitiMortgage. The trick, he said, is to give borrowers enough assistance to keep them motivated to find a job quickly so they can resume making full mortgage payments.

Under the federal foreclosure prevention program, unemployment insurance can be counted as income when a borrower applies for a modification. But the borrower must show eligibility for at least nine months of unemployment checks.

Bill Kachur of Jacksonville, Fla., lost his job as an online training instructor for a large government contractor in January and began scrambling to protect his four-bedroom home, purchased in 2000, from foreclosure. He has been able to scrape together enough to keep up his $850 monthly mortgage payments by liquidating his retirement and investment accounts to supplement his unemployment benefits of $1,200 a month.

"I had to do it," said Kachur, 47. "If you have bad credit, you can't get another job."

Kachur estimates that he has enough for only a few more months of payments, but because he is eligible for more unemployment benefits, he is lobbying his lender, Bank of America, for help. A modification under the federal plan would cut his payments nearly in half, he said.

He said his requests have been denied so far.

Bank of America said it could not comment on Kachur's specific case. The company complies with the federal foreclosure-prevention plan, including considering unemployment benefits when appropriate, spokesman Rick Simon said.

But a workout faces other tests, including whether a loan modification or foreclosure is better for the investor, he said. "It has to meet all the other guidelines as well," Simon said.

By Renae Merle

DNA evidence can be fabricated, scientists say

Undermining what has long been considered as irrefutable proof in investigation of criminal cases, scientists announce that DNA evidence found at crime scenes can "easily" be fabricated.


A scientific company specialized in forensic DNA analysis revealed that while DNA fingerprinting is considered one of the leading forensic tools in dealing with criminal cases, DNA evidence can easily be falsified and planted at crime scenes prior to collection by law enforcement officers.

According to the Tel Aviv-based life science company, Nucleix, a sample of DNA matching any profile can be constructed using basic equipment and access to DNA or a DNA profile in a database without obtaining any tissue from that person.

"You can just engineer a crime scene," said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the new study conducted by Nucleix and published by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. "Any biology undergraduate could perform this."

Andrew Cohen, a legal analyst at CBS News, said "This is potentially terrible news for prosecutors and police and the military and all sorts of industries that use DNA testing to confirm or find information."

Meanwhile, the company has moved to address the need to safeguard the accuracy and credibility of DNA samples through development of a test for distinguishing real DNA samples from fake ones.

The company hopes to sell the "DNA authentication" assay to forensics laboratories.

DNA, or Deoxyribonucleic Acid, is the material that makes up the genetic code of most organisms and no two individuals have the same DNA blueprint.

5 Ways You’re Treated Like a Criminal Every Day

Most people are not criminals. Sure, everybody breaks a law or two, here and there. But for the most part, we’re all a pretty law-abiding bunch. So when you’re not breaking the law, being treated like you are should piss you off. Here are the five most common ways people are treated like criminals, even when they’re not doing anything wrong whatsoever.

1. Flying

After September 11, 2001, everybody was so afraid of the next terrorist attack that we’ve allowed the government to make it more difficult to get on an airplane than it is to buy a sub machine gun. Nowadays, you have to remove all jackets, shoes, metal or anything else that might seem mildly suspicious. You can’t bring liquids, your laptop has to be unpacked, and after all of that, you still stand a chance of being wand-raped by a 200-lb man wearing rubber gloves. Talk about degrading – especially when you’ve just spent hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on a ticket. I know, we all want to be safe and not die in a ball of exploding jet fuel. But this has gotten completely out of hand.

2. Bag Check

This one is so common, we’ve all just resigned to the fact that we have to hand over our personal belongings to complete strangers when entering a store. So it probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. And maybe it’s not. But if you ask me, this is just another instance of how retailers have lowered their shopping-experience standards for all costumers because of the various bad apples that any store has to deal with. Thing is, if you don’t want to hand over your bag (or at least have it rummaged through), you’re probably not going to be allowed to shop at that store. The choice is yours.

3. Talking to The Police, About Anything

If you’re a police officer, most of the people you talk to over the course of your life are lying to you. Because of this, cops are an extremely distrusting bunch. Which is why anytime time you talk to them, about anything – even reporting a crime, they act like they just caught you hanging outside a jewelry store while wearing a ski mask. Then, after they’ve made you so uncomfortable, you start questioning whether you are actually guilty of something, they start asking you why you are acting weird. Unfortunately, the only remedy for this one is to talk to the police as infrequently as possible – they’re sure as hell not going to change.

