271 Hard Back Business books sent to Stupid Obama! He read NONE of them!
Feb 14, 2014 05:03:33 #
Hopes, and Homes, Crumbling on Indian Tea Plantations
By MAX BEARAKFEB. 13, 2014
An employee of the Hattigor Tea Estate, which is owned by Amalgamated Plantations, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam in December. Himanshu Khagta for The New York Times
NAHORANI TEA ESTATE, India For a century and a half, Madhu Mundas forebears toiled on the same tea plantation that she lives and works on now. Belonging to central Indian tribes brought to what is now the northeastern state of Assam by the British in the mid-19th century, they and millions of other plantation workers survived as little more than indentured servants, even as the British Raj gave way to Indian democracy.
So when Amalgamated Plantations took over the plantation in 2008, Ms. Munda and her fellow workers had high hopes for change. The companys investors said they planned to transform this sprawling tea estate into a model for sustainable and responsible labor policy through an employee shareholding program. The International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank partly funded by the United States government, lent the new company legitimacy with a sizable investment. In approving funding, the International Finance Corporation stated that Amalgamated promised to create opportunities for people to escape poverty and improve their lives.
DETAIL
CHINA
INDIA
INDIA
Nahorani
Tea Estate
BHUTAN
NEPAL
Brahmaputra
River
ASSAM
Ganges
River
BANGLADESH
INDIA
MYANMAR
WEST
BENGAL
100 Miles
But that early optimism has evaporated. Despite pledges of better working and living conditions, Ms. Munda, 45, finds herself living a life not dissimilar to that of her grandparents. Her family shares a cramped and crumbling house with three other families. The well outside is filled with murky water, and a nearby latrine is rank and overflowing. Ms. Munda says she has been emptying a bucket filled with the water that leaks through her roof for 15 monsoon seasons.
In interviews at two of the companys plantations, workers said their overseers treated them harshly and denied them basic benefits. Ms. Munda said that to qualify for a paid sick day, workers had to report to the plantation clinic three times a day to prove their illness. Raju Mantra, the son of two plantation workers, said that protective equipment was withheld from workers.
When big people come to visit, they give it to us, he said of equipment like gloves and masks to protect from pesticides, but then they put it back in storage, saying that if we wear it every day, it will wear out.
On Monday, the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School released a 110-page report on Amalgamateds operations, which employ more than 30,000 people on 24 plantations in Assam and neighboring West Bengal.
The report paints a grim portrait of life on the tea plantation: dilapidated and crowded housing, hazardous water and sanitation conditions, the denial of basic benefits like health care for workers dependents, widespread disregard for occupational safety measures, and pitifully low wages.
Amalgamated denies any wrongdoing. The company claims it was not given enough time to fully review the Columbia report before its release. But it issued a statement saying that the report was incorrect and misleading in some parts, and said that some issues, like wages, were dictated by an industrywide recession that necessitated conservative spending.
Amalgamateds oceanic plantations of undulating green tea bushes employ thousands of workers each. The plantations used to be owned by the Tata Group, a vast Indian conglomerate that, along with the International Finance Corporation, created Amalgamated during a restructuring process in the late 2000s. Now, Amalgamated provides tea leaves primarily to Tata Global Beverages, whose Tetley and other brands of tea are widely consumed across the world. Assams almost 1,000 plantations produce around one-sixth of the worlds tea.
On Tuesday, the International Finance Corporations internal compliance and accountability office announced that it would be conducting a full investigation into the I.F.C.s environmental and social performance in relation to its investment in A.P.P.L., the abbreviation for Amalgamated.
Madhu Munda lives and works on the Nahorani Tea Estate. Himanshu Khagta for The New York Times
In an email response to questions, Amalgamateds spokesman said the allegations made by workers on the companys plantations were untrue. The company said it adhered strictly to the Plantations Labor Act, an Indian law that requires plantation owners to supplement wages, which can be set below state minimums, by providing tea workers with housing, schools, health care and other basic needs.
Tea workers rights groups say the Plantations Labor Act has perpetuated the feudal system created by British companies when they first developed the plantations. Todays plantation workers descend almost exclusively from tribal populations transplanted in the colonial era, having inherited jobs from their parents. The manual labor they perform has changed little in 150 years. Last December, women in saris moved slowly down the rows of bushes, pruning them with machetes.
Workers said managers treated them with contempt. A group of women at one plantation said their supervisors used language with them so vulgar they could not repeat it. Mr. Mantra later said that local stereotypes of tribal people as promiscuous figure heavily in taunts, and workers who show up late are sometimes asked, Were you having sex all night, and thats why youre late?
The Columbia report said that management warned researchers not to trust workers because they were just like cattle.
Leaving the plantations is only a vague dream for most. Local advocacy groups say schools on plantations go up to only the fourth grade, and in some schools, there are up to 250 students for each teacher. Most tea workers remain illiterate, the advocates say. Beyond the fences of Assams plantations, where tea workers seldom go, there is little demand for unskilled labor.
The poverty that besieges tribal populations throughout India more harshly circumscribes mobility for those on Assams plantations. Many here said they would like to continue going to school or seek care at hospitals outside their plantations, but transportation is too costly for those who earn so little. Plantation workers like Ms. Munda can make 89 rupees ($1.43) a day picking tea leaves or performing other tasks, provided they meet their productivity quotas. Mr. Mantra said that to get by, most tea workers ate simple meals of rice sprinkled with salt most days, splurging for eggs or fish only on paydays.
Many workers said that speaking on the record meant risking harassment or losing their jobs. One man who said plantation managers had threatened him after he spoke with the International Finance Corporations internal review team last April agreed to talk anonymously, at night, when no one might see him meeting outsiders.
I wanted to tell my story then, but now theres no use, the man said.
Im talking to you now only because I would regret if I didnt even show my face.
A version of this article appears in print on February 14, 2014, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Hopes, and Homes, Crumbling on Indian Tea Plantations. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
By MAX BEARAKFEB. 13, 2014
An employee of the Hattigor Tea Estate, which is owned by Amalgamated Plantations, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam in December. Himanshu Khagta for The New York Times
NAHORANI TEA ESTATE, India For a century and a half, Madhu Mundas forebears toiled on the same tea plantation that she lives and works on now. Belonging to central Indian tribes brought to what is now the northeastern state of Assam by the British in the mid-19th century, they and millions of other plantation workers survived as little more than indentured servants, even as the British Raj gave way to Indian democracy.
So when Amalgamated Plantations took over the plantation in 2008, Ms. Munda and her fellow workers had high hopes for change. The companys investors said they planned to transform this sprawling tea estate into a model for sustainable and responsible labor policy through an employee shareholding program. The International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank partly funded by the United States government, lent the new company legitimacy with a sizable investment. In approving funding, the International Finance Corporation stated that Amalgamated promised to create opportunities for people to escape poverty and improve their lives.
DETAIL
CHINA
INDIA
INDIA
Nahorani
Tea Estate
BHUTAN
NEPAL
Brahmaputra
River
ASSAM
Ganges
River
BANGLADESH
INDIA
MYANMAR
WEST
BENGAL
100 Miles
But that early optimism has evaporated. Despite pledges of better working and living conditions, Ms. Munda, 45, finds herself living a life not dissimilar to that of her grandparents. Her family shares a cramped and crumbling house with three other families. The well outside is filled with murky water, and a nearby latrine is rank and overflowing. Ms. Munda says she has been emptying a bucket filled with the water that leaks through her roof for 15 monsoon seasons.
In interviews at two of the companys plantations, workers said their overseers treated them harshly and denied them basic benefits. Ms. Munda said that to qualify for a paid sick day, workers had to report to the plantation clinic three times a day to prove their illness. Raju Mantra, the son of two plantation workers, said that protective equipment was withheld from workers.
When big people come to visit, they give it to us, he said of equipment like gloves and masks to protect from pesticides, but then they put it back in storage, saying that if we wear it every day, it will wear out.
On Monday, the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School released a 110-page report on Amalgamateds operations, which employ more than 30,000 people on 24 plantations in Assam and neighboring West Bengal.
The report paints a grim portrait of life on the tea plantation: dilapidated and crowded housing, hazardous water and sanitation conditions, the denial of basic benefits like health care for workers dependents, widespread disregard for occupational safety measures, and pitifully low wages.
Amalgamated denies any wrongdoing. The company claims it was not given enough time to fully review the Columbia report before its release. But it issued a statement saying that the report was incorrect and misleading in some parts, and said that some issues, like wages, were dictated by an industrywide recession that necessitated conservative spending.
Amalgamateds oceanic plantations of undulating green tea bushes employ thousands of workers each. The plantations used to be owned by the Tata Group, a vast Indian conglomerate that, along with the International Finance Corporation, created Amalgamated during a restructuring process in the late 2000s. Now, Amalgamated provides tea leaves primarily to Tata Global Beverages, whose Tetley and other brands of tea are widely consumed across the world. Assams almost 1,000 plantations produce around one-sixth of the worlds tea.
On Tuesday, the International Finance Corporations internal compliance and accountability office announced that it would be conducting a full investigation into the I.F.C.s environmental and social performance in relation to its investment in A.P.P.L., the abbreviation for Amalgamated.
Madhu Munda lives and works on the Nahorani Tea Estate. Himanshu Khagta for The New York Times
In an email response to questions, Amalgamateds spokesman said the allegations made by workers on the companys plantations were untrue. The company said it adhered strictly to the Plantations Labor Act, an Indian law that requires plantation owners to supplement wages, which can be set below state minimums, by providing tea workers with housing, schools, health care and other basic needs.
Tea workers rights groups say the Plantations Labor Act has perpetuated the feudal system created by British companies when they first developed the plantations. Todays plantation workers descend almost exclusively from tribal populations transplanted in the colonial era, having inherited jobs from their parents. The manual labor they perform has changed little in 150 years. Last December, women in saris moved slowly down the rows of bushes, pruning them with machetes.
Workers said managers treated them with contempt. A group of women at one plantation said their supervisors used language with them so vulgar they could not repeat it. Mr. Mantra later said that local stereotypes of tribal people as promiscuous figure heavily in taunts, and workers who show up late are sometimes asked, Were you having sex all night, and thats why youre late?
The Columbia report said that management warned researchers not to trust workers because they were just like cattle.
Leaving the plantations is only a vague dream for most. Local advocacy groups say schools on plantations go up to only the fourth grade, and in some schools, there are up to 250 students for each teacher. Most tea workers remain illiterate, the advocates say. Beyond the fences of Assams plantations, where tea workers seldom go, there is little demand for unskilled labor.
The poverty that besieges tribal populations throughout India more harshly circumscribes mobility for those on Assams plantations. Many here said they would like to continue going to school or seek care at hospitals outside their plantations, but transportation is too costly for those who earn so little. Plantation workers like Ms. Munda can make 89 rupees ($1.43) a day picking tea leaves or performing other tasks, provided they meet their productivity quotas. Mr. Mantra said that to get by, most tea workers ate simple meals of rice sprinkled with salt most days, splurging for eggs or fish only on paydays.
Many workers said that speaking on the record meant risking harassment or losing their jobs. One man who said plantation managers had threatened him after he spoke with the International Finance Corporations internal review team last April agreed to talk anonymously, at night, when no one might see him meeting outsiders.
I wanted to tell my story then, but now theres no use, the man said.
Im talking to you now only because I would regret if I didnt even show my face.
A version of this article appears in print on February 14, 2014, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Hopes, and Homes, Crumbling on Indian Tea Plantations. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
Feb 14, 2014 05:04:06 #
Tracing Ancestry, Researchers Produce a Genetic Atlas of Human Mixing Events
By NICHOLAS WADEFEB. 13, 2014
The rise and fall of empires, the march of armies, the flow of trade routes, the practice of slavery all these events have led to a mixing of populations around the world. Such episodes have left a record in the human genome, but one that has so far been too complex to decipher on a global scale.
Now, geneticists applying new statistical approaches have taken a first shot at both identifying and dating the major population mixture events of the last 4,000 years, with the goal of providing a new source of information for historians.
