Harvard Takes it Back and Says Swine Flu was Oversold

Duh. Well, like most things that make some of us say "duh", for many this would be a shocking revelation. Swine flu hyped? Swine flu a fraud? You mean people in the government and people in white coats aren't gods?

Mercola.com -

A new analysis from Harvard University, using H1N1 deaths in the U.S. in the spring and projecting likely outcomes for this fall, suggests that the swine flu “pandemic” has been oversold.

The new paper suggests swine flu was unlikely to create a severe epidemic. In light of this, officials have taken many steps that may have been unnecessary, including mass vaccinations.

It is not clear how H1N1 will act in the coming months, but swine flu cases seem to have already hit their peak.

Sources:

ABC News December 8, 2009


Dr. Mercola's Comments:


While many so-called scientific experts have criticized me and others who have spoken out about the fear-mongering and senseless mass-vaccination campaign surrounding the swine flu, more of the scientific community is now coming to the same conclusions we’ve been talking about for months.

The swine flu pandemic was a pandemic that never materialized, just exactly as I predicted.

Now it looks as though the H1N1 scare of 2009 will go down as one of the biggest government and pharmaceutical scams ever, renewing a healthy, and necessary, skepticism about government fear-mongering, the swine flu vaccine and the dubious dealings behind the implementation of worldwide mass-vaccination programs.

It started last month when British and French media began saying the H1N1 pandemic has been "hyped" by medical researchers to further their own cause, boost research grants and line the pockets of drug companies.

Ontario health officials have also declared H1N1 a “dud” pandemic, stating the huge government investment made so far may have been unjustified. And now, a new study by researchers at Harvard University and the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit in the U.K. is finding that this “pandemic” was never a cause for alarm.

After analyzing H1N1 deaths in the United States in the spring, then projecting outcomes for this past fall, they found the fu season should have been no different than a typical flu season -- and possibly even milder than average!

Early Studies Showed H1N1 Was NOT Dangerous or Highly Contagious

In the beginning, even before it was declared a level 6 pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), a group of “scientists” were sounding the alarm that this might indeed be the terrifying, deadly pandemic they had been expecting for over half a century.

We were told that young, healthy people, pregnant women and small children were falling ill and quickly dying, and the virus was spreading rapidly. They even suggested it could mutate into an even more dangerous form that could kill countless numbers of people.

Well, Dr. Russell Blaylock recently shared some information that shows health officials knew very early on that H1N1 was probably not much more of a threat than the seasonal flu that surfaces every year. He says:

“Once the pandemic had been declared, virologists tested the potency of this virus using a conventional method, that is, infecting ferrets with the virus. What they found was that the H1N1 virus was no more pathogenic than the ordinary seasonal flu, even though it did penetrate slightly deeper into the lungs.

It in no way matched the pathogenecity of the 1917-1918 H1N1 virus. It also did not infect other tissues, and especially important, it did not infect the brain.

Next, they wanted to test the ability of the virus to spread among the population. The results of their tests were conflicting, but the best evidence indicated that the virus did not spread to others very well.

In fact, an unpublished study by the CDC found that when one member of a family contracted the H1N1 virus, other members of the family were infected only 10% of the time -- a very low communicability.”

Of course, nothing sells vaccines like panic, so you likely did not hear about this in the media. That is, until now.

The CDC Was Way Off … Why are They Still Pushing the Vaccine?

The CDC previously estimated that the U.S. death toll from the swine flu would be around 90,000. Even using their own bloated numbers -- some 80 percent of which are in all likelihood unrelated to H1N1 -- 9,820 people have actually died from H1N1 from April through November.

That would STILL, according to their own statistics stating that the flu kills 36,000 Americans a year, put us squarely in the middle of the mildest flu season in recent memory.


Meanwhile, the CDC’s own data states that flu activity is continuing to fall across the United States, with only 11 states still reporting widespread flu activity as of mid-December.

Yet, they are still touting the H1N1 vaccine as the best way to protect against this “pandemic” virus.

Well, as the word continues to get out that swine flu is another “pandemic” that never was … ranking right up there with the bird flu hoax back in 2005 … it looks as though the CDC is going to have a heck of a lot of surplus H1N1 vaccines on their hands.

So now they are stating that supplies of H1N1 vaccine are increasing and many places have opened up vaccination to anyone who wants it. Fortunately, many do not.

But the U.S. federal government has contracts to purchase 250 million doses of swine flu vaccine, which may explain why the Los Angeles Times recently reported that:

“Health officials' biggest fear now is that, with the perception that the pandemic is waning, many people will decide they don't need the vaccine.”

That the swine flu is “waning” is not a perception, it’s a fact, but Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is not giving up on selling those shots, either. She stated in a news conference:

"We have a wonderful window of opportunity to prevent or lessen a third wave."


A third wave?

Excuse me, but we’re still waiting for the first and second to show up!

So it appears the WHO and governments around the world are going to keep pushing their H1N1 vaccines through the winter and into spring, even though swine flu cases are dwindling and are nowhere near what you would call a true, dangerous pandemic.

The latest news confirms that H1N1 peaked in October.

In Britain, health authorities' original worst-case scenario -- which said as many as 65,000 could die from H1N1 -- has twice been revised down and the prediction is now for around 1,000 deaths. This is way below their average annual toll of 4,000 to 8,000 deaths from seasonal flu.

And the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland actually removed swine flu from a list of diseases considered dangerous to the public -- and that was back in July!

So I have just one further sentiment I’d like to say to the media and health officials in the United States who are still trying to perpetuate the swine flu myth:

… It’s time to let it go now -- the jig is up.

New Study Confirms: Organic Food is Far Healthier Than Conventional

Items such as these beckon me to George Orwell, who said, "We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." Because it should be obvious to anyone, even if you're not aware of the toxicity of genetically modified foods, or the fact that their sole general purpose is so that the crops can be plastered with pesticides, that foods not treated with pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizer, or irradiated or plastered with raw sewage or unused vaccines and other various grotesqueries, are more healthy than those that are. And yet the government would have you believe that there is absolutely no difference between organic and the, literally, pardon my language, shit that passes for inorganic "food". And those of you who, like me, endeavor not to eat the shit that passes as food, have an eating disorder. So allow me, with the help of our friends at Natural News, to restate the obvious.

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews -

Organic produce is nutritionally superior to so-called "conventional" produce, according to a comprehensive review conducted by researchers from the University of Aix-Marseille for the French food agency (AFSSA) and published in the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

"This critical literature review indicates that organic agriculture, as developed until now, has the potential to produce high-quality products with some relevant improvements in terms of anti-oxidant phytomicronutrients, nitrate accumulation in vegetables and toxic residue levels," the researchers wrote.

To be recognized as "organic," a food product must be produced without the use of genetic modification or chemical fertilizers or pesticides, and must promote sustainable cropping methods. In the United States, organically produced meat and dairy must be raised without the use of synthetic growth hormones or antibiotics. Hormones and antibiotics are banned in animal production across the board in the European Union.

Recently the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency (FSA) reviewed existing research on the nutritional content of organic produce concluded that there was no difference, nutritionally, between organic and non-organic produce. The FSA study did not examine the reasons most often given by consumers of organic produce, namely benefits to the environment, farm workers, and consumer health due to lower chemical use.

Yet the AFSSA review calls the FSA's conclusions into question. After conducting an "up-to-date exhaustive and critical evaluation of the nutritional and sanitary quality of organic food," French researchers concluded that organic produce is clearly nutritionally superior.

Organic produce contains more minerals, such as iron and magnesium, than non-organic produce, and higher levels of antioxidants such as phenols and salicylic acid.

