Morgan Stanley predicts economic collapse worse than depression

it’s a good think the assholes that brought you this can buy shares in our privatised prisons so they can wring some more profit out of us. Especially if they start imprisoning the tax dodgers and, the dole bludgers, the homeless and the unemployed for not being able to pay their debt.

But don’t worry if you have nothing to hide and if you do as you’re told and if you keep your lawn shorn at exactly 2 cm, you should be sweet. Oh, and if you are white, middle class and hard working to make something of yourself of course.

The worst thing really you can do is to start thinking for yourself. That would be a really bad idea. OK! You just swallow our crap go to sleep and we’ll see you right.

Morgan Stanley’s UK equity strategist Graham Secker painted a bleak economic picture for the United Kingdom. In his morning forecast, Mr. Secker warned that UK profits could fall by 60% in the current downturn – a worse performance than the great depression of the 1930s.

“We now forecast UK profits [will] fall by 60% across 2008 and 2009. While this sounds a rather draconian and hyperbolic downgrade, we believe it is realistic and incorporates the big losses that have come to light in the banking sector as well as a sharp drop in commodity prices (oil was $100 last September).

“Our forecasts assume that the banks sector makes around a £20bn loss in 2008 and 2009 and that the insurance sector makes no profit in 2008. The profile is much less severe if we strip out the banks – for example, our model suggests profits for the market ex-financials will fall 24% in 2009 post 15% growth in 2008.

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Prisoners for profit: Most jails tipped to get private managers

Three strikes, the compulsory cover up of Gang patches and the privatisation of Prisons that will see the dehumanisation of human beings into objects of profit. Well down New Zealand you have entered int0 the big time. Now all we have to do is get all them Criminals and we’ll end up with more prisoners per capita then America. Now that is something to be really proud of. I wonder if Lord Ascroft and John key will have shares in those prison companies.

EXCLUSIVE: The Cabinet is today expected to give a big tick to legislation that could see most, if not all, of the country’s prisons – rather than just newly built ones – run by private companies.

Ministers’ approval of the legislation will up the pressure on the problem-plagued Corrections Department to lift its game – presuming the Government allows the department to tender for management contracts in the first place.

The Cabinet’s decision comes on the same day as State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie is due to present his report assessing whether Corrections chief executive Barry Matthews is accountable for departmental failings in its management of parole.

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Titles of Dames, Knights to be restored – Key [Possible new Knights and Dames]

Dear Kiwi’s it is an honour to announce that we are once again a colony to the English crown. If you had any illussions about ever becoming an independent Nation or if you ever had the illussion that you where let it be known that you where sadly misguided.

To the Maori. Go fuck yourself because this is where the old English white supremasist old boy’s net work takes over again. To the workers of this country. Be prepared to pay tax until your dying day and those of your children and children’s children too because that is what we old boys do. We plunder and we destroy and when we speculate we expect you, the plebs , to bail us out.

Oh, but if you crawl up our but’s enough you get to call yourself Lord or Lady. Have  a nice day.

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The titles of Dames and Knights are to be restored to the New Zealand honours system, Prime Minister John Key announced today.

In 2000 the then Labour government dropped titles from the top levels of the honours system, but from June they will be restored to them both – Knight and Dame Grand Companion (GNZM) and Knight and Dame Companion (KNZM/DNZM).

These titles will replace the appointment of Principal and Distinguished Companion of the order which were instituted in May 2000.

Some complained that the decision was part of the move to republicanism and others were unhappy that it made difficult for people to understand what titles had been awarded.

Mr Key said it was his pleasure to return to titles that would recognise service given to New Zealand the queen of England.

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Thousands Gather To Protest New York Budget Cuts

Funny how this doesn’t make the MSM. 50.000 is a lot of people to demonstrate in even a city like New York and it’s in keeping with the predictions of Michael Celente, namely tax revolts. Celente predicts these revolt to start in 2012 but with the social unrest in Europe rising are we seeing the first tax related demonstrations in the US?

Julie Farby – AHN Reporter

New York, NY (AHN) – Thousands of New Yorkers marched on City Hall on Friday to protest the proposed budget cuts in a self-described “Rally For New York.”

The rally of labor unions, community groups, and families outside of City Hall brought more than 50,000 people to the streets to speak out against Gov. David Paterson’s funding cuts.