Some of the hundred or so major mixing events they describe have plausible historical explanations, while many others remain to be accounted for. For instance, many populations of the southern Mediterranean and Middle East have segments of African origin in their genomes that were inserted at times between A.D. 650 and 1900, according to the geneticists calculations. This could reflect the activity of the Arab slave trade, which originated in the seventh century, and the absorption of slaves into their host populations.
Genetic Mixing
Researchers have found genetic evidence for hundreds of examples of the large-scale mixing of human populations in the past 4,000 years.
Lithuanian
Circles show the apparent sources of DNA within the two parent populations, one European and one Asian.
Scottish
Welsh
Lezgin
Kalash
Georgian
Burusho
Palestinian
Yi
Balochi
Pathan
Druse
Bedouin
Makrani
Sindhi
Parents from
two populations
Child
Grand-
child
Modern
population
Indian
Jew
Indian
Children inherit one set of chromosomes from each parent, and in later generations that DNA is cut into smaller and smaller chunks. By measuring the average size of the chunks, researchers are able to estimate how many generations have passed since the ancestral populations were mixed.
The Kalash people of Pakistan were found to have chunks of DNA from an ancient European population. Statistical analysis suggests a mixing event before 210 B.C., possibly from the army of Alexander the Great.
By The New York Times
Source: Science
The lowest amount of African admixture occurs in the Druse, a religious group of the Middle East that prohibited slavery and has been closed to converts since A.D. 1043.
Another mixing event is the injection of European-type DNA into the Kalash, a people of Pakistan, at some time between 990 and 210 B.C. This could reflect the invasion of India by Alexander the Great in 326 B.C. The Kalash claim to be descended from Alexanders soldiers, as do several other groups in the region.
The genetic atlas of human mixing events was published on Thursday in the journal Science by a team led by Simon Myers of Oxford University, Garrett Hellenthal of University College London and Daniel Falush of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Having sampled genomes from around the world, they found they could detect about 95 distinguishable populations.
Though all humans have the same set of genes, their genomes are studded with mutations, which are differences in the sequence of DNA units in the genome. These mutations occur in patterns because whole sets of mutations are passed down from parent to child and hence will be common in a particular population. Based on these patterns, geneticists can scan a persons genome and assign the ancestry of each segment to a particular race or population.
The team led by Dr. Myers has developed a statistical technique for identifying the chromosomal segments with particular precision. This enables them to perform a second feat, that of assigning a date to the one or more mixing events that have affected a population.
The dating system is based on measuring the length of chromosome segments of a particular ancestry that occur in a population. When people of two different populations intermarry, their childrens genomes carry large chunks of DNA of one parents ancestry interspersed with large chunks from the others.
In each successive generation, the average size of the chunks becomes smaller because when DNA is swapped between the parents genomes in making the eggs or sperm, the cuts needed to generate the swapped sections are made in different places. Therefore, from the average size of the chunks in a persons genome, the geneticists can calculate the number of generations since the mixing event.
We are among the first to try to date ancestry events, and we have more ability to determine the source populations, Dr. Myers said.
One of the most widespread events his group has detected is the injection of Mongol ancestry into populations within the Mongol empire, such as the Hazara of Afghanistan and the Uighur Turks of Central Asia. The event occurred 22 generations ago, according to genetic dating, which corresponds to the beginning of the 14th century, fitting well with the period of the Mongol empire.
In another example, the European colonization of America is recorded in the genomes of the Maya and Pima Indians. And Cambodian genomes mark the fall of the Khmer empire in the form of ancestral DNA from the invading Tai people.
Dr. Myers and his colleagues have detected European ancestry that entered the Tu people of central China between the 11th and 14th centuries; this, they surmise, could be from traders traveling the Silk Road. They find among Northern Italians an insertion of Middle Eastern DNA that occurred between 776 B.C. and A.D. 550, and may represent the Etruscans, a mysterious people said by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus to have emigrated from Lydia in Turkey.
The Myers group has posted its results on a web page that records the degree of admixture in each population. The English, however, known to be a rich medley of Celts with invaders such as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes and Norwegians, carry the notation No strong evidence of admixture. Dr. Myers said his method cannot yet detect genetic mixing between very similar populations, as was the case with the English and their invaders from Scandinavia and Northern Germany. He said he hoped to distinguish all these groups in a separate project on British ancestry.
Dr. Hellenthal said, Were fairly confident that increasing our sample size will help us follow local migrations.
John Novembre, a geneticist at the University of Chicago, described the new genetic atlas as a landmark study because of its scale and the fact that the authors had been able to extract complex signatures from the data. The detailed historical interpretations may need further questioning and testing, he said.
Dr. Myers and Dr. Hellenthal said that they hoped historians would find their work useful, but that they had not collaborated with historians.
In some sense we dont want to talk to historians, Dr. Falush said. Theres a great virtue in being objective: You put the data in and get the history out. We do think this is a way of reconstructing history by just using DNA.
By NICHOLAS WADEFEB. 13, 2014
The rise and fall of empires, the march of armies, the flow of trade routes, the practice of slavery all these events have led to a mixing of populations around the world. Such episodes have left a record in the human genome, but one that has so far been too complex to decipher on a global scale.
Now, geneticists applying new statistical approaches have taken a first shot at both identifying and dating the major population mixture events of the last 4,000 years, with the goal of providing a new source of information for historians.
Some of the hundred or so major mixing events they describe have plausible historical explanations, while many others remain to be accounted for. For instance, many populations of the southern Mediterranean and Middle East have segments of African origin in their genomes that were inserted at times between A.D. 650 and 1900, according to the geneticists calculations. This could reflect the activity of the Arab slave trade, which originated in the seventh century, and the absorption of slaves into their host populations.
Genetic Mixing
Researchers have found genetic evidence for hundreds of examples of the large-scale mixing of human populations in the past 4,000 years.
Lithuanian
Circles show the apparent sources of DNA within the two parent populations, one European and one Asian.
Scottish
Welsh
Lezgin
Kalash
Georgian
Burusho
Palestinian
Yi
Balochi
Pathan
Druse
Bedouin
Makrani
Sindhi
Parents from
two populations
Child
Grand-
child
Modern
population
Indian
Jew
Indian
Children inherit one set of chromosomes from each parent, and in later generations that DNA is cut into smaller and smaller chunks. By measuring the average size of the chunks, researchers are able to estimate how many generations have passed since the ancestral populations were mixed.
The Kalash people of Pakistan were found to have chunks of DNA from an ancient European population. Statistical analysis suggests a mixing event before 210 B.C., possibly from the army of Alexander the Great.
By The New York Times
Source: Science
The lowest amount of African admixture occurs in the Druse, a religious group of the Middle East that prohibited slavery and has been closed to converts since A.D. 1043.
Another mixing event is the injection of European-type DNA into the Kalash, a people of Pakistan, at some time between 990 and 210 B.C. This could reflect the invasion of India by Alexander the Great in 326 B.C. The Kalash claim to be descended from Alexanders soldiers, as do several other groups in the region.
The genetic atlas of human mixing events was published on Thursday in the journal Science by a team led by Simon Myers of Oxford University, Garrett Hellenthal of University College London and Daniel Falush of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Having sampled genomes from around the world, they found they could detect about 95 distinguishable populations.
Though all humans have the same set of genes, their genomes are studded with mutations, which are differences in the sequence of DNA units in the genome. These mutations occur in patterns because whole sets of mutations are passed down from parent to child and hence will be common in a particular population. Based on these patterns, geneticists can scan a persons genome and assign the ancestry of each segment to a particular race or population.
The team led by Dr. Myers has developed a statistical technique for identifying the chromosomal segments with particular precision. This enables them to perform a second feat, that of assigning a date to the one or more mixing events that have affected a population.
The dating system is based on measuring the length of chromosome segments of a particular ancestry that occur in a population. When people of two different populations intermarry, their childrens genomes carry large chunks of DNA of one parents ancestry interspersed with large chunks from the others.
In each successive generation, the average size of the chunks becomes smaller because when DNA is swapped between the parents genomes in making the eggs or sperm, the cuts needed to generate the swapped sections are made in different places. Therefore, from the average size of the chunks in a persons genome, the geneticists can calculate the number of generations since the mixing event.
We are among the first to try to date ancestry events, and we have more ability to determine the source populations, Dr. Myers said.
One of the most widespread events his group has detected is the injection of Mongol ancestry into populations within the Mongol empire, such as the Hazara of Afghanistan and the Uighur Turks of Central Asia. The event occurred 22 generations ago, according to genetic dating, which corresponds to the beginning of the 14th century, fitting well with the period of the Mongol empire.
In another example, the European colonization of America is recorded in the genomes of the Maya and Pima Indians. And Cambodian genomes mark the fall of the Khmer empire in the form of ancestral DNA from the invading Tai people.
Dr. Myers and his colleagues have detected European ancestry that entered the Tu people of central China between the 11th and 14th centuries; this, they surmise, could be from traders traveling the Silk Road. They find among Northern Italians an insertion of Middle Eastern DNA that occurred between 776 B.C. and A.D. 550, and may represent the Etruscans, a mysterious people said by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus to have emigrated from Lydia in Turkey.
The Myers group has posted its results on a web page that records the degree of admixture in each population. The English, however, known to be a rich medley of Celts with invaders such as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes and Norwegians, carry the notation No strong evidence of admixture. Dr. Myers said his method cannot yet detect genetic mixing between very similar populations, as was the case with the English and their invaders from Scandinavia and Northern Germany. He said he hoped to distinguish all these groups in a separate project on British ancestry.
Dr. Hellenthal said, Were fairly confident that increasing our sample size will help us follow local migrations.
John Novembre, a geneticist at the University of Chicago, described the new genetic atlas as a landmark study because of its scale and the fact that the authors had been able to extract complex signatures from the data. The detailed historical interpretations may need further questioning and testing, he said.
Dr. Myers and Dr. Hellenthal said that they hoped historians would find their work useful, but that they had not collaborated with historians.
In some sense we dont want to talk to historians, Dr. Falush said. Theres a great virtue in being objective: You put the data in and get the history out. We do think this is a way of reconstructing history by just using DNA.
Feb 14, 2014 05:42:53 #
Maryland lawmakers eye cutting off water, power to NSA headquarters
Belgium grants euthanasia right to terminally ill kids
Americans Killed By Cops Now Outnumber Americans Killed In Iraq War
At least 12 killed as epic snowstorm covers Northeast US
Scotland has everything to become one of the worlds richest countries
Maryland lawmakers eye cutting off water, power to NSA headquarters
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 02:10 PM PST
A group of lawmakers in Maryland has introduced a bill that would deny state support to the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., which might see electricity and water supplies cut to the intelligence nerve center.
Eight Republicans from the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates introduced the legislation that would deny the NSA material support, participation or assistance in any form from the state or companies with state contracts
In practice, this might mean that NSA facilities would be deprived of water and electricity, prevent state universities from partnering with the NSA in research projects, and ban NSA-derived evidence in state courts.
Any officials working for the state that ignored these sanctions would be fired, while local government departments that refused to comply would lose state funds and companies doing business with the NSA would be barred from state contracts.
The bill was filed as emergency legislation and requires the support of three-fifths of delegates to become law. It has been referred to the chambers judiciary committee for further work and consideration.
The bill is the latest measure in a campaign spearheaded by the Tenth Amendment Center, which along with the Bill of Rights Defense Committee launched by the OffNow coalition last year is attempting to cut off water to the NSAs brand new Utah data center.
The Tenth Amendment states the US Constitutions principle of federalism that powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States or the people of the United States.
Lawmakers in Arizona, California, Tennessee and Washington have filed bills based on legislation models from the Tenth Amendment Center.
A bipartisan cohort of lawmakers in California introduced legislation last month that prohibits their state from providing material support to the NSA. If it becomes law it would have the same effect as the law proposed in Maryland.
While universities operating research programs with the spy agency might be affected, the bill is largely symbolic as the NSA does not have any large facilities in California.
Ted Lieu, the bills Democratic co-author, said in a statement that the NSAs surveillance capabilities represent a clear and present danger to the liberties of US citizens.
