Scientist Repeats Swine Flu Lab-Escape Claim in Published Study

By Simeon Bennett at Bloomberg
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Adrian Gibbs , the virologist who said in May that swine flu may have escaped from a laboratory, published his findings today, renewing discussion about the origins of the pandemic virus.

The new H1N1 strain, which was discovered in Mexico and the U.S. in April, may be the product of three strains from three continents that swapped genes in a lab or a vaccine-making plant, Gibbs, and fellow Australian scientists wrote in Virology Journal . The authors analyzed the genetic makeup of the virus and found its origin could be more simply explained by human involvement than a coincidence of nature.

Their study, published in a free, online journal reviewed by other scientists, follows debate among researchers six months ago, when Gibbs asked the World Health Organization to consider the hypothesis. After reviewing Gibbs’ initial three-page paper, WHO and other organizations concluded the pandemic strain was a naturally occurring virus and not laboratory-derived.

“It is important that the source of the new virus be found if we wish to avoid future pandemics rather than just trying to minimize the consequences after they have emerged,” Gibbs and colleagues John Armstrong and Jean Downie said in today’s eight-page study .

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Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

Number of problem banks on the FDIC's list is highest since 1993

By Ronald D. Orol, Market Watch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The number of distressed banks in the U.S. rose to the highest level in sixteen years in the third quarter, and the insurance fund used to protect bank depositors swung to a negative balance, according to a report released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Tuesday.

The number of troubled banks rose to 552 at the end of September from 416 at the end of June and 305 at the end of March, the FDIC said in its third-quarter report. This is the largest number of banks on its "problem list" since the end of 1993.
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Here Is Why The Dollar Is Now Effectively Worthless

Published at Zero Hedge by Tyler Durden on 11/23/2009 10:27 -0500

A picture is worth a thousand Krugman essays, which is why we present a chart comparing the US Monetary Base (and by subtracting Reserve Balances with Fed Reserve Banks, Currency in Circulation), and the Fed's holdings of MBS and Agency paper (worthless GSE/FHA garbage). In summary: Currency in Circulation: $920 billion; MBS/Agency Holdings: $997 billion. The dollar in your pocket is now entirely backed only by worthless, rapidly devaluing and subsidized housing.

The Global Warming (AKA: Climate Change) Fraud Crumbles before our Eyes!

Wall Street Journal blog have an entry today titled “Hacked: Sensitive Documents Lifted from Hadley Climate Center”
The entry begins “The Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain was hacked yesterday, apparently by Russian black hats, and thousands of sensitive documents, including emails from climate scientists dating back a decade, were posted online.”

The Australian publication Investigate Magazine quotes officials from Hadley that the documents are genuine.

The Portland, Oregon Examiner is also running with this story here.

So you have an idea of what was found in these documents...think admittedly faked statistics, strategy e-mails to keep the truth out of FOIA requests, and it just gets worse.

The definitive piece on the fraud commonly described as Al Gore is this essay by Paul Joseph Watson. It makes one pine for reporting that was journalism. With Hurricanes At Thirty Year Low, Gore Turns To Photoshop

Debate?
Here is statement supported by 31,486 scientists, 9,029 of which are PHD’s:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide , methane, or other green house gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating in the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments’ of earth” – source: The Petition Project

Wake Up America...

Our Chief Industry: War by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com

Our Chief Industry: War by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com

There is only one answer in American foreign policy; it comes is various shades/shapes but always it is about the empire. Read this and then please donate to AntiWar.com. AntiWar.com must raise funds from their readers every quarter, without this voice all that is left is the War party narrative of the day.
PLEASE DONATE

Gold price suppression is public record and public policy, not 'conspiracy theory'

Remarks by Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
International Precious Metals and Commodities Show
Olympia Park, Munich, Germany
Saturday, November 7, 2009

Thank you for coming to listen to me today. Please forgive my inability to speak German. I'll be discussing many documents, some of them fairly complicated, but don't worry if you miss something about them. They'll be posted at GATA's Internet site with these remarks.

On Friday, September 25, Jim Rickards, director of market intelligence for the Omnis consulting firm in McLean, Virginia., was interviewed on the cable television network CNBC in the United States. Talking about the currency markets, Rickards remarked: "When you own gold you're fighting every central bank in the world."

That's because gold is a currency that competes with government currencies and has a powerful influence on interest rates and the price of government bonds. And that's why central banks long have tried to suppress the price of gold. Gold is the ticket out of the central banking system, the escape from coercive central bank and government power.
Read Mr. Powell’s complete remarks

Brotherhood of Plunder: Snapshots of America's Criminal Oligarchy

William Norman Grigg - Thursday, November 19, 2009

"Twisted sense of entitlement": Police extortionist David M. Cohen, and his accessory, former Police Chief Manuel Cachopa.

David Cohen, a nebbishy, balding fellow from Stoughton, Massachusetts, seemed poorly cast as a loan shark.

Unlike Chili Palmer, the mob debt collector created by Elmore Leonard (and played on screen by John Travolta), Cohen couldn't pry open the bank accounts of recalcitrant debtors simply by fixing them with a steely gaze and hissing, "Look at me."