In an attempt to close the $15 billion state budget deficit, Paterson has proposed cuts across the board, including $2.5 billion in education, $3.2 billion in health care and billions more in cuts to vital programs such as senior services, disability services, housing assistance and crisis intervention programs.

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An Unholy Alliance

Watch this 1996 documentary about the CIA and drug connection.

Record 31.8 million on food stamps

Those Americans and 30 million unemployed Chinese will not be buying NZ dairy or beef in a hurry and with 1 US home owner (and his family) losing his home every 13 seconds I don’t see that change any time soon.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A record 31.8 million Americans received food stamps at the latest count, an increase of 700,000 people in one month with the United States in recession, government figures showed Thursday.

Food stamps, which help poor people buy groceries, are the major U.S. anti-hunger program, forecast to cost at least $51 billion in this fiscal year ending Sept. 30, up $10 billion from fiscal 2008.

“A weakened economy means that many more individuals are turning to SNAP/food stamps,” said the Food Research and Action Center. Last summer food stamps were renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

0:00 /04:12Living on food stampsvidConfig.push({videoArray: ["/video/news/2009/03/03/news.callebs.030309.cnnmoney.json"], collapsed:true});

The average food stamp benefit is $115 a month for individuals and $255 a month per household.

Enrollment for food stamps in December was up 2.2% from the previous month with increases in all but three states. Ohio had the largest increase among large states, up 3.4%, to 1.26 million people. Texas had the largest enrollment, 3.05 million, up 1.8%.

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Pictured: The credit crunch tent city which has returned to haunt America

While John Roughan tells us that there is no crisis in New Zealand while the rest of the world is in total economic collapse collapse and that all we have to do to sail past the systemic collapse that is decimating every economy New Zealand exports to is to firmly believe that it is not going to happen to us let’s have a look see what is the reality on the ground in the US for thousands of people.

And just in case you think this is accidental it is happening in Nashville, Santa Barbara, Hillsborough, Louisville, Camden, Reno, people are trying to escape to Canada and that is just a small selection of disaster news you won’t find in the MSM of New Zealand.

To think that New Zealand is going to escape e severe depression is just wishful thinking. If nobody can afford our luxury commodities such as beef, pine and dairy products we are up shit creek without a peddle. No amount of positive thinking is going to change that.

A century and a half ago it was at the centre of the Californian gold rush, with hopeful prospectors pitching their tents along the banks of the American River.

Today, tents are once again springing up in the city of Sacramento. But this time it is for people with no hope and no prospects.

With America’s economy in freefall and its housing market in crisis, California’s state capital has become home to a tented city for the dispossessed.

Rich and poor: The tents and other makeshift homes have sprung up in the shadow of Sacramento’s skyscrapers

Shanty town: The tent city is already home to dozens of people, many left without jobs because of the credit crunch

Those who have lost their jobs and homes and have nowhere else to go are constructing makeshift shelters on the site, which covers several acres.

As many as 50 people a week are turning up and the authorities estimate that the tent city is now home to more than 1,200 people.

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EPMU releases video about the recession

The union telling it like it is. Except of course nobody wants to connect John Key to the whole disaster. But still spread it around.

Politicians for 911 truth

It is with great pride that I link to the announcement of 20 courageous politicians that they are in favour of a new and independent investigation of the events of 911.

I have had the honour of meeting with both Dr. Bowman and Yukihisa Fujita last year during the March 911 truth conference and I found them both to be of great intelligence and integrity.

I wish all the members of this courageous group success an Godspeed in their quest for the truth and may they inspire our closet 911 truther politicians to come out and say it proud: 911 was an inside job.

PETITION

WHEREAS the Bush-Cheney administration’s public interpretation of the 9/11 attacks has had radical, largely negative, consequences for the United States of America and the world as a whole; and

WHEREAS the official investigations of these attacks that have been carried out thus far were led by individuals closely aligned with, or even employed by, the Bush-Cheney administration; and

WHEREAS the conclusions of these investigations differ radically from those that have been reached by independent researchers with various kinds of professional expertise; and

WHEREAS organizations of such researchers—including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, and Veterans for 9/11 Truth—have called for a new, truly independent, investigation; and

WHEREAS we believe it is long past time for political leaders to heed these calls;

THEREFORE we, the undersigned members of Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, ask President Barack Obama to authorize a new, truly independent, investigation to determine what happened on 9/11.