I agree with the NSA that the world is a dangerous place. That is why our founders enacted the Bill of Rights. They understood the grave dangers of an out-of-control federal government, he said.
A similar bill was also introduced in Arizona in December. Senator Kelli Ward described her bill as a way to back our neighbors [in Utah] up. The NSA operates a huge data collection facility in Utah.
The NSA facility in Maryland uses a vast amount of water and electricity. The Washington Post reported in January that the agency signed a contract for water to cool a computer center under construction at its Fort Meade base for nearly $2 million and the Baltimore Sun reported that from 2006 the NSAs headquarters used as much electricity as the city of Annapolis.
Any federal legislation curbing the NSAs powers would likely be vetoed by President Barack Obama, who is broadly a supporter of NSA programs; although he has indicted that some reform of the agency is necessary.
Source
Belgium grants euthanasia right to terminally ill kids
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 02:04 PM PST
The Belgian parliament has passed a bill that extends the right to euthanasia to children under 18, making the country the first to completely lift age restrictions on euthanasia to minors.
On Thursday, the lower house of parliament adopted the controversial legislation by 86 votes in favor, 44 against and with 12 abstentions.
The adoption of the ground-breaking legislation followed approval by the Senate last December.
The bill would extend the right to die to those under the age of 18 only under certain strict conditions, including parental consent and a requirement that any minor desiring euthanasia demonstrate a capacity for discernment to a psychiatrist and psychologist.
The lawmakers clashed sharply over the bill. Proponents of the law say it should be widened to minors so as to help children in pain die as a question of mercy.
We arent speaking about death, we are speaking about the way to die, said Philippe Mahoux, a Socialist Party senator and the bills main sponsor.
What we are giving them is the possibility to die with dignity, without suffering, without intolerable pain, he noted.
Opponents, largely members of centrist Christian-leaning parties, say minors are not capable of such a drastic and irreversible decision.
Minors decide more impulsively than adults and they dont have the same perspective of short-term and long-term decisions, said Els van Hoof, a lawmaker from the Christian Democratic and Flemish party.
Their brains arent as developed on an emotional, moral or cognitive level as an adult, and they are more depending on the influence of authority, and authority in this case would be the doctors or the parents, van Hoof pointed out.
Its too high a risk to leave this decision in the hands of children, she added.
The euthanasia bill will go to Belgiums monarch, King Philippe, to be signed into law. The king is not expected to oppose the measure.
Over 160 pediatricians also joined the opponents, asking lawmakers to postpone the vote. They said the bill was unnecessary and not prepared well.
Pain can be eased nowadays, theres been huge progress in palliative care, said cancer specialist Nadine Francotte, who signed a petition to lawmakers, urging more time for reflection before any decision is made.
Belgium, one of the few countries that has allowed euthanasia, first passed legislation legalizing euthanasia in 2002.
It is the second country after the Netherlands to allow mercy-killing for children, and the first to lift all age restrictions. The Netherlands allows euthanasia for children over 12, if they are conscious, and if equipped with a capacity of discernment.
Source
Americans Killed By Cops Now Outnumber Americans Killed In Iraq War
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 01:58 PM PST
Cops have killed well over 5,000 Americans since 9/11. Many of these killings have occurred during no-knock raids, which have risen by 4000% since the 1980s.
Iraqi insurgents, by comparison, have killed around 3,500 Americans in Iraq since 9/11 in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
It is not just Iraq. The number of Americans killed by police also now exceeds the number of Americans killed by Afghan insurgents.
Afghan insurgents have killed around 2,000 Americans in Afghanistan since 9/11 in Operation Enduring Freedom.
The police are getting paid with our money to go on shooting sprees and they are killing more of us than the terrorists from whom they protect us.
Do not be too surprised. This data is to be expected; it naturally fits with the fact that the State uses counter-terrorism as a means to oppress and initiate violence against the population. In fact, you are eight times more likely to be killed by a cop than by an actual terrorist.
Domestic violence is two-four times more common among police families than American families in general.
As of 2010 the compared data lifted from Catos NPMSRP shows that the reports of police committing sexual assault amounted to more than 2 times the reports in the entire general population.
If officer-involved killings were prosecuted as murder, the murder rate for law enforcement officers would exceed the general population murder rate by at least 472%. And these are only the reported incidents. The vast majority of police misconduct and abuse is unreported. Who knows what the actual total is.
Excerpt from compared data between Catos NPMSR and the DOJs UCR for police homicide and sexual assault.
While were at it, over a quarter of a billion human beings were killed by government last century alone, making government the leading cause of unnatural death in the 20th century. This doesnt include casualties from all the wars that governments started to protect us.
The number of Americans in prison now exceeds the number of high school teachers and engineers. There are at least 7.3 million Americans locked in captivity or under federal control as you read this, the majority of whom are non-violent (for example, they were caught ingesting a plant that the government claims is illegal).
One in 25 Americans were arrested as of 2011. The number may be even higher now.
Friends, dont listen to anybody who tells you its just a few bad apples. The whole barrel is rotten.
Source
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
At least 12 killed as epic snowstorm covers Northeast US
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 01:33 PM PST
A heavy winter storm that slammed the US southeast and made its way up to the north has left over a dozen people dead and knocked out electricity to hundreds of thousands of American homes.
The giant storm, called Snowmaggedon, has also caused massive traffic jams on roads. Meanwhile, air travelers are also confused as hundreds of flights have been called off.
Most outbound flights from Newark, New Jersey, were canceled Thursday. Almost half of the inbound flights were also canceled, according to the flight-tracking website FlighAware.com.
As of Thursday 8 a.m., more than 4,800 flights were canceled across the US, according to the website.
Weather experts say some US cities can expect more than 30 centimeters of snow by the end of Thursday as the storm is moving up the East Coast.
The storm has also led to cancelations of 44 percent of the New York Citys LaGuardia outbound flights and 37 percent of the inbound flights.
Kennedy airport in New York City also saw about one-fifth of the days routes canceled by Thursday morning.
The storm and heavy snow also crippled road travel and knocked out power to nearly 400,000 homes and businesses in the region, where at least 13 people were killed because of the icy weather, Reuters reported.
According to meteorologists, an accumulation of ice and heavy snow is expected to add up to nearly 8 inches of frozen precipitation for Charlotte, North Carolina, and 9 inches were forecast for Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Source
Scotland has everything to become one of the worlds richest countries
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 12:41 PM PST
Scotland has oil, its small and can adopt the same regulatory measures as Singapore or Switzerland. Thats everything it needs to eventually join the list of the richest nations of the world, Dominic Frisby, author of Life After the State, told RT.
Scotland has the oil, its small, its population is less than 5 million and it has the same record. It has the opportunity to install the same regulatory and legislative [measures], to take the same options as Singapore or Switzerland. No other country in the world has the triple: the oil, regulatory issues and the fact that it is small, Frisby told RTs Max Keiser on his show, the Keiser Report.
While writing his book Life After the State, Frisby researched the list of the richest nations in the world based on GDP per capita. He explains that some of the states got onto the list because of their huge oil stocks, others due to their favorable regulatory legislation, but all of them have something in common they are relatively small in size.
In first place its Qatar, in second place its Luxemburg, and then you have the likes of Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, Hong Kong (that counts as a country on those lists), Brunei, etc. Some of these countries have got rich because of their oil. But in that case, why isnt there Saudi Arabia on the list? Why isnt Russia or Venezuela? Saudi Arabia is, by the way, 28th. Some of the countries have got there because of their oil, some because of the favorable legislation regulation, which means people either want to base themselves there or operate out of there, they are very tax-friendly. But these are regulatory and legislative options that are available to other countries in the world, they just havent been adopted, Frisby said.
The one thing all these countries on the list have in common is that they are small. They all have populations below 5 million, only Switzerland has above 7 million people, with the exception of the US which is at the 7th or 8th position. But in 1950-1970 the US topped that list, but as its state has grown and government has become more centralized, the US has slipped, Frisby said.
Frisby argues that Scotland combines all the necessary characteristics to become one of the richest countries in the world. Moreover, Scotland has a huge history in finance and banking, he said.
Talking about the advantages and disadvantages of keeping the British pound, if Scotland votes for independence in a referendum in September, Frisby said that would be the dumbest decision that Scotland will make.
It will be exactly the same dynamic of Southern Europe that Greece faces. You have interest rates set in Westminster that suit London and England in the same way the interest rates set in Brussels suit Germany, and then in the process Greece or Spain have been absolutely annihilated by that. The same thing could happen to Scotland. If it is going to be independent, be independent. They have to learn to live off their tax base as well, Frisby told Max Keiser.
Frisby said that he favors crypto-currencies such as bitcoin, stating that technology of electronic cash is infinitely superior and its pretty obvious that thats the way money is going.
Here is Scotland with an opportunity to be the trailblazer and be the first government to use cryptocurrency. Well, Icelanders are already doing that now, Frisby said.
Source
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Belgium grants euthanasia right to terminally ill kids
Americans Killed By Cops Now Outnumber Americans Killed In Iraq War
At least 12 killed as epic snowstorm covers Northeast US
Scotland has everything to become one of the worlds richest countries
Maryland lawmakers eye cutting off water, power to NSA headquarters
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 02:10 PM PST
A group of lawmakers in Maryland has introduced a bill that would deny state support to the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., which might see electricity and water supplies cut to the intelligence nerve center.
Eight Republicans from the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates introduced the legislation that would deny the NSA material support, participation or assistance in any form from the state or companies with state contracts
In practice, this might mean that NSA facilities would be deprived of water and electricity, prevent state universities from partnering with the NSA in research projects, and ban NSA-derived evidence in state courts.
Any officials working for the state that ignored these sanctions would be fired, while local government departments that refused to comply would lose state funds and companies doing business with the NSA would be barred from state contracts.
The bill was filed as emergency legislation and requires the support of three-fifths of delegates to become law. It has been referred to the chambers judiciary committee for further work and consideration.
The bill is the latest measure in a campaign spearheaded by the Tenth Amendment Center, which along with the Bill of Rights Defense Committee launched by the OffNow coalition last year is attempting to cut off water to the NSAs brand new Utah data center.
The Tenth Amendment states the US Constitutions principle of federalism that powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States or the people of the United States.
Lawmakers in Arizona, California, Tennessee and Washington have filed bills based on legislation models from the Tenth Amendment Center.
A bipartisan cohort of lawmakers in California introduced legislation last month that prohibits their state from providing material support to the NSA. If it becomes law it would have the same effect as the law proposed in Maryland.
While universities operating research programs with the spy agency might be affected, the bill is largely symbolic as the NSA does not have any large facilities in California.
Ted Lieu, the bills Democratic co-author, said in a statement that the NSAs surveillance capabilities represent a clear and present danger to the liberties of US citizens.
I agree with the NSA that the world is a dangerous place. That is why our founders enacted the Bill of Rights. They understood the grave dangers of an out-of-control federal government, he said.
A similar bill was also introduced in Arizona in December. Senator Kelli Ward described her bill as a way to back our neighbors [in Utah] up. The NSA operates a huge data collection facility in Utah.
The NSA facility in Maryland uses a vast amount of water and electricity. The Washington Post reported in January that the agency signed a contract for water to cool a computer center under construction at its Fort Meade base for nearly $2 million and the Baltimore Sun reported that from 2006 the NSAs headquarters used as much electricity as the city of Annapolis.
Any federal legislation curbing the NSAs powers would likely be vetoed by President Barack Obama, who is broadly a supporter of NSA programs; although he has indicted that some reform of the agency is necessary.
Source
Belgium grants euthanasia right to terminally ill kids
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 02:04 PM PST
The Belgian parliament has passed a bill that extends the right to euthanasia to children under 18, making the country the first to completely lift age restrictions on euthanasia to minors.
On Thursday, the lower house of parliament adopted the controversial legislation by 86 votes in favor, 44 against and with 12 abstentions.
The adoption of the ground-breaking legislation followed approval by the Senate last December.
The bill would extend the right to die to those under the age of 18 only under certain strict conditions, including parental consent and a requirement that any minor desiring euthanasia demonstrate a capacity for discernment to a psychiatrist and psychologist.