4. Receipt Checking

I cannot think of a single instance that makes me want to punch someone in the face more than having my receipt checked when trying to exit a store. To have just spent money at somewhere only to be blocked from leaving, and treated like a petty shoplifter simply for having the audacity to shop there, is enough to make anyone dream of going on their ass ‘Fight Club’. Sure, it “greatly reduces” stealing. But so what? That’s not your F’ing problem.

So don’t be intimidated: Unless you’re shopping at stores like Sam’s Club or Costco, which require signing a contract to shop there that can include receipt checks as part of the deal, you are not legally required to show them anything (though they are legally allowed to ask). So the next time that Best Buy door jockey asks to see your receipt, feel free to politely tell him to f**k off.

5. Doing Anything (While also Being Black or Hispanic and Male)

What? It’s true…

Toyota selling most cars in clunker plan

It appears that Toyota Motor Co. is now benefiting the most from the government’s cash-for-clunkers program.

By Friday morning, 358,851 cash-for-clunkers deals had been submitted to the government. Those deals are valued at $1.5 billion.

The average fuel economy of vehicles that have been traded in is 15.8 miles per gallon, while the average fuel economy for vehicles that drivers are buying is 25 miles per gallon.

Here are the top 10 vehicles purchased under the cash-for-clunkers program, according to data provided by the government:

1. Toyota Corolla

2. Honda Civic

3. Ford Focus FWD

4. Toyota Camry

5. Toyota Prius

6. Hyundai Elantra

7. Ford Escape FWD

8. Honda Fit

9. Nissan Versa

10. Honda CR-V 4WD

Here is a list of the top 10 vehicles consumers are trading in:

1. Ford Explorer 4WD

2. Ford F150 Pickup 2WD

3. Jeep Grand Cherokee 4WD

4. Jeep Cherokee 4WD

5. Ford Explorer 2WD

6. Dodge Caravan/Grand Caravan 2WD

7. Chevrolet Blazer 4WD

8. Ford F150 Pickup 4WD

9. Chevrolet C1500 Pickup 2WD

10. Ford Windstar FWD Van

Here is a breakdown of the makers of the vehicles sold under the plan.

1. Toyota: 18.9%

2. General Motors: 17.6%

3. Ford: 15.4%

4. Honda: 12.9%

5. Chrysler: 9.1%

6. Nissan: 7.4%

7. Hyundai: 6.7%

8. Kia: 3.7%

9. Subaru: 2.4%

10. Mazda: 2.2%

11. Volkswagen: 2.0%

12. Suzuki: 0.5%

13. Mitsubishi: 0.4%

BY JEWEL GOPWANI

Jobless spike compounds foreclosure crisis

WASHINGTON - The country's growing unemployment is overtaking subprime mortgages as the main driver of foreclosures, according to bankers and economists, threatening to send even higher the number of borrowers who will lose their homes and making the foreclosure crisis far more complicated to unwind.

Economists estimate that 1.8 million borrowers will lose their homes this year, up from 1.4 million last year, according to Moody's Economy.com. And the government, which has already committed billions of dollars to foreclosure-prevention efforts, has found it far more difficult to help people who have lost their paychecks than those whose mortgage payments became unaffordable because of an interest-rate increase.

"It's a much harder nut to crack, unemployment," said Mark A. Calabria, director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute. "It's much easier to bash lenders than to create jobs."

During the first three months of this year, the largest share of foreclosures shifted from subprime loans to prime loans, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The change to prime loans -- traditionally considered safer -- reflects the growing numbers of unemployed who are being caught up in the foreclosure process, economists say.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has proposed using $2 billion in government rescue funding to provide emergency loans to these borrowers. "We are going to be seeing more foreclosures because of prolonged unemployment," he said. "These are people who weren't in trouble and wouldn't be in trouble if they hadn't lost their job."

Unlike the borrowers with subprime mortgages who helped ignite the housing downturn more than two years ago, Deepak Malla, 42, fell behind on his payments when his information technology job was shipped overseas late last year. He does not have a subprime loan, and he made a 20 percent down payment when he bought his five-bedroom house in Ashburn in 2005. The payments were affordable -- until he lost his job.