"Organic plant food overall contain double the amount of phenolic compounds," the researchers wrote.

Animal foods produced organically contained significantly more polyunsaturated fat than non-organic animal products. In addition, organic vegetables contained 50 percent less nitrates than non-organic produce. No more than 6 percent of organic produce tested contained pesticide residue.

Sources for this story include: www.foodnavigator-usa.com; www.healthsentinel.com.

Cop Went Wild With Taser, Diabetic Says

No mention in the article of what disciplinary action was taken against the violent thug who perpetrated this crime, but if past precedent means anything, not only is he not in prison for assault with a deadly weapon but he likely still has his job.

Courthouse News Service -

A suburban Chicago police officer Tasered a man 11 times while he was having a diabetic seizure, and the 56 seconds of needlessly inflicted electric shock, "inflicted ... while he was lying unresponsive on the floor of his bedroom, permanently scarred [him] and caused him neurological damage that has not abated," the man claims in Chicago Federal Court.

Prospero Lassi says he suffered a diabetes-induced seizure at home on April 9. His roommate called 911, and police from LaGrange Park and Brookfield responded, with EMTs from LaGrange Park.

Lassi says his roommate explained to police that he was having a diabetic seizure. Lassi "was not alert and could not move his body."

When the EMTs asked the cops to help them move Lassi from where he was lying on the floor, Lassi says, one of his "arms flailed during his diabetes-induced seizure, striking one of the LaGrange and Brookfield defendants. At no time did Mr. Lassi intentionally strike or offensively touch any of the LaGrange or Brookfield defendants."

Lassi says LaGrange Park Officer Darren Pedota responded by Tasering him 11 times, for nearly a minute, as he lay helpless.

He was hospitalized for 5 days, and was unable to work for 3 months because of the attack, "and his quality of life has suffered substantially," Lassi says.

"At no time did Mr. Lassi do anything to warrant the use of force against him. Mr. Lassi was never cited, arrested, or charged with any crime," according to the complaint.

He seeks punitive damages for battery, excessive force, and failure to intervene. He is represented by Arthur Loevy of Loevy & Loevy.

Flight diverted because of Christmas ornament

I know there are real jihadists in the world. I really do. I know there are Muslims who want to kill us. I've studied Islam for many years. I know what their scripture teaches. But do you ever get the feeling that jihadists see stories like this and think, "Why even bother? These silly Americans are afraid of their own shadow!" Home of the brave...HA!

Associated Press -

A spokesman says a Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit was briefly diverted to Tennessee after someone found a suspicious package that turned out to be a Christmas ornament.

Delta Air Lines spokesman Carlos Santos wasn't sure who found the package midway through the flight to Orlando, Fla., or why they thought it was suspicious. He says the flight was diverted "out of an abundance of caution."

The 75 passengers and five crew members on Northwest flight 2364 were taken off the plane in Nashville around 8 a.m. Friday while dogs searched it.

They were allowed to reboard about two hours later. It was a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit that authorities say a Nigerian man tried and failed to blow up last week.

Delta Air Lines owns Northwest.

Newark "Liberty" International Airport to receive full-body scanners

At best, the government screwed up, so their solution of course is, not punish the people who didn't do their job, but expand the size and scope of government, and humiliate you by forcing you to undergo virtual strip searches every time you board a plane. The reaction we have towards these devices will go a long way towards gauging how awakened we are as a society, and thus how much of a chance we have to survive. Of course, if the American people reject them, they'll just unleash another black op terror attack that could have been "thwarted" if only silly Americans demanding their rights not be violated any further merely submitted to them in the first place. They'll ram them down our throats, and most people, still dumb enough to believe in fairy tails - ie an "al Qaeda" threat - will accept them.

Newark Star Ledger -

Newark Liberty International Airport is in line this year to receive full-body scanners, x-ray machines that proponents say could have stopped "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he boarded a plane headed for Detroit on Christmas Day.

The call for more full-body scanners — high-tech machines that can show hidden contraband, but controversial for leaving too little to the imagination — has grown louder after the latest terror attempt in the skies.

Newark Liberty, one of America’s busiest airports, is undergoing a modernization of its Terminal B that has dramatically increased the size of its passenger screening areas and reduced its waiting times. Given the latest terror incident, airport officials are hoping the scanners arrive early in 2010.

A Transportation Security Administration representative said 150 full-body scanners will go to airports throughout the U.S. this year and Newark Liberty is likely to be among the airports that get them, considering its heavy flight volume and the fact one of the planes hijacked in the deadly Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks departed from Newark.

"We designed our new passenger screening spaces in Terminal B to accommodate future TSA equipment deployments," said John Kelly, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark Liberty. "We’re looking forward to facilitating and helping with their installation as soon as the TSA has them available."

Some lawmakers say the scanners, which cost up to $160,000 each, could have prevented Abdulmutallab from boarding a plane on Christmas Day with the explosive materials he had sewn into his underwear. When Abdulmutallab tried to detonate the bomb on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, he was tackled by a hero passenger from Amsterdam.

Nineteen American airports, the closest being Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, already use the Star Trek-like, full-body scanners, which opponents say are too costly and violate privacy.

Newark Airport’s Terminal B will have a total of 12 passenger screening lanes when construction of all sections of the terminal are completed in March. Given the recommendations that full-body scanners be placed at every other lane, that would mean the airport would install six scanners at a total cost of nearly $1 million.

Michael German, an American Civil Liberties Union policy counsel in Washington, D.C., called the process "a virtual strip search" and said experts have determined the method is not particularly effective at detecting plastic explosives.

"The image that could be collected is very graphic," German said. "People have a serious issue with getting naked in front of a government agent, as they should."

The TSA representative said the new scanners, made by a different manufacturer, are not intrusive.

"You can see the shape; the face is blurred," she said. "We worked with the other manufacturer to make sure the image is not intrusive, but could still effectively detect items concealed under clothing."

She added that the images would be looked at in a remote room by an officer who could not see or interact with the passengers.

"We’re very supportive of the technology," she said. "It has proven very effective in finding concealed items."

In the days after the planned Christmas Day attack, a crying baby was frisked at an airport checkpoint in Cancun, Mexico, before a flight to Newark. Passengers on other flights throughout the U.S. were told they couldn’t use the bathroom or read books for the final hour of the trips.

Just as the failed attempt by "shoe bomber" Richard Reid eight years earlier led to passengers having to remove their clogs and high heels, the unsuccessful bombing last week has prompted more restrictions for travelers.

But some aviation experts say the TSA measures — including the installation of full-body scanners — are treating the symptoms and not the cause.

"It’s unfortunate that one incident in Amsterdam, where you had bad security, is causing us to chase our tails here," said Mike Boyd, an aviation analyst based in Evergreen, Colo.

Abdulmutallab was on a government advisory list and was reported by his own father for increasingly militant tendencies, but was not put on the no-fly list.

Boyd was particularly perplexed by the rule prohibiting the reading of books for the last hour. "I guess Agatha Christie must be a security threat," he said.

"Some of us joke that TSA stands for Travel Suppression Agency," added Bob Mann, a Port Washington, N.Y., airline industry analyst and consultant who formerly was an American Airlines executive.

The TSA backed off on some of its new restrictions, giving discretion to captains on each flight.

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, who chaired the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, said that instead of new in-flight rules, the emphasis should be on finding out why suspected terrorist Abdulmutallab was allowed to board a plane when there were so many warning signs.

"The idea that we are going to prevent someone from going to the bathroom in the last hour is nonsense," Kean said. "The right reaction is to find out what went wrong."

The TSA representative defended the need to pat down babies on international flights, saying, "There have been examples where adults have used their children to smuggle illegal items, unfortunately."