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20 Political Leaders have already signed the petition

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Berit Ås, former member of Parliament, Norway (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Dr. Robert M. Bowman, former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development for the U.S. Air Force in the Ford and Carter administrations. (Charter Member of PL911Truth) Click here to see statement.

Andreas von Bülow, former State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Defense, West Germany; former Minister of Research and Technology; former member of the German Parliament. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Giulietto Chiesa, Italian member of the European Parliament; vice chairman, Committee on International Trade; member, Committee on Security and Defense. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Wolfram Elsner, PhD, former head of the Planning Division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the State of Bremen and Director of the Bremen State Economic Research Institute, and Bremen State Official for Industrial Defense Conversion, 1989 – 2001. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Constance Fogal, Canadian Action Party Leader, 2004-2008. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Yukihisa Fujita, member of the House of Councilors, National Diet of Japan; Chairman, Special Committee on North Korean Abduction Issue and Related Matters; former member of the House of Representatives. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Senator Mike Gravel, former United States Senator, 1969 – 1981. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Dan Hamburg, former Californian member of the US House of Representatives; 1998 Green Party candidate for Governor of California. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Joel S. Hirschhorn, Senior Staff Member, Congressional Office of Technology Assessment 1978-1990. (Charter Member of PL911Truth) Click here to see statement.

Barbara Honegger, former White House Policy Analyst and Special Assistant to the Assistant to President Ronald Reagan (1981 – 1983). (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Tadashi Inuzuka, member of the House of Councilors, National Diet of Japan. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Karen S. Johnson, former member of the Senate of the State of Arizona, where she was chair of the Family Services Committee. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Paul Lannoye, former Belgian member of the European Parliament, where he was vice chair of the Committee on Energy, Research, and Technology. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Cynthia McKinney, former Georgian member of the US House of Representatives, where she was a member of the Armed Services Committee and the International Relations Committee. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Michael Meacher, Minister of the British Parliament; former Minister of the Environment; former Undersecretary for Industry. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Dr. Andrew J. Moulden, Leader of the Canadian Action Party. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Val Scott, founding member of Canada’s New Democratic Party; former Trustee and Vice Chairman of North York Board of Education, Ontario, Canada. (Charter Member of PL911Truth) Click here to see statement.

Gianni Vattimo, Member of European Parliament, 1999 – 2004 (Italy). Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Jesse Ventura, former Governor of Minnesota. (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Sign the petition

Europe: Prison of Nations

Sarkozy’s ‘incoherence’ is a sign of the euro-impasse.

Riots swept across Eastern Europe this winter. In Latvia 100 were arrested when they attacked the Finance Ministry with cobblestones from the quaintly restored tourist area protesting unemployment, budget and wage cuts. In Lithuania, riot police fired rubber-bullets and tear gas on a trade union march. A demonstration in the Bulgarian capital turned violent leading to the arrest of 150 protesters. These three states are all members of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM2), the euro’s pre-detention cell. They must join.

The IMF calls for devaluation of the currencies of these “economies”, which are not really economies at all after their deindustrialisation over the past two decades, but the euro-agreements prevent this. And even if they could do the IMF number, their huge mortgage debts contracted in euros and Swiss francs over the past decade would still be unrepayable.

Latvia’s government was trying to comply with IMF-imposed measures to qualify for an emergency loan, much like Argentina in 2001, when brutal cuts to education and social programmes sparked a general strike and radicalised the entire nation (except, or course, those responsible for the crisis). The riots in Lativa brought the government down and its credit rating was just lowered to junk status.

It’s no better inside euroland. Q: What’s the difference between Ireland and Iceland ? A1: The letter “c”. A2: Six months.

We haven’t even mentioned Greece, which is already considered a failed state, virtually in a state of civil war since last September. And now the very pillars of the European Union are crumbling. In January, hundreds of thousands marched in French cities in the biggest protest in two decades. An ongoing month-long strike in France’s far-flung Guadeloupe is now full-scale urban warfare, with the dead including a trade union leader. The ruling white elite and tourists are at this very moment fleeing in panic. Martinique and Reunion have joined in.

In Britain demos are breaking out across the country protesting unemployment and the bank bailouts. The British National Party shocked the establishment by winning a council seat in Kent, “penetrating” the south of England, and are expecting major gains in the EU elections in June. Spain lost a million jobs in 2008 and the unemployment rate is expected to reach 25 per cent this year. Spain’s (and Ireland’s) so-called wage inflation now requires wage deflation, workers are told. With Spain’s high debt levels, this is impossible. Even if it were possible, wage deflation is a recipe for revolution.