Cohen was dispatched by a friend named Peter Marinilli to collect $9,000 from a businessman named Timothy Hills. Frustrated when his demand didn't reduce Hills to a puddle of compliant jello, Cohen -- a sergeant in the Staughton Police Department -- tried a different approach: He placed Hills under arrest, handcuffed him, and detained him until the businessman signed a promissory note to Marinilli.

Hills had received $10,000 from Marinilli as an investment in a business deal, and he later admitted in court that he had taken the money under false pretenses. During the same trial, one of Hills' former employees described him as chronically dishonest and entirely unreliable -- in short, a terrible credit risk.

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Questions Regarding the Fort Hood Massacre

By Chuck Baldwin November 20, 2009

By now, virtually everyone has read and reread the copious news accounts of the terrible shooting a few weeks ago at Fort Hood, Texas. This column will not attempt to add new details to what is already a highly scrutinized tragedy. However, I do want to pose three basic questions that, to me, are extremely glaring and, for the most part, absent from the discussion.

Question 1: Why were the soldiers not armed?

After all, this is a military base; more than that, it is an Army base that emphasizes the training and equipping of frontline, combat-ready soldiers.
For the most part, these were not clerks or cooks; these were combat troops.
Fort Hood is home to the 1st Cavalry Division (the largest Division in the Army). Troops stationed at Fort Hood have engaged the enemy in virtually every hot theater of war to which American forces have been deployed. In recent conflicts that means Somalia, Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
Without a doubt, these are among America's bravest and best.

So, how is it that these intensely trained, disciplined, rugged, highly qualified warriors are not allowed to carry their own weapons on base? This makes about as much sense as the policy forbidding airline pilots from carrying their own handguns on board commercial airliners, or teachers not being allowed to carry their own handguns in the classroom. After all, judges are granted the authority to carry their own firearms into the courtroom. If we can trust lawyers, we should be able to trust soldiers, airline pilots, and teachers.

Question 2: If the federal government--including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, etc., with billions of dollars worth of technology; tens of thousands of snoops, spooks, and intelligence gatherers; and myriad Patriot Act-type laws--could not protect US soldiers on one of the most tightly secured and heavily guarded military installations in America, how can anyone in the country possibly not break out in cacophonous laughter when politicians tell us we need to surrender more liberties so that they might pass more laws to protect us crummy little peons? Or is it that, because Hasan was a Muslim, the politically correct nincompoops in charge gave him a pass?

Consider: we have learned that the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had attempted to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda; that numerous classmates of Hasan had reported his anti-American views, which, according to a column written by Dennis Prager, "included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution"; and that Hasan had a long history of pro-Islamic, anti-American activity. All of which begs an answer to the question, How could such an individual not only be allowed in the US military, but also be allowed to advance to the rank of Major?

Rest of the Article

Power Shift

By Doug Wakefield with Ben Hill @ Asia Times

On Monday, November 2, it will have been seven months since leaders of the Group of 20 nations met in London to expand the international currency known as Special Drawing Rights. If you want to brush up on the background of this international currency, our November 2008 newsletter, states, from the International Monetary Fund's website:

The Special Drawing Right (SDR) was created by the IMF in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system. After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1973, the SDR was redefined as a basket of currencies, today consisting of the euro, Japanese yen, pound sterling, and US dollar. The US dollar-value of the SDR is posted daily on the IMF's website.

As we read the IMF's website further, we learn that the IMF has been trying to expand the number of SDRs in circulation for years.

There are two kinds of allocations:
General allocations of SDRs have to be based on a long-term global need to supplement existing reserve assets. General allocations are considered every five years, although decisions to allocate SDRs have been made only twice. The first allocation was for a total amount of SDR 9.3 billion, distributed in 1970-72. The second allocation was distributed in 1979-81 and brought the cumulative total of SDR allocations to SDR 21.4 billion.

A proposal for a special one-time allocation of SDRs was approved by the IMF's Board of Governors in September 1997 through the proposed Fourth Amendment of the Articles of Agreement. This allocation would double cumulative SDR allocations to SDR 42.8 billion. Its intent is to enable all members of the IMF to participate in the SDR system on an equitable basis and correct for the fact that countries that joined the Fund after 1981 - more than one fifth of the current IMF membership - have never received an SDR allocation. The Fourth Amendment will become effective when three fifths of the IMF membership (111 members) with 85 percent of the total voting power accept it. As of end-March, 2008, 131 members with 77.68 percent of total voting power had accepted the proposed amendment. Approval by the United States, with 16.75 percent of total votes, would put the amendment into effect.

When we consider the fact that the quantity of this international currency remained unchanged between 1979 and 2009, we begin to realize that the April 2 meeting was truly a historic moment. On this day, with the stroke of a pen and the benefits of modern electronic banking, the G-20 nations conjured another 250 billion in SDRs and gave the IMF an additional US$750 billion to lend. Rightly did the October 6, 2009, Council on Foreign Relations piece, "The IMF's Growing Powers", state:

The IMF has gone from a $250 billion institution to a $1 trillion institution. So the fund is much more relevant and central than it was three years ago.

Additionally:

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