She said passengers on international flights would need to set aside additional time before boarding, but saw few changes for domestic passengers.

"Security is evolving," she said. "It needs to be dynamic so that anyone who studies the system to gain any advantage would find that hard to do."

Mann said he wished some of the money spent on high-tech equipment would instead go toward investigation. "We have no ability to connect the dots," Mann said. "For eight years, we’ve been going in the wrong direction."

TSA nominee misled Congress about accessing confidential records

Never mind the fact that the government, in typical Orwellian fashion, has changed the definition of "wrong", but this kind of kills the whole neocon absurdity that if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about. And of course, the same republicans who felt no need to be concerned about privacy when one of their own was in office have serious concerns about it now that a democrat, err, runs the show. Neither of them run the show. They're two puppets on either hand of the same puppeteer.

WaPo -

The White House nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration gave Congress misleading information about incidents in which he inappropriately accessed a federal database, possibly in violation of privacy laws, documents obtained by The Washington Post show.

The disclosure comes as pressure builds from Democrats on Capitol Hill for quick January confirmation of Erroll Southers, whose nomination has been held up by GOP opponents. In the aftermath of an attempted airline bombing on Christmas Day, calls have intensified for lawmakers to install permanent leadership at the TSA, a critical agency in enforcing airline security.

Southers, a former FBI agent, has described inconsistencies in his accounts to Congress as "inadvertent" and the result of poor memory of an incident that dates back 20 years. He said in a Nov. 20 letter to key senators obtained by The Post that he had accepted full responsibility long ago for a "grave error in judgment" in accessing confidential criminal records about his then-estranged wife's new boyfriend.

His letter to Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate homeland security committee, and Susan Collins (Maine), the ranking Republican on the panel, attempts to correct statements about the episode that were made in a sworn affidavit on Oct. 22 and have been reported.

Southers did not respond to a request for an interview.

'A serious error'


Southers's admission that he was involved in a questionable use of law enforcement background data has been a source of concern among civil libertarians, who believe the TSA performs a delicate balancing act in tapping into passenger information to find terrorists while also protecting citizens' privacy.

Southers first described the episode in his October affidavit, telling the Senate panel that two decades ago he asked a San Diego Police Department employee to access confidential criminal records about the boyfriend. Southers said he had been censured by superiors at the FBI. He described the incident as isolated and expressed regrets about it.

The committee approved his nomination Nov. 19. One day later, Southers wrote to Lieberman and Collins saying his first account was incorrect. After reviewing documents, he wrote, he recalled that he had twice conducted the database searches himself, downloaded confidential law enforcement records about his wife's boyfriend and passed information on to the police department employee, the letter said.

It is a violation of the federal Privacy Act to access such information without proper cause. The law says that "any person who knowingly and willfully requests or obtains any record concerning an individual from an agency under false pretenses shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not more than $5,000."

In his letter, Southers said he simply forgot the circumstances of the searches, which occurred in 1987 and 1988 after he grew worried about his wife and their son, who had begun living with the boyfriend. The letter said: "During a period of great personal turmoil, I made a serious error in judgment by using my official position with the FBI to resolve a personal problem." He did not specify the data system he accessed.

"I am distressed by the inconsistencies between my recollection and the contemporaneous documents, but I assure you that the mistake was inadvertent, and that I have at all times taken full responsibility for what I know to have been a grave error in judgment," the letter said. "This incident was over twenty years ago, I was distraught and concerned about my young son, and never in my career since has there been any recurrence of this sort of conduct."

Partisan divide


Southers's nomination has been delayed by partisan bickering. Though two Senate committees have endorsed him, and he received recommendations from other law enforcement officials, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) recently held up his approval because of concerns that Southers would support the unionization of TSA workers.

White House spokesman Nick Shapiro defended Southers and said the changes in his account should not affect his nomination. "Southers has never tried to hide this incident and has expressed that these were errors he made in judgment that he deeply regretted and an error that he made in an account of events that happened over 20 years ago. Senators Lieberman and Collins were satisfied with Southers's letter and voiced their support for him. Southers's nomination has not been held up over this as he has been entrusted with significant and increasing responsibilities in the area of homeland security over the years since, but he is being held up by Senator DeMint over a political issue," Shapiro said.

A spokesman said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) will work quickly to overcome DeMint's procedural block and force a vote when the Senate reconvenes this month.

People involved in the vetting process for Southers debated the significance of the change in his account. But they concluded that he was still a good choice. In a statement, a spokeswoman for Lieberman said the senator "believes that Erroll Southers is an outstanding candidate to lead the TSA. Twenty-two years ago, Mr. Southers committed a serious error in judgment. He admitted that error and was disciplined for it."

"Mr. Southers was forthcoming about his past censure during his nomination process and about errors he made in recalling the details," the statement said. "Senator Lieberman is satisfied that the totality of Mr. Southers' career more than qualifies him for the position to which he was nominated."

Security vs. privacy


Civil liberties specialists said that the misuse of databases has been common among law enforcement authorities for many years, despite an array of local, state and federal prohibitions intended to protect personal information. Studies have found that police at every level examine records of celebrities, women they have met and political rivals. Some federal authorities have been jailed for selling records to criminals.

Americans seem willing to trade information for more security, but only if there are clear limits on how the information is being used. Several ambitious security programs, including one for aviation screening called CAPPS II (Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System), were sharply curtailed when passengers and Congress concluded that the databases were too intrusive and not properly overseen. The same thing could happen now, after the attempted bombing on Christmas Day, if travelers lose faith in the TSA's ability to protect information about them, said Michael German, policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union and a former FBI special agent.

"They're saying we have to do it harder and more," German said about the push now for more data surveillance. "The government can only succeed if they have the confidence and support of the American people. Once that confidence is diminished, the government will be in a much tougher position."

In questioning before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Southers has said he understands the need to balance security and privacy. Said Collins: "You have taken responsibility for your actions. You've acknowledged your mistake in the personal conversation that we had in my office. It is important that the public have confidence that government officials will not misuse the authority that they have."

She added: "If you're confirmed, you're going to have the access to databases that have personal information on many, many individuals, such as through the secure flight program, and it's going to be important for the public to have confidence that you would not, in any way, misuse your access to the personal information in those databases. So, let me first ask you: Have you ever in the past misused your access to databases that the government maintains, other than this one incident that led to this censure?"

"No, Senator, I have not," Southers replied.

Collins continued: "Do you commit today that you will respect the privacy and civil liberties concerns that people have with regard to the personal information in those databases?"

"Yes, Senator, I do," Southers said.

A global climate assault

Of extreme cold. Sober individuals have known for a long time that the Earth stopped warming, and for the last several years has been cooling. But just as the eugenics climate cult and their band of useful idiots have turned up the, uhh, heat in Copenhagen desperately searching for a way to wipe out most of the world's population - I mean save the Earth, Mother Nature has put the exclamation point on the fact that there is no warming, that climate is purely cyclical, and that man, if he plays any roll at all, plays a very limited one.

Usually a heat wave or a cold spell is considered only anecdotal evidence, because it can be unseasonably cold in one area of the world and unseasonably warm in others. Yet from the midwest to the east coast, including North Carolina, experiencing a once in a generation cold snap, and Florida, with its citrus crops threatened by extreme cold; to Britain, experiencing its coldest winter in a century, to India, where scores of people have been killed by the cold this week, with temperatures continuing to plummet, to China; cold weather is blasting the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, and even in the southern hemisphere, where summer snow fell in Australia last month.