The lawmakers clashed sharply over the bill. Proponents of the law say it should be widened to minors so as to help children in pain die as a question of mercy.
We arent speaking about death, we are speaking about the way to die, said Philippe Mahoux, a Socialist Party senator and the bills main sponsor.
What we are giving them is the possibility to die with dignity, without suffering, without intolerable pain, he noted.
Opponents, largely members of centrist Christian-leaning parties, say minors are not capable of such a drastic and irreversible decision.
Minors decide more impulsively than adults and they dont have the same perspective of short-term and long-term decisions, said Els van Hoof, a lawmaker from the Christian Democratic and Flemish party.
Their brains arent as developed on an emotional, moral or cognitive level as an adult, and they are more depending on the influence of authority, and authority in this case would be the doctors or the parents, van Hoof pointed out.
Its too high a risk to leave this decision in the hands of children, she added.
The euthanasia bill will go to Belgiums monarch, King Philippe, to be signed into law. The king is not expected to oppose the measure.
Over 160 pediatricians also joined the opponents, asking lawmakers to postpone the vote. They said the bill was unnecessary and not prepared well.
Pain can be eased nowadays, theres been huge progress in palliative care, said cancer specialist Nadine Francotte, who signed a petition to lawmakers, urging more time for reflection before any decision is made.
Belgium, one of the few countries that has allowed euthanasia, first passed legislation legalizing euthanasia in 2002.
It is the second country after the Netherlands to allow mercy-killing for children, and the first to lift all age restrictions. The Netherlands allows euthanasia for children over 12, if they are conscious, and if equipped with a capacity of discernment.
Source
Americans Killed By Cops Now Outnumber Americans Killed In Iraq War
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 01:58 PM PST
Cops have killed well over 5,000 Americans since 9/11. Many of these killings have occurred during no-knock raids, which have risen by 4000% since the 1980s.
Iraqi insurgents, by comparison, have killed around 3,500 Americans in Iraq since 9/11 in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
It is not just Iraq. The number of Americans killed by police also now exceeds the number of Americans killed by Afghan insurgents.
Afghan insurgents have killed around 2,000 Americans in Afghanistan since 9/11 in Operation Enduring Freedom.
The police are getting paid with our money to go on shooting sprees and they are killing more of us than the terrorists from whom they protect us.
Do not be too surprised. This data is to be expected; it naturally fits with the fact that the State uses counter-terrorism as a means to oppress and initiate violence against the population. In fact, you are eight times more likely to be killed by a cop than by an actual terrorist.
Domestic violence is two-four times more common among police families than American families in general.
As of 2010 the compared data lifted from Catos NPMSRP shows that the reports of police committing sexual assault amounted to more than 2 times the reports in the entire general population.
If officer-involved killings were prosecuted as murder, the murder rate for law enforcement officers would exceed the general population murder rate by at least 472%. And these are only the reported incidents. The vast majority of police misconduct and abuse is unreported. Who knows what the actual total is.
Excerpt from compared data between Catos NPMSR and the DOJs UCR for police homicide and sexual assault.
While were at it, over a quarter of a billion human beings were killed by government last century alone, making government the leading cause of unnatural death in the 20th century. This doesnt include casualties from all the wars that governments started to protect us.
The number of Americans in prison now exceeds the number of high school teachers and engineers. There are at least 7.3 million Americans locked in captivity or under federal control as you read this, the majority of whom are non-violent (for example, they were caught ingesting a plant that the government claims is illegal).
One in 25 Americans were arrested as of 2011. The number may be even higher now.
Friends, dont listen to anybody who tells you its just a few bad apples. The whole barrel is rotten.
Source
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
At least 12 killed as epic snowstorm covers Northeast US
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 01:33 PM PST
A heavy winter storm that slammed the US southeast and made its way up to the north has left over a dozen people dead and knocked out electricity to hundreds of thousands of American homes.
The giant storm, called Snowmaggedon, has also caused massive traffic jams on roads. Meanwhile, air travelers are also confused as hundreds of flights have been called off.
Most outbound flights from Newark, New Jersey, were canceled Thursday. Almost half of the inbound flights were also canceled, according to the flight-tracking website FlighAware.com.
As of Thursday 8 a.m., more than 4,800 flights were canceled across the US, according to the website.
Weather experts say some US cities can expect more than 30 centimeters of snow by the end of Thursday as the storm is moving up the East Coast.
The storm has also led to cancelations of 44 percent of the New York Citys LaGuardia outbound flights and 37 percent of the inbound flights.
Kennedy airport in New York City also saw about one-fifth of the days routes canceled by Thursday morning.
The storm and heavy snow also crippled road travel and knocked out power to nearly 400,000 homes and businesses in the region, where at least 13 people were killed because of the icy weather, Reuters reported.
According to meteorologists, an accumulation of ice and heavy snow is expected to add up to nearly 8 inches of frozen precipitation for Charlotte, North Carolina, and 9 inches were forecast for Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Source
Scotland has everything to become one of the worlds richest countries
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 12:41 PM PST
Scotland has oil, its small and can adopt the same regulatory measures as Singapore or Switzerland. Thats everything it needs to eventually join the list of the richest nations of the world, Dominic Frisby, author of Life After the State, told RT.
Scotland has the oil, its small, its population is less than 5 million and it has the same record. It has the opportunity to install the same regulatory and legislative [measures], to take the same options as Singapore or Switzerland. No other country in the world has the triple: the oil, regulatory issues and the fact that it is small, Frisby told RTs Max Keiser on his show, the Keiser Report.
While writing his book Life After the State, Frisby researched the list of the richest nations in the world based on GDP per capita. He explains that some of the states got onto the list because of their huge oil stocks, others due to their favorable regulatory legislation, but all of them have something in common they are relatively small in size.
In first place its Qatar, in second place its Luxemburg, and then you have the likes of Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, Hong Kong (that counts as a country on those lists), Brunei, etc. Some of these countries have got rich because of their oil. But in that case, why isnt there Saudi Arabia on the list? Why isnt Russia or Venezuela? Saudi Arabia is, by the way, 28th. Some of the countries have got there because of their oil, some because of the favorable legislation regulation, which means people either want to base themselves there or operate out of there, they are very tax-friendly. But these are regulatory and legislative options that are available to other countries in the world, they just havent been adopted, Frisby said.
The one thing all these countries on the list have in common is that they are small. They all have populations below 5 million, only Switzerland has above 7 million people, with the exception of the US which is at the 7th or 8th position. But in 1950-1970 the US topped that list, but as its state has grown and government has become more centralized, the US has slipped, Frisby said.
Frisby argues that Scotland combines all the necessary characteristics to become one of the richest countries in the world. Moreover, Scotland has a huge history in finance and banking, he said.
Talking about the advantages and disadvantages of keeping the British pound, if Scotland votes for independence in a referendum in September, Frisby said that would be the dumbest decision that Scotland will make.
It will be exactly the same dynamic of Southern Europe that Greece faces. You have interest rates set in Westminster that suit London and England in the same way the interest rates set in Brussels suit Germany, and then in the process Greece or Spain have been absolutely annihilated by that. The same thing could happen to Scotland. If it is going to be independent, be independent. They have to learn to live off their tax base as well, Frisby told Max Keiser.
Frisby said that he favors crypto-currencies such as bitcoin, stating that technology of electronic cash is infinitely superior and its pretty obvious that thats the way money is going.
Here is Scotland with an opportunity to be the trailblazer and be the first government to use cryptocurrency. Well, Icelanders are already doing that now, Frisby said.
Source
You are subscribed to email updates from The European Union Times - World News, Breaking News
To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610
Feb 14, 2014 12:18:54 #
If America Continues To Go Down The Same Path As Europe, This Is What Life Will Be Like
Posted By yihan On February 14, 2014 @ 6:05 am In Featured Stories,Tile,World News | No Comments
Michael Snyder
American Dream
February 14, 2014
Becoming more like Europe is not a good thing. But that is the path that we are currently on. For the most part, Europeans live in a socialist Big Brother system in which the government completely dominates your life from the cradle to the grave. Of course there are differences from country to country, but generally speaking the lives of most Europeans are very tightly regulated. You see, the truth is that high levels of individual liberty and freedom are considered to be dangerous by the European elite.
Image: EU Flag (Wikimedia Commons).
They believe that if we are all allowed to just do whatever we want that it would result in utter chaos. They are convinced that life is better when those that are smarter (them) control the lives of everyone else. In essence, Europe is like a giant religious cult in many ways (minus the religion). With each passing year, the number of rules and regulations governing the daily lives of Europeans steadily grows, as does the level of control. If you try to live outside of that control, you could very well find yourself in a direct confrontation with the authorities very rapidly.
Just consider what is happening in Germany. Authorities there have stated repeatedly that they do not believe in having any parallel societies, and therefore everyone must participate in the system that the government has established.
That includes all children. In Germany today, almost all forms of homeschooling are illegal. In fact, one judge shockingly ruled that one set of parents could not have custody of their children because they might move them to another country and homeschool them there
A judge has issued a stunning verdict in a homeschooling case in Germany, ordering that the parents cannot have custody of their children because the family might move to another country and homeschool, posing a concrete endangerment to the children.
Dirk and Petra Wunderlichs case made international headlines in August when 20 armed police arrived with a battering ram and forcibly took their four children from their home in Darmstadt, Germany, and enrolled them in public school.
As WND reported at the time, the children, ages 7 to 14, were taken into police custody. They were allowed to return home three weeks later when their father and mother, given no choice by the federal bureaucracy in Germany, agreed to allow their kids to attend public schools despite their objection to the social and religious instruction there.
Are you starting to see what I meant when I compared Europe to a cult?
In Europe, government is god, and everyone and everything belongs to the government.
Apparently, that even includes the life savings of their own citizens. The following is from a Reuters article that was just posted this week
The savings of the European Unions 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost theeconomy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says.
Did you catch that? The EU apparently believes that they could use the private savings of their own citizens to fund long-term investments any time that they want.
But what if you dont want your life savings to be invested in that way?
Too bad for you.
In fact, according to that Reuters article the EU wants to find ways to mobilize more personal pension savings so that there will be a larger pool with which to potentially fund long-term projects
The Commission will ask the blocs insurance watchdog in the second half of this year for advice on a possible draft law to mobilize more personal pension savings for long-term financing, the document said.
In Europe, they also tend to love any Big Brother technologies that will allow them to watch, track, monitor and record the activities of their citizens.
For example, it has been reported that in the UK there are 1.85 million video cameras watching the population, and London has been called the most watched city in the world.
The control freaks in the UK are so paranoid that it is even illegal to carry a knife in public, but despite all of their crazy laws the rate of violent crime in the UK is still far higher than it is in the United States.
Now, the UK has decided that all of the medical records for the entire population will be gathered into a single database. The following is from a recent TechDirt article
The UK government is currently building a database called care.data that will contain all of Englands medical records. Its being promoted as providing valuable information for healthcare management and medical researchers that will lead to improved treatment.
But this database will not be private. In fact, it is being reported that information from this database will be sold to drug companies and insurance companies
Drug and insurance companies will from later this year be able to buy information on patients including mental health conditions and diseases such as cancer, as well as smoking and drinking habits once a single English database of medical data has been created.
Harvested from GP and hospital records, medical data covering the entire population will be uploaded to the repository controlled by a new arms-length NHS information centre, starting in March. Never before has the entire medical history of the nation been digitised and stored in one place.
How would you feel if that was being done to your private medical information?
Not that the U.S. is a bastion of freedom and liberty these days either.
For example, Infowars is reporting that the Department of Homeland Security plans to launch a national license plate tracking system
The Department of Homeland Security is set to activate a national license plate tracking system that will be shared with law enforcement, allowing DHS officers to take photos of any license plate using their smartphone and upload it to a database which will include a hot list of target vehicles.
The details are included in a PDF attachment uploaded yesterday to the Federal Business Opportunities website under a solicitation entitled National License Plate Recognition Database.
The system will track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system from a variety of sources (access control systems, asset recovery specialists, etc.) and uploaded to share with law enforcement in order to help locate criminal aliens and absconders.