Marches protesting the economic plight of the people are expected to grow and lead to further violence throughout Europe, with Greece as the prequel. Suddenly, the spectre of the end of the EU, certainly the end of the common currency, is being raised. Coined to convince the “free world” of the dangers of Communism, the domino effect is back with a vengeance.

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How Tinkering with Inflation Measurements May Have Led to the Current Financial Crisis

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Mark Twain, (1835 – 1910)

“The Cost of Living [has been] replaced by the Cost of Survival. The old system told you how much you had to increase your income in order to keep buying steak. The new system promised you hamburger, and then dog food, perhaps, after that.” John Williams, private economist

“The consumer price index is being understated by at least 1 percent per year.” Bill Gross, professional investor

“… The development of credit derivatives has contributed to the stability of the banking system by allowing banks, especially the largest, systemically important banks, to measure and manage their credit risks more effectively. In particular, the largest banks have found single-name credit default swaps a highly attractive mechanism for reducing exposure concentrations in their loan books….” Alan Greenspan, Fed Chairman, May 5, 2005

Last February 20th, the U.S. Department Of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U. S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.3 percent during the month of January. Some independent economists, however, think that the real inflation rate is much higher, possibly as high as 7.52 percent. Why is that so?

The CPI is a measure of how much the price level of a basket of representative consumer goods and services, adjusted for predictable seasonal shifts, is supposed to have varied during a month or a year. Such a measure has been provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics since 1919, covering the period between 1913 and today.

For many people, the CPI is less a measure of inflation than an imperfect measure for adjusting cost of living allowances. It is a technique that plays a central role in computing increases in the Cost Of Living Allowances (COLAs) of various money disbursements, incomes and wages. Some incomes, for example, such as Social Security payments and other entitlements, are statutarily adjusted upwards when the CPI goes up, and such adjustments have a direct influence on one’s standard of living.

Economists have long debated the best methods of measuring inflation, especially as it affects the cost of living of various categories of consumers. This is a complex issue that involves statistical methods in calculating price indices, economic principles and notions of social justice. Moreover, not everyone is impacted equally by a rise in the overall level of consumer prices, depending on one’s economic and financial situation. For example, for people living in a city and who are renters, a rise in the price of cars or of houses would not have the same predictable effect on them as it would on folks living in a rural area and who own their own homes. And it is not everyone who can deflect the negative impact of a rise in the price of consumer goods on their standard of living by substituting less costly items.

For the period between 1913 and 1982, the formula for measuring consumer inflation in the U. S. was pretty much straightforward. Government statisticians would periodically collect prices in certain identified areas with which the Bureau of Labor Statistics would then construct price indexes. Over time, surveys of consumer expenditures were conducted and the weight of different goods in the index would be adjusted accordingly to reflect people’s new buying habits.

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Does New Zealand face the fate of Iceland?

New Zealand “is one of the most heavily indebted developed economies, as measured by the net international investment position as a percentage of GDP.” Trinh.

WELLINGTON: The economy is in its worst recession on record, the current account deficit is ballooning, the government faces a sea of red ink and credit ratings firms have the country under the microscope – is New Zealand the sick man of the South Pacific?

Once a darling of foreign investors because of high interest rates, the country appears almost like Iceland, judging from the current account deficits it has accumulated over three decades.

After weathering the Asian economic crisis and drought in 1997 and 1998, the $95 billion New Zealand economy enjoyed its strongest growth since the 1970s, thanks partly to soaring commodity prices and debt-fueled consumer spending.

Now the economy is shrinking as the once-hot housing market has stalled, skyrocketing fuel and food prices have turned consumers cautious and the credit crunch has hit.

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Suspicions grow that attack was ‘inside job’

Oh Oops. I’m sure that is all rubbish. No way would they stage false flag operations to get us into wars and destruction. Human nature simply doesn’t work that way. Our politicians and leaders throughout the ages have always been honest and  open and always without exception had the best interest of us “the people” at heart. We’ll perhaps not Stalin and Mussolini…. and perhaps Pol pot and Mao… come to think of it Nixon wasn’t altogether sound either… but, but everybody else and especially the National party of New Zealand, they are all good guys and the love us and they want what’s best for us.