And yet the Pope - another fraud and either not a very intelligent man or a minion of the global power elite - says we need lifestyle changes to save the planet. Noah Wyle stars in a ridiculous ad for the World Wildlife Fund, saying "climate change" is killing the polar bears, which are increasing in numbers. And the frauds of the AGW global warming field would have you believe that last decade was the warmest decade ever, and that this year will be the warmest. Ever (it's not off to a very good start, is it...?) I know it's cliched by now, but it's a bit like Baghdad Bob telling the media American troops are not in the city, as American tanks drive by in the background.

Will this cooling trend continue? Are we heading into an ice age? No one can say. Nobody knows why the sun is so inactive, so they obviously cannot say for certain whether it will become active again, as it was particularly in the late 1990's, when it was more active than it had been in over a thousand years. And therefore no one can predict the climate, because the sun, more than any other factor, drives the climate. While I do enjoy the fact that the extreme cold is spitting sleet in the face of climate change frauds, I would otherwise enjoy continued warm weather, as would all life on Earth. Life flourishes in warmth and light. Carbon dioxide is good, and it's not entirely agreed upon that the atmosphere has any more carbon dioxide today than it did 160 years ago. Let the cows keep farting. They're not bothering anyone, except maybe the people driving by the farm.

20 million-plus collect unemployment checks in '09

They're predicting job growth by spring. Needless to say I'm positive they're lying. How do I know? Well, A> their lips are moving, but more than that, B> I know it is their intent to destroy the economy. They obviously can't come out and tell you this, so be assured there will be job growth by spring. That's about the time I'll have shed every pound I've accumulated since high school.

Notice below I've highlighted a statement by economic strategist at Miller Tabak, who says that fewer people are losing their jobs but nobody is hiring. Is this the shiesty mathematics used to determine the unemployment rate that we know is underrepresented by nearly half? Is this how tens of thousands of Americans lose their jobs yet the "unemployment rate" drops from 10.2% to 10.0%? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Be sure to catch the unemployment display by month and by county at the bottom of this post. Very sobering.

Associated Press -

A record 20 million-plus people collected unemployment benefits at some point in 2009, a year that ended with the jobless rate at 10 percent.

As the pace of layoffs slows, the number of new applicants visiting unemployment offices has been on the decline in recent months. But limited hiring means the ranks of the long-term unemployed continues to grow, with more than 5.8 million people out of work for more than six months.

The number of new claims for jobless benefits dropped last week to 432,000, the Labor Department said Thursday, down sharply from its late March peak of 674,000. The decline signals that the economy could begin adding a small number of jobs in January, several economists said.

Still, hiring is unlikely to be strong enough to quickly bring down the unemployment rate, which fell from 10.2 percent in October to 10 percent in November. December's rate will be announced Jan. 8.

Companies will remain cautious about adding staff until they are confident the economic recovery is sustainable - something they remain unsure about as consumers and businesses keep a lid on spending, and as the government begins to wind down various stimulus programs.

The Federal Reserve and private economists expect joblessness to stay above 9 percent through the end of 2010.

The slow pace of hiring will force Congress and the Obama administration in 2010 to spend as much as $70 billion to extend jobless aid for the long-term unemployed, or else let benefits - which were extended several times in 2009 - expire for millions of people.

"Fewer people are getting fired, but nobody is finding a job," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak.

Thursday's report illustrates the two different trends: first-time jobless claims are falling as layoffs ease, but the total number of people collecting unemployment checks is still rising.

More than 10.1 million people collected jobless benefits in the week of Dec. 12, the latest data available. That's up by about 200,000 compared with the previous week.

That figure includes 5.3 million people receiving the 26 weeks of aid customarily provided by the states, and 4.8 million people that have shifted to the extended benefit programs enacted by Congress over the past two years and paid for by the federal government. Unemployment insurance averages about $300 per week.

But the extensions are set to expire in February. That could mean as many as 1 million people would run out of unemployment aid in March, according to the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit group.

The total number of people who at one point collected benefits in 2009 - roughly 20.7 million - is also a record. A larger proportion of the unemployed received jobless benefits in the last steep recession in 1981-82, but the work force has grown by about one-third since then.

Fifteen million Americans are out of work, an increase of 3.8 million since the start of 2009. There are six unemployed people, on average, for each available job. And the so-called underemployment rate, counting part-time workers who want full-time jobs and laid-off workers who have given up their job hunt, stands at 17.2 percent.

Budget-strapped state governments will struggle with higher spending on unemployment insurance in 2010. States are required to set aside money in a trust fund to pay jobless benefits, but 25 have already run through their funds and have borrowed $26 billion from the federal government.

The Labor Department has projected that 40 states may need to borrow as much as $90 billion by 2012.

Thirty-five states have already increased the unemployment insurance taxes they levy on employers for 2010, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. Some are also cutting benefits as they try to reduce the size of budget shortfalls that are expected to reach $180 billion in the coming fiscal year.

The drain on federal and state finances could force Congress to consider raising the federal unemployment insurance tax, which is currently 0.8 percent on the first $7,000 of wages, or making other changes.

CIA base attacked in Afghanistan supported airstrikes against al-Qaeda, Taliban

You'll notice the work "civilian" does not appear in this article in reference to the dead CIA agents. The attack was originally spun as an attack on civilians, but no reasonable person can call CIA agents involved in supporting airstrikes "civilians".

WaPo -

The CIA base attacked by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan this week was at the heart of a covert program overseeing strikes by the agency's remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, officials familiar with the installation said Thursday.

The assailant, wearing an explosives belt under his clothes, apparently was allowed to enter the small base after offering to become an informant, according to two former agency officials briefed on the attack. The CIA declined to comment on the circumstances behind the incident, and it was unclear whether the bomber chose the base because of its role in supporting CIA airstrikes against top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders in the region.

The blast early Wednesday evening in the eastern province of Khost killed seven CIA officers and contractors, including the base chief, and seriously wounded six others in what intelligence officials described as a devastating blow to one of the agency's key intelligence hubs for counterterrorism operations. It was the deadliest single day for the agency since eight CIA officers were killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

The CIA continued drone strikes Thursday. A security official in Pakistan confirmed that two militants were killed late in the day in what was described as a missile attack by a Predator drone in Pakistan's autonomous North Waziristan region, across the border from Khost.

The official said the missile destroyed the home of a man believed to be linked to the extremist group Tehrik-e-Taliban. The CIA has consistently declined to acknowledge any participation in the ongoing campaign of airstrikes that killed more than 300 people in the past 12 months.

U.S. intelligence officials vowed that the Wednesday attack would only increase the agency's resolve. "This attack will be avenged through successful, aggressive counterterrorism operations," said one official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The CIA deaths were formally acknowledged by the agency in a statement to employees Thursday by Director Leon E. Panetta, who said the heavy toll was a reminder of the "real danger" that confronts intelligence officers on the fronts of the two wars. CIA operatives in Afghanistan volunteer for the posting and spend a year or more on assignment. Many of the slain -- including the base chief, a mother of three young children -- were seasoned hands in the agency's counterterrorism operations.

"Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism," Panetta said in his message to employees. "We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives -- a safer America." Panetta said military doctors and nurses had saved the lives of gravely wounded officers, and he announced that flags at CIA headquarters in Langley would be flown at half-staff to honor the dead.

As is customary, the CIA declined to identify the victims. Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair did not publicly comment on the deaths, but a spokesman said he sent an internal, classified message expressing his condolences.

President Obama posted a letter to CIA employees honoring those killed, whom he called "part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life."

'Sloppy' screening


U.S. personnel at the site of the attack, Forward Operating Base Chapman, are heavily involved in the selection of al-Qaeda and Taliban targets for drone aircraft strikes, according to two former intelligence officials who have visited the facility. The drones themselves are flown from separate bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because of its location near a hotbed of insurgent activity, the base is also a center for recruiting and debriefing informants, the officials said, and it would not be unusual for local Afghans to be admitted to the facility for questioning.