Difficult challenge
Last year, about 40 percent of borrowers who sought help at NeighborWorks, a large housing counseling group, cited unemployment or a pay cut as a primary reason for their delinquency. Now it is about 65 percent. The number citing a subprime loan fell significantly.

"Rising unemployment, for the sake of this downturn, has magnified things considerably," said John Snyder, manager of foreclosure programs for NeighborWorks. "It's less about the payment adjustment."

When a subprime borrower becomes delinquent because of a hefty payment increase, the fix often involves lowering the interest rate to its original level. Unemployment poses a more difficult challenge, industry officials and consumer advocates said. During extended periods of joblessness, the borrower accrues large late fees that drive up monthly payments. And a new job often comes with lower pay, making it more difficult to catch up.

When Malla landed another job earlier this year, he took a pay cut of more than 25 percent. He launched a six-month campaign to get Wells Fargo to lower his mortgage payments from $3,500 to reflect his new financial reality, but he was rebuffed repeatedly. "I wanted to work out with them based on my current scenario," Malla said.

He considered refinancing his mortgage, which had a 5.8 percent interest rate, but his home's value had fallen significantly since the market peak, making that impossible. Instead, the lender recommended that he sell the house in a short sale. That would mean selling for less than he owed and walking away with nothing.

'Very frustrated'
"They didn't say why -- just that [a loan modification] is outside the investor guidelines," Malla said. "I was very, very frustrated." (After being contacted by The Washington Post, a Wells Fargo spokesman said Malla does qualify for a loan modification after all.)

Banks and government regulators are studying how to address the shifting nature of the crisis, which has been exacerbated by falling home prices. When the housing crisis began in 2007, the unemployment rate was about 4.6 percent. It hit 9.4 percent last month, and many economists expect it to reach 10 percent by the end of the year.

Hope Now, a government-backed group of mortgage lenders, has established a task force to look at how to best help unemployed borrowers; one strategy involves creating new types of loan modifications. The Obama administration is also studying the issue as it considers how to make its foreclosure prevention program, known as Making Home Affordable, more effective.

Many housing experts say it will take more than the $75 billion the administration has already said will be spent on foreclosure prevention. Several economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston have proposed creating a government lending or grant program for unemployed borrowers, lowering their payments for up to two years while they look for work. Such a program could cost $25 billion annually and help 3 million homeowners, lowering their payments by 50 percent on average, according to the economists' proposal.

Few options to save homes
Currently, unemployed borrowers have few options to save their homes. Banks often will allow two or three missed payments, known as forbearance, to give borrowers time to find a job. Others offer to temporarily lower their payments by 50 percent. But both of these options are not permanent and are ill-suited to the current crisis, consumer advocates and industry officials say.

Part of the problem is that it is taking longer for borrowers to find new employment -- a three-month suspension of payments often is not enough. The number of unemployed people who have been looking for a job for more than 26 weeks rose more than 500,000 last month. And under the current system, once borrowers resume payments, their monthly balances rise to make up for overdue amounts.

"Who knows what's going to happen at the end of the [forbearance], even if they can get it?" said Paul S. Willen, senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Citigroup established a test program for unemployed workers in March, offering to lower their payments to $500 a month for three months.

But few of the 600 or so borrowers who have qualified for the plan have reported that they were able to find new jobs, and Citigroup is considering lengthening the period, company officials said. The test has shown that borrowers are at their most motivated shortly after losing their job, so the company may also lift a requirement that homeowners miss at least two payments to qualify for assistance. No decision on the changes has been made, company officials said.

The program has reinforced Citigroup's conclusion that "unemployment is in fact the root cause of many of the delinquencies," said Sanjiv Das, chief executive of CitiMortgage. The trick, he said, is to give borrowers enough assistance to keep them motivated to find a job quickly so they can resume making full mortgage payments.

Counting unemployment insurance
Under the federal foreclosure prevention program, unemployment insurance can be counted as income when a borrower applies for a modification. But the borrower must show eligibility for at least nine months of unemployment checks.

Bill Kachur of Jacksonville, Fla., lost his job as an online training instructor for a large government contractor in January and began scrambling to protect his four-bedroom home, purchased in 2000, from foreclosure. He has been able to scrape together enough to keep up his $850 monthly mortgage payments by liquidating his retirement and investment accounts to supplement his unemployment benefits of $1,200 a month.