Watch the CCTV footage here

Dramatic footage showing the alleged perpetrators of Tuesday’s audacious attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team making their getaway was released by a Pakistani news channel last night.

The grainy images, captured by four CCTV cameras minutes after the ambush, show the gunmen strolling calmly through the back streets of Liberty Market just before 9am. In one sequence, three of the men walk down a narrow, deserted street, carrying heavy bags and with weapons slung over their shoulders. They then mount a waiting motorcycle and speed away.

Yesterday, police released “wanted” posters bearing sketches of the suspects. Up to 14 masked gunmen took part in the attack on the Sri Lankan team’s tour bus at the Liberty Square roundabout in the heart of Lahore. They opened fire on the bus, killing a driver and six police officers escorting the Sri Lankans. Six players and two assistant coaches were wounded.

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Sufi Shrine ‘blown up by Taleban’

First the terrorist attack in Mumbai, then the attack on the Cricket team and now a sufi shrine blown up. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that “the Taliban” get’s away with an aweful lot even thoug CIA presence in Pakistan is at an all time high?

Neh, the US government is honest and hardworking and has nothing to do with manipulating us into an all out war with Pakistan. They wouldn’t do that would they?

Suspected Taleban militants in north-west Pakistan have blown up the shrine of a 17th Century Sufi poet of the Pashtun language, police say.

No casualties are reported but the poet Rahman Baba’s grave has been destroyed and the shrine building badly damaged.

Rahman Baba is considered the most widely read and poet in Pashto speaking regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Taleban had warned they would blow up the shrine if women continued to visit it and pay their respects.

Historic popularity

Literary experts say the poet’s popularity is due to his message of tolerance coupled with a powerful expression of love for God in a Sufi way.

The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that his lasting appeal reflects the historic popularity of Sufism in South Asia.

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NZ plugged into secret internet

I want to assure you that New Zealand does nothing in secret, does nothing behind it’s citizens back and that the government does not partake in secret spying organisations and above all they do not conspire.

A leaked American study into military actions in Afghanistan reveals New Zealand is quietly plugged into the world’s most secret internet allowing access to the Pentagon’s battle plans at strategic and tactical level. It’s known as the “Secret Internet Protocol Router Network” or SIPRNET, a sophisticated alternative to the Internet which allows even New Zealand frigates and armoured vehicles access to material seen on general’s desks in Washington, London and Canberra.

New Zealand’s place in the network has been incidentally revealed by whistleblower Wikileaks, which published a Rand Corporation 318 study into intelligence operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Terming it the new “Pentagon Papers” Wikileaks says the study into counter-insurgency is a notable news and policy source for its wealth of candid and revealing interview quotes which are spread throughout the document.

The Pentagon Papers, a study of the US war in Vietnam, were leaked in 1971 and substantially changed the conduct of the war and helped bring down President Richard Nixon.

As well as New Zealand’s SIPRNET place the new study offers insights into praise for Australian and New Zealand intervention in the Solomon Islands and the revelation that one of the best military sources for Arabic speakers is the Fijian Army.

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Israel’s death squads: A soldier’s story

The Israeli military’s policy of targeted killings has been described from the inside for the first time. In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, and in his testimony to an ex-soldiers’ organisation, Breaking the Silence, a former member of an assassination squad has told of his role in a botched ambush that killed two Palestinian bystanders, as well as the two militants targeted.

The operation, which took place a little over eight years ago, at the start of the present intifada, or uprising, left the former sharpshooter with psychological scars. To this day he has not told his parents of his participation in what he called “the first face-to-face assassination of the intifada”.

As the uprising unfolded, targeted assassinations became a regularly used weapon in the armoury of the Israel military, especially in Gaza, where arrests would later become less easy than in the West Bank. The highest-profile were those of Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi in 2005, and of Said Siyam in the most recent offensive. But the targeting of lower-level militants, like the one killed in the operation described by the former soldier, became sufficiently common to attract little comment.

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Motorist pulled over and quizzed… for LAUGHING at the wheel

If this was an exception you might laugh about it because it is too bizarre but it isn’t.

When Gary Sanders was pulled over by police he was sure he had done nothing wrong.

The company director was obeying the speed limit and not driving dangerously.

But to his astonishment he was told he had been stopped for excessive laughing.

Mr Sanders had been talking on a  hands-free kit and was chuckling at what his friend had said.