"There's still a lot to be learned about what happened. All the facts are not in," CIA spokesman George Little said. "The key lesson is that counterterrorism work is dangerous."

A Taliban spokesman asserted responsibility Thursday for the bombing and said the bomber was an Afghan National Army officer who had joined insurgents in attacking the United States. That description could not be confirmed with U.S. military officials. But a U.S. military official in Afghanistan, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Afghan forces are posted at the base.

Forward operating bases in Afghanistan depend on locals for security. But insurgents have frequently infiltrated the ranks of Afghan security forces as well as private firms hired to guard U.S. facilities or to perform more menial tasks. CIA officials on Thursday would not discuss what guard service they had at the base.

Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said that this week's attack once again shows that there "needs to be much better screening of people joining the Afghan security forces. . . . I know from visits in Afghan provinces this is done in a very sloppy way."

The danger of infiltration, he added, could increase as the U.S. military seeks to develop "community defense forces."

Severed communication


Forward Operating Base Chapman is a former Afghan army installation and was used jointly by American and Afghan security forces during their military campaign against the Taliban beginning in 2001. In recent years, the base added an intelligence-gathering function and had a housing compound for U.S. intelligence officers. It was physically separate from the main U.S. military base nearby, Forward Operating Base Salerno.

Senior Afghan civilian officials in Khost said that they knew little about what went on at Chapman and that since Wednesday's attack, they have been unable to reach anyone inside by phone. Afghan interpreters working on the base at the time have since been incommunicado, and those who were on leave that day have not been allowed back inside, according to Khost residents and officials reached by phone.

A spokesman for the Afghan National Army in Kabul denied that the Khost attack was carried out by a member of the army, but the possibility highlights growing concerns in Afghanistan and Pakistan about whether it is possible to sustain the loyalty and unity of their respective armies. The Afghan army, a crucial element in the new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, is young, untested and ethnically diverse. It is being asked to fight fellow Muslims from the dominant Afghan tribe in an unpopular war on behalf of American forces and policies that many Afghans deeply resent.

"This attack shows that the Taliban are getting good cooperation from the locals and that they have better intelligence than the Americans do," said Talat Masood, a Pakistani security analyst and retired general in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. "It also raises the issue that has haunted the Afghan National Army from the beginning -- whether or not it is possible to build a unified army that can overcome ethnic loyalties in support of broader American goals."

NATO Kills at Least Eight Afghan Civilians in Fresh Air Strike

I don't know about you, but I always thought winning hearts and minds went together with slaughtering civilians like peanut butter goes with jelly.

Jason Ditz
Antiwar.com -

The number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan continues to rise. In the second high profile incident this week alone, officials say that NATO killed at least eight Afghan civilians in an overnight air strike in the restive Helmand Province. At least three of them were children.

The attack came near the Helmand capital of Lashkar Gah, when foreign forces called in an air strike after coming under ambush. It is unclear why the house was the target, as the fighters do not appear to have been near the house at the time of the bombing.

NATO has so far declined comment on the Helmand killings, and is still scrambling to explain away the even more high profile Kunar massacre on the other side of the country, in which forces, which NATO now claims were “non-military Americans” killed 10 Afghan civilians, eight of them children.

But virtually the entire British contribution to the war and an increasing number of US troops have been fighting in Helmand, where the Taliban’s power has grown so much that they are distributing travel permits to people coming in and out of Lashkar Gah. As NATO tries to convince the province’s residents accept them over the Taliban, the latest killings will likely do considerable harm to their PR campaign.

Get Naked to Defeat Terrorists

What's next? Full cavity searches?

Becky Akers
Campaign for Liberty -

"We were very lucky this time," quavers Joe Lieberman, the supposedly independent senator from Connecticut dedicated to defeating Israel's enemies with American lives and money. He was speaking of Northwest Airlines' Flight 253 and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt at self-immolation thereon. Joe waved his cowardice proudly, rallying Nervous Nellies to his standard: "[B]ut we may not be so lucky next time, which is why our defenses must be strengthened. . . .why isn't whole body scanning technology that can detect explosives in wider use?"

Well, for starters, because it's completely, indubitably, diametrically unconstitutional. Alas, most Americans, particularly those elected to Congress, shrug at the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of "unreasonable" searches (and searches don't come any more unreasonable than "whole body scanning," during which the Transportation Security Administration's [TSA] screeners photograph you naked, right through your clothes, at airport checkpoints).

Still, the Constitution isn't the only treasure these X-rated X-rays assault. Dignity and modesty also sustain knock-out blows -- and you needn't be a prude to think so. The American Civil Liberties Union is hardly a bastion of bashfulness, yet it denounces whole-body imaging as "a significant -- and for some people humiliating -- assault on the essential dignity of passengers that citizens in a free nation should not have to tolerate." Meanwhile, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) compared such scans "to a 'virtual strip search' for all air travelers . . . The level of detail uncovered [is] akin to a disrobing in public: the images seen by the screeners reveal the outlines of nipples and genitalia."

Yet the TSA insists that this is the price passengers pay for safety in the skies. Politicians and the media have picked up the cry in the wake of the Briefs-Bomber: they, too, babble that we die unless we expose ourselves. Are they right? Or are there other agendas?

The tale of the TSA's whole-body imaging is as sordid as it is cynical. Though the agency pretends these smutty scanners are a recent, revolutionary weapon in the War on Terror, it's actually been trying to push us into them since 2002. The story offers a case-study in the power-lust and dishonesty that typify the not only the TSA but government in general.

The TSA employs two technologies that photograph through clothing. One is millimeter-wave imaging; proponents (which is to say the TSA and the manufacturers) insist these non-ionizing waves are totally safe for human tissue. And Marie Curie never dreamed the nifty isotopes she studied would one day kill her, either.

The other technology, backscatter X-rays, are as carcinogenic as they sound. They may be a weaker version of the X-rays your dentist or doctor orders -- the ones for which they cover you with a lead apron and flee the room -- but they are ionizing all the same. Even bureaucrats and politicians ought to know better than to unleash an insult this toxic on us; the Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence and Security advises, "X raying of passengers... has...been out of the question due to the negative health effects.... At beam intensities high enough for rapid imaging of travelers, x rays would significantly increase long-term cancer risk. Fetuses and infants are especially vulnerable.... some health physicists argue that frequent flyers and women who are pregnant but do not yet know it might still receive unacceptable cumulative doses from backscatter systems."

No matter. The TSA seems never to have considered, much less studied, whole-body imaging and its effects on the public's health. In fact, its website ignored the issue until recently, though now it justifies irradiating us by asserting, "We, and all objects around us, generate millimeter wave energy - and we are exposed to it every single day. Backscatter technology uses low level X-ray and a single scan is the equivalent of two minutes of flying on an airplane."

Then the TSA helpfully and hilariously lists "Domestic locations" for "Other Advanced Imaging Technology deployments." These include the "Department of Corrections facility (PA)[,]. . . Montana State Prison[, and the] Utah State Correctional Facility." Now you know why you feel like a prisoner at the airport.

The power whole-body imaging gives jailers over inmates explains why the TSA loves this dangerous and invasive technology as much as passengers loathe it. The TSA has never been about security: screeners routinely miss weapons in tests -- and, as the Briefs-Bomber proved, in real life. Instead, they prey on passengers, robbing and beating them; one man has even died at the TSA's hands. Were our rulers genuinely trying to protect us, they would abolish the agency. But they prize the TSA because it boosts their power -- the raw, physical power of a police state.