And for many more ways that the U.S. is becoming a Big Brother society, please see my previous article entitled 32 Privacy Destroying Technologies That Are Systematically Transforming America Into A Giant Prison.
Another way that America is becoming more like Europe is in the area of religious behavior.
At one time, Europe was a hotbed for religious faith. Of course those days are long gone. And the United States is now heading down the exact same path, although Europe is still way ahead of us. The following is from a Pew Research survey conducted a few years ago
Half of Americans deem religion very important in their lives; fewer than a quarter in Spain (22%), Germany (21%), Britain (17%) and France (13%) share this view.
So why has religion become so unimportant?
Well, it is because that is what the government system tells them to believe from the time that they are little children.
As I mentioned earlier, the government dominates your life from the beginning to the end in Europe. This even includes decisions about ending your life.
In fact, in Belgium they actually want to extend the euthanasia law to children
Making the argument that everybody has the right to die, Karine Lalieux, a Socialist member of the Belgian House, is pushing legislation that would extend the countrys 2002 euthanasia law to minors under 18.
Our responsibility is to allow everybody to live, but also to die, in dignity, said Lalieux.
And in the Netherlands they actually have mobile euthanasia teams that go door to door helping elderly people end their lives in the comfort of their own homes.
Europe is not a model for the rest of us to follow.
Instead, Europe should serve as a stark warning to the rest of the world about what can happen when you let the control freaks get too much control.
So what do you think?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below
Article printed from Infowars: http://www.infowars.com
URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/if-america-continues-to-go-down-the-same-path-as-europe-this-is-what-life-will-be-like/
Posted By yihan On February 14, 2014 @ 6:05 am In Featured Stories,Tile,World News | No Comments
Michael Snyder
American Dream
February 14, 2014
Becoming more like Europe is not a good thing. But that is the path that we are currently on. For the most part, Europeans live in a socialist Big Brother system in which the government completely dominates your life from the cradle to the grave. Of course there are differences from country to country, but generally speaking the lives of most Europeans are very tightly regulated. You see, the truth is that high levels of individual liberty and freedom are considered to be dangerous by the European elite.
Image: EU Flag (Wikimedia Commons).
They believe that if we are all allowed to just do whatever we want that it would result in utter chaos. They are convinced that life is better when those that are smarter (them) control the lives of everyone else. In essence, Europe is like a giant religious cult in many ways (minus the religion). With each passing year, the number of rules and regulations governing the daily lives of Europeans steadily grows, as does the level of control. If you try to live outside of that control, you could very well find yourself in a direct confrontation with the authorities very rapidly.
Just consider what is happening in Germany. Authorities there have stated repeatedly that they do not believe in having any parallel societies, and therefore everyone must participate in the system that the government has established.
That includes all children. In Germany today, almost all forms of homeschooling are illegal. In fact, one judge shockingly ruled that one set of parents could not have custody of their children because they might move them to another country and homeschool them there
A judge has issued a stunning verdict in a homeschooling case in Germany, ordering that the parents cannot have custody of their children because the family might move to another country and homeschool, posing a concrete endangerment to the children.
Dirk and Petra Wunderlichs case made international headlines in August when 20 armed police arrived with a battering ram and forcibly took their four children from their home in Darmstadt, Germany, and enrolled them in public school.
As WND reported at the time, the children, ages 7 to 14, were taken into police custody. They were allowed to return home three weeks later when their father and mother, given no choice by the federal bureaucracy in Germany, agreed to allow their kids to attend public schools despite their objection to the social and religious instruction there.
Are you starting to see what I meant when I compared Europe to a cult?
In Europe, government is god, and everyone and everything belongs to the government.
Apparently, that even includes the life savings of their own citizens. The following is from a Reuters article that was just posted this week
The savings of the European Unions 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost theeconomy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says.
Did you catch that? The EU apparently believes that they could use the private savings of their own citizens to fund long-term investments any time that they want.
But what if you dont want your life savings to be invested in that way?
Too bad for you.
In fact, according to that Reuters article the EU wants to find ways to mobilize more personal pension savings so that there will be a larger pool with which to potentially fund long-term projects
The Commission will ask the blocs insurance watchdog in the second half of this year for advice on a possible draft law to mobilize more personal pension savings for long-term financing, the document said.
In Europe, they also tend to love any Big Brother technologies that will allow them to watch, track, monitor and record the activities of their citizens.
For example, it has been reported that in the UK there are 1.85 million video cameras watching the population, and London has been called the most watched city in the world.
The control freaks in the UK are so paranoid that it is even illegal to carry a knife in public, but despite all of their crazy laws the rate of violent crime in the UK is still far higher than it is in the United States.
Now, the UK has decided that all of the medical records for the entire population will be gathered into a single database. The following is from a recent TechDirt article
The UK government is currently building a database called care.data that will contain all of Englands medical records. Its being promoted as providing valuable information for healthcare management and medical researchers that will lead to improved treatment.
But this database will not be private. In fact, it is being reported that information from this database will be sold to drug companies and insurance companies
Drug and insurance companies will from later this year be able to buy information on patients including mental health conditions and diseases such as cancer, as well as smoking and drinking habits once a single English database of medical data has been created.
Harvested from GP and hospital records, medical data covering the entire population will be uploaded to the repository controlled by a new arms-length NHS information centre, starting in March. Never before has the entire medical history of the nation been digitised and stored in one place.
How would you feel if that was being done to your private medical information?
Not that the U.S. is a bastion of freedom and liberty these days either.
For example, Infowars is reporting that the Department of Homeland Security plans to launch a national license plate tracking system
The Department of Homeland Security is set to activate a national license plate tracking system that will be shared with law enforcement, allowing DHS officers to take photos of any license plate using their smartphone and upload it to a database which will include a hot list of target vehicles.
The details are included in a PDF attachment uploaded yesterday to the Federal Business Opportunities website under a solicitation entitled National License Plate Recognition Database.
The system will track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system from a variety of sources (access control systems, asset recovery specialists, etc.) and uploaded to share with law enforcement in order to help locate criminal aliens and absconders.
And for many more ways that the U.S. is becoming a Big Brother society, please see my previous article entitled 32 Privacy Destroying Technologies That Are Systematically Transforming America Into A Giant Prison.
Another way that America is becoming more like Europe is in the area of religious behavior.
At one time, Europe was a hotbed for religious faith. Of course those days are long gone. And the United States is now heading down the exact same path, although Europe is still way ahead of us. The following is from a Pew Research survey conducted a few years ago
Half of Americans deem religion very important in their lives; fewer than a quarter in Spain (22%), Germany (21%), Britain (17%) and France (13%) share this view.
So why has religion become so unimportant?
Well, it is because that is what the government system tells them to believe from the time that they are little children.
As I mentioned earlier, the government dominates your life from the beginning to the end in Europe. This even includes decisions about ending your life.
In fact, in Belgium they actually want to extend the euthanasia law to children
Making the argument that everybody has the right to die, Karine Lalieux, a Socialist member of the Belgian House, is pushing legislation that would extend the countrys 2002 euthanasia law to minors under 18.
Our responsibility is to allow everybody to live, but also to die, in dignity, said Lalieux.
And in the Netherlands they actually have mobile euthanasia teams that go door to door helping elderly people end their lives in the comfort of their own homes.
Europe is not a model for the rest of us to follow.
Instead, Europe should serve as a stark warning to the rest of the world about what can happen when you let the control freaks get too much control.
So what do you think?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below
Article printed from Infowars: http://www.infowars.com
URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/if-america-continues-to-go-down-the-same-path-as-europe-this-is-what-life-will-be-like/
Feb 14, 2014 13:14:40 #
Feb 14, 2014 13:16:42 #
U.S. Army Builds Fake City in Virginia to Practice Military Occupation
Posted By yihan On February 14, 2014 @ 11:37 am In Featured Stories,Tile | No Comments
Martial law training? 300 acre town includes sports stadium, school, underground subway
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 14, 2014
The U.S. Army has built a 300 acre fake city complete with a sports stadium, bank, school, and an underground subway in order to train for unspecified future combat scenarios.
The recently opened site is located in Virginia and was built at a cost of $96 million dollars, taking just two years to complete.
While the city was ostensibly built to prepare U.S. troops for the occupation of cities abroad, some will undoubtedly fear that the real intention could be closer to home. Although the site includes a mosque, the town looks American in every other way, with signs in English.
The fact that, as the Telegraph reports, The subway carriages even carry the same logo as the carriages in Washington DC, could suggest that the site was built to double both as a foreign city and a mock domestic town.
According to Colonel John P. Petkosek, This is the place where we can be creative, where we can come up with solutions for problems that we dont even know we have yet .This is where well look at solutions for the futurematerial solutions and non-material solutions anything from how youre going to operate in a subterranean environment to how you dismount a Humvee to avoid an IED strike.
The increasing demonization of domestic political groups as extremists has prompted numerous scenarios where commentators have suggested that U.S. Army and National Guard personnel could be needed to quell civil unrest.
In 2012, an academic study about the future use of the military as a peacekeeping force within the United States written by a retired Army Colonel depicted a shocking scenario in which the U.S. Army is used to restore order to a town that has been seized by Tea Party insurrectionists.
The study dovetailed with a leaked U.S. Army manual which revealed plans for the military to carry out Civil Disturbance Operations during which troops would be used domestically to quell riots, confiscate firearms and even kill Americans on U.S. soil during mass civil unrest.
The manual also describes how prisoners will be processed through temporary internment camps under the guidance of U.S. Army FM 3-19.40 Internment/Resettlement Operations, which outlines how internees would be re-educated into developing an appreciation of U.S. policies while detained in prison camps inside the United States.
Fort Hood soldiers are also being taught by their superiors that Christians, Tea Party supporters and anti-abortion activists represent a radical terror threat, mirroring rhetoric backed by the Department of Homeland Security which frames liberty lovers as domestic extremists.
Last year, former Navy SEAL Ben Smith warned that the Obama administration is asking top brass in the military if they would be comfortable with disarming U.S. citizens, a litmus test that includes gauging whether they would be prepared to order NCOs to fire on Americans.
During a recent Ohio National Guard exercise, second amendment proponents were portrayed as domestic terrorists as part of a mock disaster drill.
Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71
FOLLOW Paul Joseph Watson @ https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
Posted By yihan On February 14, 2014 @ 11:37 am In Featured Stories,Tile | No Comments
Martial law training? 300 acre town includes sports stadium, school, underground subway
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 14, 2014
The U.S. Army has built a 300 acre fake city complete with a sports stadium, bank, school, and an underground subway in order to train for unspecified future combat scenarios.
The recently opened site is located in Virginia and was built at a cost of $96 million dollars, taking just two years to complete.
While the city was ostensibly built to prepare U.S. troops for the occupation of cities abroad, some will undoubtedly fear that the real intention could be closer to home. Although the site includes a mosque, the town looks American in every other way, with signs in English.
The fact that, as the Telegraph reports, The subway carriages even carry the same logo as the carriages in Washington DC, could suggest that the site was built to double both as a foreign city and a mock domestic town.
According to Colonel John P. Petkosek, This is the place where we can be creative, where we can come up with solutions for problems that we dont even know we have yet .This is where well look at solutions for the futurematerial solutions and non-material solutions anything from how youre going to operate in a subterranean environment to how you dismount a Humvee to avoid an IED strike.
The increasing demonization of domestic political groups as extremists has prompted numerous scenarios where commentators have suggested that U.S. Army and National Guard personnel could be needed to quell civil unrest.
In 2012, an academic study about the future use of the military as a peacekeeping force within the United States written by a retired Army Colonel depicted a shocking scenario in which the U.S. Army is used to restore order to a town that has been seized by Tea Party insurrectionists.
The study dovetailed with a leaked U.S. Army manual which revealed plans for the military to carry out Civil Disturbance Operations during which troops would be used domestically to quell riots, confiscate firearms and even kill Americans on U.S. soil during mass civil unrest.