But the officer who ordered him to stop at the exit to the Mersey Tunnel told him: ‘Laughing while driving a car can be an offence.’

If that had been the end of the matter then Mr Sanders, 47, would probably have laughed the whole thing off.

But he subjected him to a 35-minute grilling, with questions about everything from his ethnic group to details of distinguishing scars on his body.

And despite not being charged with an offence, he still had to waste a further 90 minutes of his time producing his driving licence and other documents at a police station.

Due to the delay Mr Sanders, the managing director of Liverpool-based Spontex Workwear, missed an important business appointment.

He said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when he told me I’d been pulled over for for laughing. I was driving very safely in the Birkenhead Tunnel and took a call from a friend on my hand-free phone.

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Hyper inflation alert: Bank Set To Print Cash To Ease Recession

In Zimbabwe the are now printing ZB$ 1 trillion dollar notes. They buy absolutely nothing. Printing money in a currency system based on scarcity defies every purpose. If the dollar or the pound or the Euro are printed out of thin air then what’s the point of keeping prices down? No, up and up they will go in order for those wanting lot’s of money to get it until even that measure runs out of steam. This is Weimar revisited worldwide.

The Bank of England is expected to announce it will “print money” – and could cut the base rate of interest to a record low.

The Sky News Money Panel has said the policy of “printing money” should be carried out now before the slump gets even worse.

The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee is expected to announce it is giving the go-ahead to quantitative easing to boost the amount of money in circulation.

It is also expected to cut the interest rate by 0.5% to a record low of 0.5%, experts say.

But it is the likely introduction of other stimulus measures that will cause headlines.

Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to approve the printing of around £150bn.

The Bank will create the money to buy Government and corporate bonds through its Asset Purchase Facility (APF).

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‘Accidental’ Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian Flu Virus Virtually Impossible

Czech Papers Question Whether Contaminated Baxter Vaccine Was ‘Attempt to Provoke Pandemic’

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, March 5, 2009

Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.

The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.

“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.

Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 – otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate – were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.

Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by wilful gross criminal negligence.

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Worldwide She-Male Fish Mystery Widens

March 4, 2009 — Around the world, increasing numbers of male fish are developing female traits — growing new sexual organs and sometimes even producing eggs. The phenomenon has been blamed mostly on chemicals that get into the water and mimic the female hormone estrogen.

But a new study puts some of the blame on an entirely different class of chemicals — ones that block the action of male hormones called androgens.

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So what are the alternatives to the central banking system?

Turley: Bush terror memos are ‘very definition of tyranny’

Since the release on Monday of nine previously-secret Bush administration legal memos claiming that the president has the power to ignore the Constitution when fighting terrorism, experts have almost unanimously denounced both their legal reasoning and their conclusions.

“These memos provide the very definition of tyranny,” Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Tuesday. “These memos include everything that a petty despot would want.”

Turley believes, however, that there may be worse revelations yet to come. “These memos weren’t written in a vacuum,” he noted. “The question is what did they do in response? We know, among other things that they created a torture program. … I think we’re going to find out that this was the mere foundation for a greater edifice that has yet to be disclosed.”

The Justice Department has already indicated that it is considering releasing additional Bush-era legal opinions.

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Police get secret search powers and you won’t even know

Aussie is going the way of our big Anglo-Saxon brother the USA,What do you reckon are our chances for this to happen here?

NEW South Wales Police are to be given covert search warrants, allowing them to search a property without informing the owners for up to three years.

The warrants will be issued through the Supreme Court and limited to investigations of suspected serious offences punishable by at least seven years jail.

These offences include the manufacture of drugs, computer crimes (That is sort of all of us who download the odd song or software), the sale of firearms, homicide and kidnapping.

Premier Nathan Rees said NSW would be the first jurisdiction in Australia to adopt the covert search warrants, and would be borrowing from Commonwealth anti-terrorism legislation.

“If you are a serious criminal in NSW you should not sleep easy,” Mr Rees said. (This of course should read if you are a suspected criminal)

“These laws will enable our police force to inspect your home without you knowing.”

The new powers will allow for the owners of the covertly searched property to be kept in the dark for up to six months.

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Former Countrywide executives cash in on federal housing bailout

After overseeing a company at the very center of the still-imploding U.S. mortgage market, a dozen former executives are now poised to make millions from the housing crisis.