Governments throughout history have wanted to search their subjects -- and they've usually done so with impunity. Searches flex the State's muscle in a few ways. First, they uncover things governments forbid mere peasants to own, whether those things are weapons that could be turned against rulers; pamphlets urging rebellion, Bibles, the Koran or George Orwell's Animal Farm; drugs, homemade alcohol on which no tax has been paid, or imports that undersell protected domestic industries. Other contraband simply offends official whims: the American EPA frowns on certain fuels while chewing gum enrages Singapore's dictators. Being able to search anyone at any time allows a government to find and confiscate whatever it doesn't like while punishing those who dare defy it.

The State reaps another enormous benefit: the humiliation of a search horrifies so deeply that folks seldom protest anything authorities do. Instead, they cower. They try never to draw attention or stand out from the crowd. Above all, they do nothing to invite retaliation from officials. Fear keeps them compliant and accepting regardless of the other abuses their government dishes out. Exhibit A: the downcast eyes and subservience to screeners' orders, however ridiculous or immoral, in checkpoint lines.

No wonder the TSA has ceaselessly tried to foist whole-body imagining on us. From the start, it yearned to scan every passenger on every flight (and ultimately, anyone who ventures into public, judging from its hopes of expanding to mass transit). Nor has it quailed at fibbing, and fulsomely, to achieve that goal. It was barely up and running before it began its campaign at Orlando International Airport. That was within months of 9/11, but even with catastrophe fresh in their minds, and despite the TSA's grotesque "choice" ("either we photograph you naked, or we'll grope you in a full pat-down"), passengers balked at flashing their flesh for government's agents.

So the TSA lied. It denied its ambitions to scan all passengers on all flights; rather, each time it installed the technology at another airport, it demurred that it was only a test.

It also denies that the scans are graphic, instead claiming that "the images are cartoonlike sketches that show only outlines of each passenger . . .. 'There's a privacy-security balance,' spokeswoman Ellen Howe said. 'We can see what we need to see without seeing what we don't need to see.'"

The agency scoffs at worries that screeners would stockpile scans showing what they don't need to see. According to spokesperson after spokesperson, images "are never stored" or "saved." No less a charlatan than Edmund "Kip" Hawley, then the TSA's boss, declared, "Privacy is ensured through the anonymity of the image: it will never be stored, transmitted or printed, and it will be deleted immediately once viewed." Amy Kudwa, yet another spokesperson, went him one better: not only "won't" screeners save scans, they "cannot": "The machines 'have zero storage capability, so the images cannot be stored, transmitted or printed. . .'"

Unfortunately for Amy, manufacturers brag about their machines' storage as a selling point. (Or did. Rapiscan Systems lists "FAQ's" on its website. Number 10 is, "Can the Secure 1000 images be saved?" Indeed, they can -- easily: "If saving images is enabled then the images acquired with the system can be saved on the system's hard disk or transferred to floppy disk for training and legal documentation. The stored images can be recalled and viewed on the system monitor or on any IBM compatible personal computer with color graphics." Intriguingly, though "FAQ #10" still appears in the list of questions, the answer no longer does -- at the TSA's request?)

Kip's claim that screeners won't save images is as mendacious as Amy's that they can't. Though the TSA's website now promises that "all machines are delivered to airports with [the store, print, transmit or save] functions disabled," who's to say someone somewhere won't figure out how to override that? The website also claims screeners "are not permitted to take cameras, cell phones or photo-enabled devices into the resolution room" -- just as they're "not permitted" to actually strip-search women in stairwells. Yet they did so at Washington's Reagan National Airport in 2004 while supervisors cheered them on.

Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU is far more realistic than Kip and Co. "As this technology becomes commonplace, you're going to start seeing those images all over the Internet." They'll "have high commercial value" -- especially "when a celebrity like George Clooney or someone with an unusual or 'freakish' body goes through the system." And why not? Manufacturers shouldn't be the only ones to profit from our nudity.

The TSA also maintains that we aren't really naked if its voyeurs can't clearly see our faces: "millimeter wave technology blurs all facial features and backscatter has an algorithm applied to the entire image." We're supposed to drop our inhibitions because "The officer who assists the passenger [sic for 'orders him into the scanner'] never sees the image the technology produces," while "The officer who views the image is remotely located, in a secure resolution room and never sees the passenger." In the best Orwellian tradition, the TSA assures us that this "further protect[s] passenger privacy" even as it strips us naked.

Finally, the TSA played its trump. It posed a false dichotomy that the corporate media obligingly parroted: screeners will either grope us or photograph us naked. This trap continues snaring too many passengers. Yeah, they say, they'd rather be ogled than molested. But there's a third option: abolish the TSA.

The agency's deception and doublespeak failed to fool passengers into performing a strip-tease. And so, in 2007, the TSA rolled its obscene contraptions into a handful of airports nationwide despite the opposition. This time, it stayed mum rather than boasting about how its new toy vanquishes terrorists by photographing our bare bodies. In fact, it didn't even post signs at checkpoints explaining the gizmos and their capabilities, and the only warning on its website was misleadingly mild: "Millimeter wave detects weapons, explosives and other threat items concealed under layers of clothing without any physical contact. It is a promising alternative to the physical pat-down." Naturally, unwitting passengers "preferred advanced imaging technology. In fact, over 98 percent of passengers who encounter this technology during TSA pilots prefer it over other screening options [sic for "pat-downs"]." That's testimony to our hatred of the TSA's groping, not endorsement of its virtual strip-search.

By April 2009, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) had famously decided that "Nobody needs to see my wife and kids naked to secure an airplane." His bill restricting the TSA's use of whole-body imaging to "secondary screening," i.e., only those passengers the TSA has "selected" for "additional screening," had passed the House and awaited the Senate's vote. But wait: "experts" swear whole-body imaging would have caught the Briefs-Bomber! And so Chaffetz sighed, "You know [the legislation] passed in the House with overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle, but you know I think the Senate will be very reluctant. And I understand why."

Don't we all. So the TSA will capitalize on its incompetence at stopping the Briefs-Bomber by fulfilling one of its most cherished dreams: humiliating all passengers on all flights.

It's almost too convenient.

No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds

Keep in mind that when I post these stories I'm not necessarily endorsing their findings. The main point is this: the science is not settled. There is no consensus. And we will not be driven off a cliff in order to save the planet from something that very likely does not exist.

Science Daily -

Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.

Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.

To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.

In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell: 'I was visited by the FBI'

I'm watching for establishment demonization, probably led by Hannity and Beck, of Kurt Haskell, who witnessed the whole staged event played out between Amsterdam and Detroit. Government malfeasance in staged terror false flag black ops must be covered up at all costs, lest people start wondering if what we're saying about 9-11 might actually be true. It was all a big bureaucratic SNAFU, you got that? Good!

Now the narrative is they had too much intel on "the Nigerian", so much in fact that they became confused. It's kind of like looking at the sun and having the pain confuse you to the fact that the sun is too intense to look at, so you keep looking at it anyway, until your retinas burn out. And they're dumbfounded that this known terrorist was given a visa, even though he had no visa, and was escorted past security in fact with absolutely no ID or documentation of any kind. This sort of thing happens all the time - known terrorists being escorted past security with no passport on an international flight. Don't you question it! It was Obama's fault. It was liberals' fault. It's Muslims' fault. It's all the red tape that still exists in our intelligence. It was Mickey Mouse. Anyone except the real perpetrators, who obviously staged this stunt to frighten the sheep into demanding we bomb another country and surrender more liberties.

MLive.com -

Following up on a visit from FBI officials about an eyewitness account first described to MLive.com, Michigan attorney Kurt Haskell described the visit in comment sections across MLive on Wednesday.