The manual also describes how prisoners will be processed through temporary internment camps under the guidance of U.S. Army FM 3-19.40 Internment/Resettlement Operations, which outlines how internees would be re-educated into developing an appreciation of U.S. policies while detained in prison camps inside the United States.
Fort Hood soldiers are also being taught by their superiors that Christians, Tea Party supporters and anti-abortion activists represent a radical terror threat, mirroring rhetoric backed by the Department of Homeland Security which frames liberty lovers as domestic extremists.
Last year, former Navy SEAL Ben Smith warned that the Obama administration is asking top brass in the military if they would be comfortable with disarming U.S. citizens, a litmus test that includes gauging whether they would be prepared to order NCOs to fire on Americans.
During a recent Ohio National Guard exercise, second amendment proponents were portrayed as domestic terrorists as part of a mock disaster drill.
Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71
FOLLOW Paul Joseph Watson @ https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
Feb 14, 2014 16:09:27 #
Posted on Friday, 02.14.14
emailprintcomment
Farmers: Obama's drought relief efforts lacking
BY SCOTT SMITH
ASSOCIATED PRESS
FRESNO, Calif. -- Farmers in California's drought-stricken Central Valley said Friday that the financial assistance President Barack Obama is delivering on his visit does not get to the heart of California's long-term water problems.
Amid one of the driest years in the state's recorded history, Obama will come to the Fresno area to announce $100 million in livestock-disaster aid, $60 million to support food banks and another $13 million toward things such as conservation and helping rural communities that could soon run out of drinking water.
Sarah Woolf, a partner with Clark Brothers Farming in Fresno County, said anything will help, but the federal government needs to better manage the state's water supplies so farmers have enough during future droughts like the current one.
"Throwing money at it is not going to solve the problem long-term," she said.
In the ever-present tension between farmers and endangered fish, Woolf said she would like Obama to recognize the importance of providing the region with ample water for growers like her. Woolf typically plants 1,200 acres in tomatoes, garlic and onions, but this year 800 acres will remain bare because there's not enough water.
Protecting the environment is important, but endangered fish too often get priority over farming, Woolf said. In wet years, too much water is sent down rivers and out to the Pacific Ocean, supposedly benefiting the fish, that could be stored up for dry years like this, she said.
The Central Valley produces nearly one-third of the nation's fruits and vegetables, and Fresno County leads the nation in agriculture. Ryan Jacobsen, executive director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, estimates that 25 percent of the county's irrigated land will go unplanted because of the drought.
The drought has caused Democrats and Republicans in Congress to propose dueling emergency bills. Led by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, the House passed one that would free up water for farmers by rolling back environmental protections and stop the restoration of a dried-up stretch of the San Joaquin River that once had salmon runs.
Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer proposed their own version that pours $300 million into drought-relief projects without changing environmental laws. The bill would allow more flexibility to move water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farms in the south and speed up environmental reviews of water projects.
In his visit, Obama is scheduled to meet with a round table of farmers in Firebaugh and Los Banos and see the drought's impact firsthand.
Mark Borba, of Borba Farms, said he hasn't been invited to meet the president and share his story. Borba's farm typically grows 11,000 acres of almonds, tomatoes, garlic, lettuce, onions and much more.
Because of the drought, Borba said one-third of his crops won't be planted. Rather than bringing money, Borba said the president could ease this year's drought hardship on farmers by relaxing federal environmental regulations within the boundaries of the law intended to protect endangered fish.
"We don't want money," Borba said. "We don't want a handout."
Not everybody dismissed Obama's announcement.
Rick Palermo of the Community Food Bank in Fresno said he expects that the drought will lengthen lines in three Central Valley counties he serves. The Fresno food bank expects to receive some of the president's money, but his worry is that the donations they get from farmers may be lacking.
About half of the 30 million pounds of food they distribute each month is grown in the Central Valley, he said.
"If folks aren't growing it, there's a good chance we're not going to get the type of donations we need," Palermo said. "It's a dual impact on us."
Members of least one environmental group plan to converge on Fresno to voice their positions on California's divisive struggles over water.
Members of Restore the Delta, a grassroots environmental organization based in Stockton, hope to show Obama their opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown's multibillion-dollar twin-tunnels proposal for diverting water around the delta for use on farms.
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, the group's executive director, said her group won't protest, but rather try to educate the president, if they get anywhere near him.
"President Obama should not be misled," she said. "We implore him not to support this boondoggle
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/14/3934749/president-obama-visits-californias.html#storylink=cpy
emailprintcomment
Farmers: Obama's drought relief efforts lacking
BY SCOTT SMITH
ASSOCIATED PRESS
FRESNO, Calif. -- Farmers in California's drought-stricken Central Valley said Friday that the financial assistance President Barack Obama is delivering on his visit does not get to the heart of California's long-term water problems.
Amid one of the driest years in the state's recorded history, Obama will come to the Fresno area to announce $100 million in livestock-disaster aid, $60 million to support food banks and another $13 million toward things such as conservation and helping rural communities that could soon run out of drinking water.
Sarah Woolf, a partner with Clark Brothers Farming in Fresno County, said anything will help, but the federal government needs to better manage the state's water supplies so farmers have enough during future droughts like the current one.
"Throwing money at it is not going to solve the problem long-term," she said.
In the ever-present tension between farmers and endangered fish, Woolf said she would like Obama to recognize the importance of providing the region with ample water for growers like her. Woolf typically plants 1,200 acres in tomatoes, garlic and onions, but this year 800 acres will remain bare because there's not enough water.
Protecting the environment is important, but endangered fish too often get priority over farming, Woolf said. In wet years, too much water is sent down rivers and out to the Pacific Ocean, supposedly benefiting the fish, that could be stored up for dry years like this, she said.
The Central Valley produces nearly one-third of the nation's fruits and vegetables, and Fresno County leads the nation in agriculture. Ryan Jacobsen, executive director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, estimates that 25 percent of the county's irrigated land will go unplanted because of the drought.
The drought has caused Democrats and Republicans in Congress to propose dueling emergency bills. Led by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, the House passed one that would free up water for farmers by rolling back environmental protections and stop the restoration of a dried-up stretch of the San Joaquin River that once had salmon runs.
Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer proposed their own version that pours $300 million into drought-relief projects without changing environmental laws. The bill would allow more flexibility to move water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farms in the south and speed up environmental reviews of water projects.
In his visit, Obama is scheduled to meet with a round table of farmers in Firebaugh and Los Banos and see the drought's impact firsthand.
Mark Borba, of Borba Farms, said he hasn't been invited to meet the president and share his story. Borba's farm typically grows 11,000 acres of almonds, tomatoes, garlic, lettuce, onions and much more.
Because of the drought, Borba said one-third of his crops won't be planted. Rather than bringing money, Borba said the president could ease this year's drought hardship on farmers by relaxing federal environmental regulations within the boundaries of the law intended to protect endangered fish.
"We don't want money," Borba said. "We don't want a handout."
Not everybody dismissed Obama's announcement.
Rick Palermo of the Community Food Bank in Fresno said he expects that the drought will lengthen lines in three Central Valley counties he serves. The Fresno food bank expects to receive some of the president's money, but his worry is that the donations they get from farmers may be lacking.
About half of the 30 million pounds of food they distribute each month is grown in the Central Valley, he said.
"If folks aren't growing it, there's a good chance we're not going to get the type of donations we need," Palermo said. "It's a dual impact on us."
Members of least one environmental group plan to converge on Fresno to voice their positions on California's divisive struggles over water.
Members of Restore the Delta, a grassroots environmental organization based in Stockton, hope to show Obama their opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown's multibillion-dollar twin-tunnels proposal for diverting water around the delta for use on farms.
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, the group's executive director, said her group won't protest, but rather try to educate the president, if they get anywhere near him.
"President Obama should not be misled," she said. "We implore him not to support this boondoggle
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/14/3934749/president-obama-visits-californias.html#storylink=cpy
Feb 14, 2014 17:32:38 #
Perkins suggests poor should lose voting rights
02/14/14 04:45 PM
0 save share 9
By Steve Benen
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins is interviewed in his office in San Francisco, California in this September 12, 2011 file photo.
PHOTO BY ROBERT GALBRAITH/REUTERS
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins is interviewed in his office in San Francisco, California in this September 12, 2011 file photo.
A month ago, Tom Perkins, a very wealthy venture capitalist in California, had no meaningful political profile at all. But he apparently got a taste of notoriety and is finding new ways to stay in the political spotlight.
It was just three weeks ago that Perkins raised the prospect of a Progressive Kristallnacht, arguing that American liberals are targeting the wealthy the way Nazis targeted the Jews. He soon after apologized for his word-choice, but defended his message and boasted he could buy a six pack of Rolexes while arguing the rich feel put upon.
Unwilling to quit while he was behind, Perkins decided to press his luck, speaking at San Franciscos Commonwealth Club last night, and insisting that the wealthy are persecuted, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
The appearance included this jaw-dropper:
When challenged to say, in 60 seconds, how he would change the world, Perkins made a playfully controversial response. He suggested that, in the tradition of Thomas Jeffersons voting land owners and Margaret Thatchers idea of only allowing taxpayers to vote, The Tom Perkins system is: You dont get the vote if you dont pay a dollar in taxes. But what I really think is it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars, you get a million votes. Hows that? To which the audience responded with laughter.
Perkins later said offstage that what he meant was that, with 50% of registered U.S. voters not paying taxes, we got ourselves into a mess.
The fact that Perkins drew laughs suggests he was probably being overly provocative on purpose, exaggerating his bizarre message for effect.
But his clarified message is nevertheless illustrative of a broader confusion.
For one thing, Perkins seems concerned that the wealthy lack sufficient political power, while in our reality, its the poor who lack real political capital.
For another, note that Perkins is convinced that half the country doesnt pay a dollar in taxes. This comes up from time to time, and its important to appreciate the extent to which the claim is plainly, demonstrably wrong.
As weve discussed before, millions of Americans may be exempt from income taxes, but they still pay sales taxes, state taxes, local taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare/Medicaid taxes, and in many instances, property taxes. Its not as if these folks are getting away with something the existing tax structure leaves them out of the income tax system because they dont make enough money to qualify. Indeed, many are retirees who cant earn an income because theyre no longer in the workforce.
For Tom Perkins, these people should arguably lose the ability to participate in the American democratic process. At a minimum, he argues, they should have less political influence than the wealthy.
Or more to the point, Perkins believes a system that allows these people to avoid income taxes is a mess in need of a remedy. In other words, while arguing that the rich are facing too great a burden, this multi-millionaire also believes the poor deserve to pay higher taxes.
There are, to be sure, a surprising number of Republicans echoing this message theyre against tax hikes, unless theyre imposed on low-income families but we dont usually hear the disjointed class message made as explicitly as Perkins presented it last night. We may be living in a new Gilded Age, but for this venture capitalist, its time to go even easier on the rich, while asking more from the poor.
Im no expert in public relations, but if Perkins is eager for millionaires to be held in higher public regard, he may want to consider a new pitch
02/14/14 04:45 PM
0 save share 9
By Steve Benen
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins is interviewed in his office in San Francisco, California in this September 12, 2011 file photo.
PHOTO BY ROBERT GALBRAITH/REUTERS
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins is interviewed in his office in San Francisco, California in this September 12, 2011 file photo.
A month ago, Tom Perkins, a very wealthy venture capitalist in California, had no meaningful political profile at all. But he apparently got a taste of notoriety and is finding new ways to stay in the political spotlight.
It was just three weeks ago that Perkins raised the prospect of a Progressive Kristallnacht, arguing that American liberals are targeting the wealthy the way Nazis targeted the Jews. He soon after apologized for his word-choice, but defended his message and boasted he could buy a six pack of Rolexes while arguing the rich feel put upon.
Unwilling to quit while he was behind, Perkins decided to press his luck, speaking at San Franciscos Commonwealth Club last night, and insisting that the wealthy are persecuted, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
The appearance included this jaw-dropper:
When challenged to say, in 60 seconds, how he would change the world, Perkins made a playfully controversial response. He suggested that, in the tradition of Thomas Jeffersons voting land owners and Margaret Thatchers idea of only allowing taxpayers to vote, The Tom Perkins system is: You dont get the vote if you dont pay a dollar in taxes. But what I really think is it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars, you get a million votes. Hows that? To which the audience responded with laughter.