Stanford L. Kurland, the former president of Countrywide Financial the bank that has become most synonymous with the bad mortgage lending practices that eventually caused the housing market to burst, setting into motion the current financial crisis and colleagues from the defunct firm now run PennyMac.

The company, headquartered in the same Los Angeles suburb where Countrywide was managed before it was sold to Bank of America last summer, specializes in buying up bad home mortgages that the U.S. government took over from other failed banks, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

PennnyMac has been buying up some of those mortgages for just a fraction of their value, and they keep a portion of whatever money they collect from the mortgage holder.

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Ministry issues list of words and phrases

A list of words and phrases to be avoided or used when dealing with the new National Government has been circulating around the Health Ministry.

Radio New Zealand today reported the table of 26 phrases had two columns, one labelled “in” and the other “out”.

Among terms now considered “out” were public health, social change, inequalities and advocacy.

Primary Health Care, value for money health information and clinical networks were “in”.

Prepared by someone at ministry, a spokesman said the aim was for staff to be clear communicators.

Green MP Sue Bradford said some of the “out” words and phrases underpinned what ministries like health were working to address.

Ms Bradford said another example of an out phrase was “organised effort of society” while public private partnerships were in.

She said the focus shifted away from everyone working together for a common cause.

Labour MP Ruth Dyson said there should be a focus on the very topics whose names were now being considered “out”.

Health Minister Tony Ryall declined to comment.

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New World Order Alert: Global new deal ‘possible’ in months : Brown

Give me the right to print money and I care not who makes the laws is what Amsel Rothschild has been quoted as saying. At this moment  Timothy Geitner is the secretary of Treasury in the US. As the former President of the Federal Reserve of New York he has gone on reckord as stating that he would work to keep the banking systme in private hands instead of the right to creation of the currency being publicly owned, allowing a small group of private citizens to make obscene and usurious profits of other peoples toil.

And now this same group of private citizens wants the right to regulate one currency for the whole world.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised the prospect of a global “new deal” to fix the finance industry within months, setting the stage for April’s G-20 economic summit with President Barack Obama.

Brown, taking a welcome break from political problems back home, claimed his prize as the first European leader to meet Obama in the Oval Office, and won a statement from the US leader that US-Britain ties were unbreakable.

Obama agreed the world needed to work collectively to head off future financial crises, but did not give a specific, public endorsement of Brown’s calls for a sweeping new global regulatory framework.

Brown, who will on Wednesday give a showpiece address to a joint session of the US Congress, also called for an overhaul of global financial institutions and a drive for a new green, globalized economy.

“Look, there is the possibility in the next few months of a global new deal that will involve all the countries of the world in sorting out and cleaning up the banking system,” Brown told reporters in the Oval Office.

“There is the possibility of all the different countries of the world coming together to agree the expansion in the economy that is necessary to restore confidence and to give people jobs and growth and prosperity for the future,” he said.

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Memo To Obama: Nationalize the Banks; End the wars of aggression; Fire Your Advisors. by Eric Sommer

Social action begins with concerns, which may include anger or outrage at injustice. But effective strategy must also take account of the power, positions, and possibilities of the various social forces and social classes involved. A number of such factors must be considered when mobilizing around the interests of ordinary people during the emerging world economic crisis.

First, we need to note that the share of national profits enjoyed by the financial sector in the U.S. rose from 6 percent in 1980 to 40 percent in 2008. In short, the economic power and weight of this sector has expanded astronomically in the past few decades. Almost half of all profits last year went to those who produced no goods or services useful to human beings, other than the manipulation of money and credit.

Alongside their economic ascent, this financial sectors’ political power has simultaneously expanded. Witness the way the U.S. Congress rapidly agreed to the proposal of Paulson , Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury, to devote 800 Billion or so of tax money, most of it from workers, to ‘bailing out the banks’. This decision was taken without testimony by even one independent economist before the Congress. As one courageous legislator asked: “Are we the U.S. Congress or the boardroom of Goldman Sachs’. In the event, the answer became obvious.

It became even more obvious that finance capital is currently dominant in the U.S. when industrial capital, in the form of the ‘Big three’ Auto companies asked for only 25 billion U.S., a tiny fraction of the money just given to the banks, and had to beg hat in hand to garner in the end an even smaller support.