Haskell and his wife, Lori, were aboard Flight 253 when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to destroy the plane. They say another man tried to help Abdulmutallab board the plane in Amsterdam.

Haskell had two detailed posts in two different stories. Here is Part One, originally posted here (Nothing below in the indent has been changed. Only links have been added.):


Today is the second worst day of my life after 12-25-09. Today is the day that I realized that my own country is lying to me and all of my fellow Americans. Let me explain.

Ever since I got off of Flight 253 I have been repeating what I saw in US Customs. Specifically, 1 hour after we left the plane, bomb sniffing dogs arrived. Up to this point, all of the passengers on Flight 253 stood in a small area in an evacuated luggage claim area of an airport terminal. During this time period, all of the passengers had their carry on bags with them. When the bomb sniffing dogs arrived, 1 dog found something in a carry on bag of a 30 ish Indian man. This is not the so called "Sharp Dressed" man. I will refer to this man as "The man in orange". The man in orange, who stood some 20ft away from me the entire time until he was taken away, was immediately taken away to be searched and interrogated in a nearby room. At this time he was not handcuffed. When he emerged from the room, he was then handcuffed and taken away. At this time an FBI agent came up to the rest of the passengers and said the following (approximate quote) "You all are being moved to another area because this area is not safe. I am sure many of you saw what just happened (Referring to the man in orange) and are smart enough to read between the lines and figure it out." We were then marched out of the baggage claim area and into a long hallway. This entire time period and until we left customs, no person that wasn't a law enforcement personnel or a passenger on our flight was allowed anywhere on our floor of the terminal (or possibly the entire terminal) The FBI was so concerned during this time, that we were not allowed to use the bathroom unless we went alone with an FBI agent, we were not allowed to eat or drink, or text or call anyone. I have been repeating this same story over the last 5 days. The FBI has, since we landed, insisted that only one man was arrested for the airliner attack (contradicting my account). However, several of my fellow passengers have come over the past few days, backed up my claim, and put pressure on FBI/Customs to tell the truth. Early today, I heard from two different reporters that a federal agency (FBI or Customs) was now admitting that another man has been held (and will be held indefinitely) since our flight landed for "immigration reasons." Notice that this man was "being held" and not "arrested", which was a cute semantic ploy by the FBI to stretch the truth and not lie.

Just a question, could that mean that the man in orange had no passport?

However, a few hours later, Customs changed its story again. This time, Mr. Ron Smith of Customs, says the man that was detained "had been taken into custody, but today tells the news the person was a passenger on a different flight." Mr. Ron Smith, you are playing the American public for a fool. Lets take a look at how plausible this story is (After you've already changed it twice). For the story to be true, you have to believe, that:

1. FBI/Customs let passengers from another flight co-mingle with the passengers of flight 253 while the most important investigation in 8 years was pending. I have already stated that not one person who wasn't a passenger or law enforcement personnal was in our area the entire time we were detained by Customs.
2. FBI/Customs while detaining the flight 253 passengers in perhaps the most important investigation since the last terrorist attack, and despite not letting any flight 253 passenger drink, eat, make a call, or use the bathroom, let those of other flights trample through the area and possibly contaminate evidence.
3. You have to believe the above (1 and 2) despite the fact that no flights during this time allowed passengers to exit off of the planes at all and were detained on the runway during at least the first hour of our detention period.
4. You have to believe that the man that stood 20 feet from me since we entered customs came from a mysterious plane that never landed, let its passengers off the plane and let this man sneak into our passenger group despite having extremely tight security at this time (i.e. no drinking even).
5. FBI/Customs was hauling mysterious passengers from other flights through the area we were being held to possibly comtaminate evidence and allow discussions with suspects on Flight 253 or to possibly allow the exchange of bombs, weapons or other devices between the mysterious passengers from other flights and those on flight 253.

Seriously Mr. Ron Smith, how stupid do you think the American public is?

Mr. Ron Smith's third version of the story is an absolute inplausible joke. I encourage you, Mr. Ron Smith, to debate me anytime, anywhere, and anyplace in public to let the American people see who is credible and who is not.

I ask, isn't this the more plausible story:

1. Customs/FBI realized that they screwed up and don't want to admit that they left flight 253 passengers on a flight with a live bomb on the runway for 20 minutes.
2. Customs/FBI realized that they screwed up and don't want to admit that they left flight 253 passengers in customs for 1 hour with a live bomb in a carry on bag.
3. Customs/FBI realize that the man in orange points to a greater involvement then the lone wolf theory that they have been promoting.

Mr. Ron Smith I encourage you to come out of your cubicle and come up with a more plausible version number 4 of your story.

Haskell continued his comment in a different post on MLive.

For the last five days I have been reporting my story of the so called "sharp dressed man." For those of you who haven't read my account, it involves a sharp dressed "Indian man" attempting to talk a ticket agent into letting a supposed "Sudanese refugee" (The terrorist) onto flight 253 without a passport. I have never had any idea how it played out except to note that the so called "Sudanese reefugee" later boarded my flight and attempted to blow it up and kill me. At no time did my story involve, or even find important whether the terrorist actually had a passport. The importance of my story was and always will be, the attempt with an accomplice (apparently succesful) of a terrorist with all sorts of prior terrorist warning signs to skirt the normal passport boarding procedures in Amsterdam. By the way, Amsterdam security did come out the other day and admit that the terrorist did not have to "Go through normal passport checking procedures".

Amsterdam security, please define to the American public "Normal passport boarding procedures".

You see the FBI would have the American public believe that what was important was whether the terrorist in fact had a passport.

Seriously think about this people. You have a suicide bomber who had recently been to Yemen to but a bomb, whose father had reported him as a terrorist, who supposedly was on some kind of U.S. terror watchlist, and most likely knew the U.S. was aware of these red flags. Yet, he didn't go through "Normal passport checking procedures." What does that mean? Maybe that he flashed a passport to some sort of sympathetic security manager in a backroom to avoid a closer look at the terrorist's "red flags"? What is important is that the terrorist avoided using normal passport checking procedures (apparently successfully) in order to avoid a closer look into his red flags. Who cares if he had a passport. The important thing is that he didn't want to show it and somehow avoided a closer inspection and "normal passport checking procedures." Each passport comes with a bar code on it that can be scanned to provide a wealth of information about the individual. I would bet that the passport checking procedures for the terrorist did not include a bar code scan of his passport (which could have revealed damning information about the terrorist).

Please note that there is a very easy way to verify the veracity of my prior "sharp dressed man" account. Dutch police have admitted that they have reviewed the video of the "sharp dressed man" that I referenced. Note that it has not been released anywhere, You see, if my eye witness account is false, it could easily be proven by releasing the video. However, the proof of my eyewitness account would also be verified if I am telling the truth and I am. There is a reason we have only heard of the video and not seen it. dutch authorities, "RELEASE THE VIDEO!" This is the most important video in 8 years and may be all of two minutes long. Show the entire video and "DO NOT EDIT IT"! The American public deserves its own chance to attempt to identify the "sharp dressed man". I have no doubt that if the video indicated that my account was wrong, that the video would have already swept over the entire world wide web.

Instead of the video, we get a statment that the video has been viewed and that the terrorist had a passport. Each of these statements made by the FBI is a self serving play on semantics and each misses the importance of my prior "sharp dressed man" account. The importance being that the man "Tried to board the plane with an accomplice and without a passort". The other significance is that only the airport security video can verify my eyewitness account and that it is not being released.

Who has the agenda here and who doesn't? Think about that for a minute.