Perkins later said offstage that what he meant was that, with 50% of registered U.S. voters not paying taxes, we got ourselves into a mess.
The fact that Perkins drew laughs suggests he was probably being overly provocative on purpose, exaggerating his bizarre message for effect.
But his clarified message is nevertheless illustrative of a broader confusion.
For one thing, Perkins seems concerned that the wealthy lack sufficient political power, while in our reality, its the poor who lack real political capital.
For another, note that Perkins is convinced that half the country doesnt pay a dollar in taxes. This comes up from time to time, and its important to appreciate the extent to which the claim is plainly, demonstrably wrong.
As weve discussed before, millions of Americans may be exempt from income taxes, but they still pay sales taxes, state taxes, local taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare/Medicaid taxes, and in many instances, property taxes. Its not as if these folks are getting away with something the existing tax structure leaves them out of the income tax system because they dont make enough money to qualify. Indeed, many are retirees who cant earn an income because theyre no longer in the workforce.
For Tom Perkins, these people should arguably lose the ability to participate in the American democratic process. At a minimum, he argues, they should have less political influence than the wealthy.
Or more to the point, Perkins believes a system that allows these people to avoid income taxes is a mess in need of a remedy. In other words, while arguing that the rich are facing too great a burden, this multi-millionaire also believes the poor deserve to pay higher taxes.
There are, to be sure, a surprising number of Republicans echoing this message theyre against tax hikes, unless theyre imposed on low-income families but we dont usually hear the disjointed class message made as explicitly as Perkins presented it last night. We may be living in a new Gilded Age, but for this venture capitalist, its time to go even easier on the rich, while asking more from the poor.
Im no expert in public relations, but if Perkins is eager for millionaires to be held in higher public regard, he may want to consider a new pitch
Feb 17, 2014 08:36:14 #
Feb 17, 2014 08:36:19 #
Feb 17, 2014 08:37:07 #
Breaking: US Army Trains for Martial Law In US
-----------------
The federal government has been in a big hurry to build a 300 acre city in just 2 years at an expense of $96 million in taxpayer funds in order to train the military for problems we dont even know we have yet. If you've been following Infowars, you've seen us document over and over again what theyre training for with a detailed American city like this: martial law within this nation.
And now, The Telegraph is confirming the construction of this small town military simulation that will be used to train troops for combat against the American people.
Unlike the urban training centers we've seen before where the buildings are just empty concrete block structures or even plywood facades, this town is very detailed with glass windows, handicap parking signs, speed limit signs, logos on the subway that match the DC metro, and even a small town steeple (that was originally claimed to be a mosque). They've made it clear in manual after manual, scenario after scenario that they perceive the enemy as gun owners, limited government conservatives, libertarians and Christians.
-----------------
The federal government has been in a big hurry to build a 300 acre city in just 2 years at an expense of $96 million in taxpayer funds in order to train the military for problems we dont even know we have yet. If you've been following Infowars, you've seen us document over and over again what theyre training for with a detailed American city like this: martial law within this nation.
And now, The Telegraph is confirming the construction of this small town military simulation that will be used to train troops for combat against the American people.
Unlike the urban training centers we've seen before where the buildings are just empty concrete block structures or even plywood facades, this town is very detailed with glass windows, handicap parking signs, speed limit signs, logos on the subway that match the DC metro, and even a small town steeple (that was originally claimed to be a mosque). They've made it clear in manual after manual, scenario after scenario that they perceive the enemy as gun owners, limited government conservatives, libertarians and Christians.
Feb 17, 2014 10:37:15 #
Oliver Stone: Obamas Lack of Spine is Stunning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QzkIEKfS7Y
Leftist filmmaker slams Obama as weak man
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 17, 2014
Leftist filmmaker Oliver Stone slammed President Barack Obama during an event this past weekend, accusing Obama of selling out as soon as he got in office while exhibiting a stunning lack of spine.
Image: Oliver Stone (YouTube).
During a panel discussion entitled Imperial Overreach and the National Security State which took place at the International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C., Stone accused Obama of breaking all of his pre-election promises.
Something happened because none of the things he promised . . . transparency, a government that would reconsider the war on terror and these programs . . . none of that happened, none of it, said Stone.
The man stunned us with a lack of spine, the director added. He is a weak man.
Asserting that Obama sold immediately when he took the private option over the public option, Stone noted that Obamas choice of advisors, Robert Gates, whom he labeled a criminal, and Hillary Clinton, made it clear right away that President Obama would be a completely different entity than candidate Obama.
On everything he backed down, Stone said. I was stunned.
This is by no means the first time that Stone has publicly chastised Obama.
Last year, Stone told a Tokyo audience that Obama was a snake for institutionalizing illegal National Security Agency spy programs. Hes a snake. And we have to turn on him, said the filmmaker.
Stone also spoke out against the administrations plan to launch a military intervention in Syria before it was averted at the last minute back in September.
Obamas sinking approval rating has been characterized by low income Americans and those who lean Democrat abandoning their support for the President. A December Gallup poll found that support for Obama amongst Hispanics had dropped a whopping 23 per cent over the previous 12 months.
Stone is a good example of a leftist who has refused to betray his principles just because a Democrat is in the White House, unlike the deluge of Obama cheerleaders who vehemently attacked George W. Bush over the attack on Iraq but have remained silent about Obamas abhorrent drone strike policy.
Watch the full panel discussion from Saturdays event featuring Stone below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QzkIEKfS7Y
Leftist filmmaker slams Obama as weak man
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 17, 2014
Leftist filmmaker Oliver Stone slammed President Barack Obama during an event this past weekend, accusing Obama of selling out as soon as he got in office while exhibiting a stunning lack of spine.
Image: Oliver Stone (YouTube).
During a panel discussion entitled Imperial Overreach and the National Security State which took place at the International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C., Stone accused Obama of breaking all of his pre-election promises.
Something happened because none of the things he promised . . . transparency, a government that would reconsider the war on terror and these programs . . . none of that happened, none of it, said Stone.
The man stunned us with a lack of spine, the director added. He is a weak man.
Asserting that Obama sold immediately when he took the private option over the public option, Stone noted that Obamas choice of advisors, Robert Gates, whom he labeled a criminal, and Hillary Clinton, made it clear right away that President Obama would be a completely different entity than candidate Obama.
On everything he backed down, Stone said. I was stunned.
This is by no means the first time that Stone has publicly chastised Obama.
Last year, Stone told a Tokyo audience that Obama was a snake for institutionalizing illegal National Security Agency spy programs. Hes a snake. And we have to turn on him, said the filmmaker.
Stone also spoke out against the administrations plan to launch a military intervention in Syria before it was averted at the last minute back in September.
Obamas sinking approval rating has been characterized by low income Americans and those who lean Democrat abandoning their support for the President. A December Gallup poll found that support for Obama amongst Hispanics had dropped a whopping 23 per cent over the previous 12 months.
Stone is a good example of a leftist who has refused to betray his principles just because a Democrat is in the White House, unlike the deluge of Obama cheerleaders who vehemently attacked George W. Bush over the attack on Iraq but have remained silent about Obamas abhorrent drone strike policy.
Watch the full panel discussion from Saturdays event featuring Stone below.
Feb 17, 2014 10:38:26 #
15 Reasons Why Your Food Bill Is Going To Start SOARING
Posted By yihan On February 17, 2014 @ 5:41 am In Featured Stories,Tile,U.S. News | No Comments
Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse
February 17, 2014
Did you know that the U.S. state that produces the most vegetables is going through the worst drought it has ever experienced and that the size of the total U.S. cattle herd is now the smallest that it has been since 1951?
Image: Food Prices (Wikimedia Commons).
Just the other day, a CBS News article boldly declared that food prices soar as incomes stand still, but the truth is that this is only just the beginning. If the drought that has been devastating farmers and ranchers out west continues, we are going to see prices for meat, fruits and vegetables soar into the stratosphere. Already, the federal government has declared portions of 11 states to be disaster areas, and California farmers are going to leave half a million acres sitting idle this year because of the extremely dry conditions. Sadly, experts are telling us that things are probably going to get worse before they get better (if they ever do). As you will read about below, one expert recently told National Geographic that throughout history it has been quite common for that region of North America to experience severe droughts that last for decades. In fact, one drought actually lasted for about 200 years. So there is the possibility that the drought that has begun in the state of California may not end during your entire lifetime.
This drought has gotten so bad that it is starting to get national attention. Barack Obama visited the Fresno region on Friday, and he declared that this is going to be a very challenging situation this year, and frankly, the trend lines are such where its going to be a challenging situation for some time to come.
According to NBC News, businesses across the region are shutting down, large numbers of workers are leaving to search for other work, and things are already so bad that it calls to mind the Dust Bowl of the 1930s
In the states Central Valley where nearly 40 percent of all jobs are tied to agriculture production and related processing the pain has already trickled down. Businesses across a wide swath of the region have shuttered, casting countless workers adrift in a downturn that calls to mind the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
If you will recall, there have been warnings that Dust Bowl conditions were going to return to the western half of the country for quite some time.
Now the mainstream media is finally starting to catch up.
And of course these extremely dry conditions are going to severely affect food prices. The following are 15 reasons why your food bill is going to start soaring
#1 2013 was the driest year on record for the state of California, and 2014 has been exceptionally dry so far as well.
#2 According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 91.6 percent of the entire state of California is experiencing severe to exceptional drought even as you read this article.
#3 According to CNBC, it is being projected that California farmers are going to let half a million acres of farmland sit idle this year because of the crippling drought.
#4 Celeste Cantu, the general manager for the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, says that this drought could have a cataclysmicimpact on food prices
Given that California is one of the largest agricultural regions in the world, the effects of any drought, never mind one that could last for centuries, are huge. About 80 percent of Californias freshwater supply is used for agriculture. The cost of fruits and vegetables could soar, says Cantu. There will be cataclysmic impacts.
#5 Mike Wade, the executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition, recently explained which crops he believes will be hit the hardest
Hardest hit would be such annual row crops as tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, cantaloupes, garlic, peppers and corn. Wade said consumers can also expect higher prices and reduced selection at grocery stores, particularly for products such as almonds, raisins, walnuts and olives.
#6 As I discussed in a previous article, the rest of the nation is extremely dependent on the fruits and vegetables grown in California. Just consider the following statistics regarding what percentage of our produce is grown in the state
-99 percent of the artichokes
-44 percent of asparagus
-two-thirds of carrots
-half of bell peppers
-89 percent of cauliflower
-94 percent of broccoli
-95 percent of celery
-90 percent of the leaf lettuce
-83 percent of Romaine lettuce
-83 percent of fresh spinach
-a third of the fresh tomatoes
-86 percent of lemons
-90 percent of avocados
-84 percent of peaches
-88 percent of fresh strawberries
-97 percent of fresh plums
#7 Of course it isnt just agriculture which will be affected by this drought. Just consider this chilling statement by Tim Quinn, the executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies
There are places in California that if we dont do something about it, tens of thousands of people could turn on their water faucets and nothing would come out.
#8 The Sierra Nevada snowpack is only about 15 percent of what it normally is. As the New York Times recently explained, this is going to be absolutely devastating for Californians when the warmer months arrive
Experts offer dire warnings. The current drought has already eclipsed previous water crises, like the one in 1977, which a meteorologist friend, translating into language we understand as historians, likened to the Great Depression of droughts. Most Californians depend on the Sierra Nevada for their water supply, but the snowpack there was just 15 percent of normal in early February.
#9 The underground aquifers that so many California farmers depend upon are being drained at a staggering rate
Pumping from aquifers is so intense that the ground in parts of the valley is sinking about a foot a year. Once aquifers compress, they can never fill with water again. Its no surprise Tom Willey wakes every morning with a lump in his throat. When we ask which farmers will survive the summer, he responds quite simply: those who dig the deepest and pump the hardest.