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George W. Bush’s Disposable Constitution

Scott Horton is a professor at Columbia Law School and writer for Harper’s

By Scott Horton

Yesterday the Obama Administration released a series of nine previously secret legal opinions crafted by the Office of Legal Counsel to enhance the presidential powers of George W. Bush. Perhaps the most astonishing of these memos was one crafted by University of California at Berkeley law professor John Yoo. He concluded that in wartime, the President was freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights with respect to anything he chose to label as a counterterrorism operations inside the United States.

Here’s Neil Lewis’s summary in the New York Times:

“The law has recognized that force (including deadly force) may be legitimately used in self-defense,” Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty wrote to Mr. Gonzales. Therefore any objections based on the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches are swept away, they said, since any possible privacy offense resulting from such a search is a lesser matter than any injury from deadly force. The Oct. 23 memorandum also said that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” It added that “the current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

John Yoo’s Constitution is unlike any other I have ever seen. It seems to consist of one clause: appointing the President as commander-in-chief. The rest of the Constitution was apparently printed in disappearing ink.

We need to know how the memo was used. Bradbury suggests it was not much relied upon; I don’t believe that for a second. Moreover Bradbury’s decision to wait to the very end before repealing it suggests that someone in the Bush hierarchy was keen on having it.

It’s pretty clear that it served several purposes. Clearly it was designed to authorize sweeping warrantless surveillance by military agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. Using special new surveillance programs that required the collaboration of telecommunications and Internet service providers, these agencies were sweeping through the emails, IMs, faxes, and phone calls of tens of millions of Americans. Clearly such unlawful surveillance occurred. But the language of the memos suggest that much more was afoot, including the deployment of military units and military police powers on American soil. These memos suggest that John Yoo found a way to treat the Posse Comitatus Act as suspended.

These memos gave the President the ability to authorize the torture of persons held at secret overseas sites. And they dealt in great detail with the plight of Jose Padilla, an American citizen seized at O’Hare Airport. Padilla was accused of being involved in a plot to make and detonate a “dirty bomb,” but at trial it turned out that the Bush Administration had no evidence to stand behind its sensational accusations. Evidently it was just fine to hold Padilla incommunicado, deny him access to counsel and torture him–in the view of the Bush OLC lawyers, that is.

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Aid offered to fight sackings under new 90-day law

If you know of someone taking on a new job or someone who is already suffering from the effects of the 90 day fire at will law, please send him/her this information. Also if you have any sense become a member of a union. We did as soon as National was voted in and already have had our money’s worth of legal assistance from them.

The more members they have the more we can make a fist and the more control we have about what we want our unions to do for us. $ 6.95 a week is not a lot for legal and political pressure back up.

Don’t be a fool and think that unions are “socialist” menace, they are there for you and me and that’s why the bosses don’t like us becoming members.

Unions are offering to go into battle for non-union members laid off under the new 90-day trial employment law.

All 42 unions affiliated to the Council of Trade Unions have agreed to take calls on the freephone number 0800 1UNION (0800 186 466) from any worker laid off during a 90-day trial period.

Callers from today will be directed to advocates from each union on a rostered basis, with all unions sharing the cost.

The CTU also launches a $42,000 advertising campaign on commercial and student radio today in a bid to reach non-unionised workers employed on trial periods.

“There won’t be a union at the Four Square in Kaitaia or the service station in Waiouru or whatever,” said CTU president Helen Kelly.

“The whole union movement has got behind it on the basis that these workers probably won’t be in a union. A lot will be in their first two weeks of work and might not have been offered the chance to join a union even if there is one there.

“We will not stand by and see those workers get no advice.”

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White-tails mistakenly blamed for bites

No matter, they still scare the shit out of me when they faal out of your clothes or you find them in your boots.

White-tailed spiders are being unfairly blamed for delivering nasty flesh-eating bites, the National Poisons Centre says.

The much-maligned Australian native is often thought responsible for bites that turn into necrotising ulcers.

But it has been cleared by a paper from the National Poisons Centre, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

Aimed at doctors, the report lists 11 poisonous creatures found in New Zealand and surrounding waters, detailing how their bites or stings should be treated.

The venomous nasties range from white-tailed and redback spiders to the humble kina, which can cause a nasty wound with its spikes.

“It’s handy for a doctor who comes across one of these things to have all the information in one place, and they can just grab it,” said centre information officer Robin Slaughter, a co-author of the report.

A recent Australian study found no link between white-tailed spider bites and flesh-eating ulcers, he said.

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