Yemen: Visa of Nigerian would-be-bomber expired

More evidence that this was staged, and lends credibility to the testimony of Kurt Haskell, and makes a mockery of all the talking heads trying to distract people by blaming the intelligence community for allowing this person to have a visa: he didn't have a visa. There's only one way this could've happened: the government was an accomplice. Yet like the 7/7 London Tube "bombers", it's quite possible this person didn't even know he was party to a crime.

Breitbart -

The Nigerian suspected in the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner had stayed on in Yemen illegally after his visa expired three months ago and should have been stopped by authorities from leaving the country, Yemeni security officials said Thursday.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab spent time in Yemen on two occasions before the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight.


Yemeni officials said Abdulmutallab's student visa for Yemen, where he studied Arabic at a local language institute, was valid from Aug. 4 to Sept. 21.

After his visa expired, the 23-year-old stayed on in Yemen until the first week in December, they said, but his whereabouts in the country was unknown. The officials said Abdulmutallab left Yemen on Dec. 7 on a flight to Ethiopia and then continued on a few days later to Ghana. In Ghana, he is believed to have purchased the ticket for the flight from Lagos to Detroit that he is accused of trying to bring down.

They added that Yemen's airport authorities and passport control should have prevented Abdulmutallab from departing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case with the media, pending the outcome of an investigation.

The probe will look into why the Nigerian wasn't detained, questioned and prohibited from leaving the country, they said.

Administrators at the school where Abdulmutallab studied believed he had left the country in September, they said.

"We arranged a taxi to take him to the airport on Sept. 21 and we said goodbye," school director Muhammad al-Anisi told The Associated Press. "Our responsibility toward him ended that day."

Al-Anisi said no one from the airport security or immigration had subsequently contacted the school to ask about the student's whereabouts.

Yemen has confirmed Abdulmutallab spent two periods in Yemen, from 2004-2005 and from August to December of this year. He was enrolled at the school during both periods to study Arabic.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of Osama bin Laden's group, claimed it was behind the attempt to bomb the Northwest airliner.

Tea Party activists bitter about GOP ‘hijacking’ movement

The first tea parties (since the original of course) were thrown by the 9-11 truth movement and Ron Paul supporters. So yeah, you can imagine these people are disgusted that the whole movement has been hijacked by a bunch of clueless, Fox News worshiping neocons who haven't the slightest idea what real liberty is.

Raw Story -

Revelations about the connections between a Republican lobbying firm with a long history of astroturfing and one of the two main factions of "Tea Party" protesters are raising fresh concerns that the GOP has successfully hijacked the right-wing Tea Party movement.

A Libertarian political consultant interviewed by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow agrees that in many places the tea partiers' struggle against being coopted is already "a lost cause."

"In some places it's being fought out," Stephen Gordon told Maddow on Tuesday. "In some places it's always been a lost cause. ... People are trying to do the right thing, but GOP organizations and campaigns are effectively taking over the Tea Party movement in some places in the country."

The involvement of the Republican lobbying firm of Russo, Marsh, and Associates with the group known as the Tea Party Express has been apparent for some time, but Talking Points Memo backed up those suspicions on Tuesday with hard numbers from FEC filings. The filings show that between July and November of this year, the PAC behind the Tea Party Express spent almost two-thirds of its $1.33 million budget on payments to Russo, Marsh or people connected with it.

As Raw Story reported last month, the firm's apparent goal is to channel populist Tea Party discontent into Republican electoral victories in 2010 and 2012. Members of the more genuinely grassroots Tea Party Patriots have been expressing their anger over this for months, and Talking Points Memo has now obtained an email from one Patriot asking, "What would the true grassroots people think if they knew their money is being spent in this manner?"

Additional analysis of the FEC reports by Mother Jones has turned up a case of the PAC spending $1600 on dinner for six at a fancy Sacramento restaurant.

"Tea Party Patriots and Tea Party Express have been clashing for months over which group truly represents the movement," the article notes. "A flashpoint came this fall when a member of the Tea Party Patriots' board, Amy Kremer, switched sides and joined Tea Party Express, allegedly taking the Patriots' extensive email database with her and locking the rest of the board out of the TPP website. In November, this led the Patriots to go to court to get an injunction against her to reclaim ownership of the group's electronic resources. The fight hasn't helped the Patriots' view of their tea party rivals."

Gordon explained to Maddow that the Tea Party movement was vulnerable to takeover at the start, because "many of these people had no political experience ... so when somebody comes in and offers to help organize and help them with these things, yeah, that's great."

"But what these Republican consultants want," Gordon concluded, "they want those email lists, they want the dollars, they want to control the organization so that they can exploit it for their political purposes. ... Unfortunately, the political purposes of most establishment Republicans is not the same as a grassroots conservative Tea Party person."

This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Dec. 29, 2009.



Download video via RawReplay.com

Detroit flight plot may prove boon for security firms

Let me just say that you're a disgrace as a human being if you allow them to herd you and/or your children into one of these things.

Raw Story -

NEW YORK — The failed attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit flight last week could prove a bonanza for airport security firms, especially the makers of full-body scanners.

"It might put some pressure to buy more full-body scanners... The US Congress will probably do something to increase the funding," Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant, told AFP.

The high-tech body scanners can detect hidden objects, such as explosives, even when they are concealed by clothing, unlike the metal detectors passengers walk through in airports worldwide to access flight gates.

The Netherlands, Britain and Nigeria have announced plans to rapidly deploy the use of full-body scanners at their airports.

In the United States, the scanners are already in use at 19 airports, a practice that could become widespread.

Drone Porn: The Newest YouTube Hit

Keith Tomson
HuffPo -

Recently, a group of high-level Al Qaeda members convened in a secret location in the Hindu Kush mountains in central Afghanistan.

"It's okay to talk," one of them said. "There are no Americans within a hundred miles."

Then...

BLAMMO.

A Hellfire missile, fired from a Predator drone, struck.

Remotely operated by pilots on the ground, Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) boast a range of 454 miles and the ability to hover over a target for 40 hours. Originally developed by the U.S. Department of Defense in the mid-1990s for reconnaissance, Predators were fitted with a pair of Hellfire missiles after an American general remarked, "I can see the tank. Now I'd like to see it blown up."

The newer, bigger Reaper UAVs boast a 3,682-mile range and a relative arsenal, including Hellfires, Sidewinder missiles and 500-pound laser guided bombs -- a potent enough package that the Air Force is now training more pilots to fly aircraft from ground operations centers than from cockpits.

In researching remotely piloted aircraft, I visited the stretch of Southern Nevada desert that has become to UAVs what Silicon Valley is to the device on which you're reading this column. In 2007, Creech Air Force Base was made the home of the 432d Air Expeditionary Wing, the first Air Force wing dedicated to unmanned aircraft systems. Its daily missions in Afghanistan and Iraq could provide the military version of a SportsCenter highlight reel.

With an aim of promoting UAVs domestically as well as "enlightening" our enemies, the Defense Department recently began placing the Predator and Reaper mission clips on YouTube. Ranging from relatively detached wide shots of bombings taken by onboard cameras to startlingly graphic close-ups, the so-called "drone porn" has been a smash hit, as it were, tallying over 10 million views.

Perhaps best explaining its popularity are the thousands of YouTube commenters. Some marvel at the new technology and discuss the resulting paradigm shift in warfare. Some raise questions, including whether it's principled, dignified or otherwise in America's best interest to post drone prone in the first place. Most comments are along the lines of, "Hell yeah HOOOAH BABY!"

Below are three of the Defense Department's most popular videos on YouTube (titles theirs) as well as comparatively tranquil footage of a missile blowing up a tank. The "operational details" links go to the original YouTube pages, featuring more information and comments.

***Editor's note: I'm not promoting this. If you want to see them follow the link at the top of the page. It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.***