"I had to do it," said Kachur, 47. "If you have bad credit, you can't get another job."

Kachur estimates that he has enough for only a few more months of payments, but because he is eligible for more unemployment benefits, he is lobbying his lender, Bank of America, for help. A modification under the federal plan would cut his payments nearly in half, he said.

He said his requests have been denied so far.

Bank of America said it could not comment on Kachur's specific case. The company complies with the federal foreclosure-prevention plan, including considering unemployment benefits when appropriate, spokesman Rick Simon said.

But a workout faces other tests, including whether a loan modification or foreclosure is better for the investor, he said. "It has to meet all the other guidelines as well," Simon said.

By Renae Merle

Identity Of Obama Joker Designer Debunks Racism Smear

Much to the chagrin of the establishment left, Firas Alkhateeb is not a Republican and not a white supremacist

The revelation that the author of the Obama Joker poster is a politically independent Muslim-American, and not a Republican white supremacist as the establishment left had hoped, puts the final nail in the coffin of the smear that the poster depicting President Obama as Heath Ledger’s version of the Joker in Batman was in any way racist.

“The Los Angeles Times tracked down the artist of the evocative, unflattering depiction of President Obama as The Joker from The Dark Knight and he may not be whom you pictured,” reports ABC News, implying that many on the left pictured the culprit to be some kind of white robe wearing Klan member, if the hysterical reaction of the media when the posters first began to appear in LA was anything to go by.

Shortly after the flyers began to be seen around Los Angeles, the L.A. Weekly and other leftist news outlets denounced the image as “racist” and “dangerous,” claiming that the picture represented “Obama as a black-and-white minstrel in reverse”.

Washington Post writer Philip Kennicott called the image a “subtly coded, highly effective racial and political argument”.

It turns out the image was created not by a Republican white supremacist but by a Muslim-American of Palestinian descent who didn’t vote for Obama or McCain.

Firas Alkhateeb, a 20-year-old senior history major at the University of Illinois, created the image as a reaction to the Christ-like status being afforded to Obama by the establishment, and also in protest at Obama’s appointment of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff.

“Emanuel is a fervent anti-Islam voice in Washington,” he wrote on his Flickr page. “A Zionist, he takes a hard line stance against the Palestinian cause, and shows a clear anti-Muslim racism. Besides that, he is the embodiment of ‘political partisanship’ that Obama was supposedly going to change!”

Alkhateeb created the image by using a software program to “Jokerize” the photo of Obama which was carried on the front page of Time Magazine. He then uploaded the picture to photo-sharing site Flickr, where it sat relatively unknown for two months, before traffic exploded after a still anonymous individual began plastering the poster up around Los Angeles with the word “socialism” added underneath.

“After Obama was elected, you had all of these people who basically saw him as the second coming of Christ,” Alkhateeb said. “From my perspective, there wasn’t much substance to him.”

Speaking of Obama’s performance so far, Alkhateeb commented, “In terms of domestic policy, I don’t think he’s really doing much good for the country right now,” he said. “We don’t have to ‘hero worship’ the guy.”

He wrote: “Note: I am neither Democrat nor Republican, Conservative nor Liberal, didn’t support Obama or McCain. I just call it like I see it.”

Alkhateeb also responded to artist Shepard Fairey’s criticism of his Joker picture. Fairey worked with the Obama administration to create later versions of the Orwellian “HOPE” poster that Obama personally praised. After the Joker image received attention, Fairey said it lacked intelligence.

“He made a picture of Bush as a vampire,” Alkhateeb said about Fairey. “That’s kind of speaking with two faces.”

Alkhateeb’s identity and the reasons behind why he created the image firmly close the lid on the smear that the poster has racial overtones or is in any way “dangerous,” as liberal news outlets claimed.

Once again, the establishment’s attempt to play the race card in an effort to deflate burgeoning populist opposition to Obama’s political agenda has failed miserably.

Despite the best efforts of the corporate media to imply that any criticism whatsoever of Obama is racist – as MSNBC host Carlos Watson enunciated last week – the continued grass roots rebellion against Obamacare, the cap and trade scam, prolonging Bush’s wars, and the banker bailout will not be cowed by attempts to chill free speech by using the race card to intimidate people away from exercising their free speech.

by Paul Joseph Watson