#10 According to an expert interviewed by National Geographic, the current drought in the state of California could potentially last for 200 years or more as some mega-droughts in the region have done in the past
California is experiencing its worst drought since record-keeping began in the mid 19th century, and scientists say this may be just the beginning. B. Lynn Ingram, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California at Berkeley, thinks that California needs to brace itself for a megadroughtone that could last for 200 years or more.
#11 Much of the western U.S. has been exceedingly dry for an extended period of time, and this is hurting huge numbers of farmers and ranchers all the way from Texas to the west coast
The western United States has been in a drought that has been building for more than a decade, according to climatologist Bill Patzert of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Ranchers in the West are selling off their livestock, Patzert said. Farmers all over the Southwest, from Texas to Oregon, are fallowing in their fields because of a lack of water. For farmers and ranchers, this is a painful drought.
#12 The size of the U.S. cattle herd has been shrinking for seven years in a row, and it is now the smallest that it has been since 1951. But our population has more than doubled since then.
#13 Extremely unusual weather patterns are playing havoc with crops all over the planet right now. The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Lizzie Bennett
Peru, Venezuela, and Bolivia have experienced rainfall heavy enough to flood fields and rot crops where they stand. Volcanic eruptions in Ecuador are also creating problems due to cattle ingesting ash with their feed leading to a slow and painful death.
Parts of Australia have been in drought for years affecting cattle and agricultural production.
Rice production in China has been affected by record low temperatures.
Large parts of the UK are underwater, and much of that water is sea water which is poisoning the soil. So wet is the UK that groundwater is so high it is actually coming out of the ground and adding to the water from rivers and the sea. With the official assessment being that groundwater flooding will continue until MAY, and thats if it doesnt rain again between now and then. The River Thames is 65 feet higher than normal in some areas, flooding town after town as it heads to the sea.
#14 As food prices rise, our incomes are staying about the same. The following is from a CBS News article entitled Food prices soar as incomes stand still
While the government says prices are up 6.4 percent since 2011, chicken is up 18.4 percent, ground beef is up 16.8 percent and bacon has skyrocketed up 22.8 percent, making it a holiday when its on sale.
#15 As I have written about previously, median household income has fallen for five years in a row. So average Americans are going to have to make their food budgets stretch more than they ever have before as this drought drags on.
If the drought does continue to get worse, small agricultural towns all over California are going to die off.
For instance, consider what is already happening to the little town of Mendota
The farms in and around Mendota are dying of thirst. The signs are everywhere. Orchards with trees lying on their sides, as if shot. Former farm fields given over to tumbleweeds. Land and cattle for sale, cheap.
Large numbers of agricultural workers continue to hang on, hoping that somehow there will be enough work for them. But as Evelyn Nievesrecently observed, panic is starting to set in
Off-season, by mid-February, idled workers are clearly anxious. Farmworkers and everyone else who waits out the winter for work (truckers, diesel providers, packing suppliers and the like) are nearing the end of the savings they squirrel away during the season. The season starts again in March, April at the latest, but no one knows who will get work when the season begins, or how much.
People are scared, panicked even.
I did not write this article so that you would panic.
Yes, incredibly hard times are coming. If you will recall, the 1930s were also a time when the United States experienced extraordinarily dry weather conditions and a tremendous amount of financial turmoil. We could very well be entering a similar time period.
Worrying about this drought is not going to change anything. Instead of worrying, we should all be doing what we can to store some things up while food is still relatively cheap. Our grandparents and our great-grandparents that lived during the days of the Great Depression knew the wisdom of having a well-stocked food pantry, and it would be wise to follow their examples.
Please share this article with as many people as you can. The United States has never faced anything like this during most of our lifetimes. We need to shake people out of their normalcy bias and get them to understand that big changes are coming.
Posted By yihan On February 17, 2014 @ 5:41 am In Featured Stories,Tile,U.S. News | No Comments
Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse
February 17, 2014
Did you know that the U.S. state that produces the most vegetables is going through the worst drought it has ever experienced and that the size of the total U.S. cattle herd is now the smallest that it has been since 1951?
Image: Food Prices (Wikimedia Commons).
Just the other day, a CBS News article boldly declared that food prices soar as incomes stand still, but the truth is that this is only just the beginning. If the drought that has been devastating farmers and ranchers out west continues, we are going to see prices for meat, fruits and vegetables soar into the stratosphere. Already, the federal government has declared portions of 11 states to be disaster areas, and California farmers are going to leave half a million acres sitting idle this year because of the extremely dry conditions. Sadly, experts are telling us that things are probably going to get worse before they get better (if they ever do). As you will read about below, one expert recently told National Geographic that throughout history it has been quite common for that region of North America to experience severe droughts that last for decades. In fact, one drought actually lasted for about 200 years. So there is the possibility that the drought that has begun in the state of California may not end during your entire lifetime.
This drought has gotten so bad that it is starting to get national attention. Barack Obama visited the Fresno region on Friday, and he declared that this is going to be a very challenging situation this year, and frankly, the trend lines are such where its going to be a challenging situation for some time to come.
According to NBC News, businesses across the region are shutting down, large numbers of workers are leaving to search for other work, and things are already so bad that it calls to mind the Dust Bowl of the 1930s
In the states Central Valley where nearly 40 percent of all jobs are tied to agriculture production and related processing the pain has already trickled down. Businesses across a wide swath of the region have shuttered, casting countless workers adrift in a downturn that calls to mind the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
If you will recall, there have been warnings that Dust Bowl conditions were going to return to the western half of the country for quite some time.
Now the mainstream media is finally starting to catch up.
And of course these extremely dry conditions are going to severely affect food prices. The following are 15 reasons why your food bill is going to start soaring
#1 2013 was the driest year on record for the state of California, and 2014 has been exceptionally dry so far as well.
#2 According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 91.6 percent of the entire state of California is experiencing severe to exceptional drought even as you read this article.
#3 According to CNBC, it is being projected that California farmers are going to let half a million acres of farmland sit idle this year because of the crippling drought.
#4 Celeste Cantu, the general manager for the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, says that this drought could have a cataclysmicimpact on food prices
Given that California is one of the largest agricultural regions in the world, the effects of any drought, never mind one that could last for centuries, are huge. About 80 percent of Californias freshwater supply is used for agriculture. The cost of fruits and vegetables could soar, says Cantu. There will be cataclysmic impacts.
#5 Mike Wade, the executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition, recently explained which crops he believes will be hit the hardest
Hardest hit would be such annual row crops as tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, cantaloupes, garlic, peppers and corn. Wade said consumers can also expect higher prices and reduced selection at grocery stores, particularly for products such as almonds, raisins, walnuts and olives.
#6 As I discussed in a previous article, the rest of the nation is extremely dependent on the fruits and vegetables grown in California. Just consider the following statistics regarding what percentage of our produce is grown in the state
-99 percent of the artichokes
-44 percent of asparagus
-two-thirds of carrots
-half of bell peppers
-89 percent of cauliflower
-94 percent of broccoli
-95 percent of celery
-90 percent of the leaf lettuce
-83 percent of Romaine lettuce
-83 percent of fresh spinach
-a third of the fresh tomatoes
-86 percent of lemons
-90 percent of avocados
-84 percent of peaches
-88 percent of fresh strawberries
-97 percent of fresh plums
#7 Of course it isnt just agriculture which will be affected by this drought. Just consider this chilling statement by Tim Quinn, the executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies
There are places in California that if we dont do something about it, tens of thousands of people could turn on their water faucets and nothing would come out.
#8 The Sierra Nevada snowpack is only about 15 percent of what it normally is. As the New York Times recently explained, this is going to be absolutely devastating for Californians when the warmer months arrive
Experts offer dire warnings. The current drought has already eclipsed previous water crises, like the one in 1977, which a meteorologist friend, translating into language we understand as historians, likened to the Great Depression of droughts. Most Californians depend on the Sierra Nevada for their water supply, but the snowpack there was just 15 percent of normal in early February.
#9 The underground aquifers that so many California farmers depend upon are being drained at a staggering rate
Pumping from aquifers is so intense that the ground in parts of the valley is sinking about a foot a year. Once aquifers compress, they can never fill with water again. Its no surprise Tom Willey wakes every morning with a lump in his throat. When we ask which farmers will survive the summer, he responds quite simply: those who dig the deepest and pump the hardest.
#10 According to an expert interviewed by National Geographic, the current drought in the state of California could potentially last for 200 years or more as some mega-droughts in the region have done in the past
California is experiencing its worst drought since record-keeping began in the mid 19th century, and scientists say this may be just the beginning. B. Lynn Ingram, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California at Berkeley, thinks that California needs to brace itself for a megadroughtone that could last for 200 years or more.
#11 Much of the western U.S. has been exceedingly dry for an extended period of time, and this is hurting huge numbers of farmers and ranchers all the way from Texas to the west coast
The western United States has been in a drought that has been building for more than a decade, according to climatologist Bill Patzert of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Ranchers in the West are selling off their livestock, Patzert said. Farmers all over the Southwest, from Texas to Oregon, are fallowing in their fields because of a lack of water. For farmers and ranchers, this is a painful drought.
#12 The size of the U.S. cattle herd has been shrinking for seven years in a row, and it is now the smallest that it has been since 1951. But our population has more than doubled since then.
#13 Extremely unusual weather patterns are playing havoc with crops all over the planet right now. The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Lizzie Bennett
Peru, Venezuela, and Bolivia have experienced rainfall heavy enough to flood fields and rot crops where they stand. Volcanic eruptions in Ecuador are also creating problems due to cattle ingesting ash with their feed leading to a slow and painful death.
Parts of Australia have been in drought for years affecting cattle and agricultural production.
Rice production in China has been affected by record low temperatures.
Large parts of the UK are underwater, and much of that water is sea water which is poisoning the soil. So wet is the UK that groundwater is so high it is actually coming out of the ground and adding to the water from rivers and the sea. With the official assessment being that groundwater flooding will continue until MAY, and thats if it doesnt rain again between now and then. The River Thames is 65 feet higher than normal in some areas, flooding town after town as it heads to the sea.
#14 As food prices rise, our incomes are staying about the same. The following is from a CBS News article entitled Food prices soar as incomes stand still
While the government says prices are up 6.4 percent since 2011, chicken is up 18.4 percent, ground beef is up 16.8 percent and bacon has skyrocketed up 22.8 percent, making it a holiday when its on sale.
#15 As I have written about previously, median household income has fallen for five years in a row. So average Americans are going to have to make their food budgets stretch more than they ever have before as this drought drags on.
If the drought does continue to get worse, small agricultural towns all over California are going to die off.
For instance, consider what is already happening to the little town of Mendota
The farms in and around Mendota are dying of thirst. The signs are everywhere. Orchards with trees lying on their sides, as if shot. Former farm fields given over to tumbleweeds. Land and cattle for sale, cheap.
Large numbers of agricultural workers continue to hang on, hoping that somehow there will be enough work for them. But as Evelyn Nievesrecently observed, panic is starting to set in
Off-season, by mid-February, idled workers are clearly anxious. Farmworkers and everyone else who waits out the winter for work (truckers, diesel providers, packing suppliers and the like) are nearing the end of the savings they squirrel away during the season. The season starts again in March, April at the latest, but no one knows who will get work when the season begins, or how much.
People are scared, panicked even.
I did not write this article so that you would panic.
Yes, incredibly hard times are coming. If you will recall, the 1930s were also a time when the United States experienced extraordinarily dry weather conditions and a tremendous amount of financial turmoil. We could very well be entering a similar time period.
Worrying about this drought is not going to change anything. Instead of worrying, we should all be doing what we can to store some things up while food is still relatively cheap. Our grandparents and our great-grandparents that lived during the days of the Great Depression knew the wisdom of having a well-stocked food pantry, and it would be wise to follow their examples.
Please share this article with as many people as you can. The United States has never faced anything like this during most of our lifetimes. We need to shake people out of their normalcy bias and get them to understand that big changes are coming.
Feb 17, 2014 10:45:17 #
2/25/14 North OC Shoot @ Field Time Target and Training
Tuesday 2/25/14 @ 6:30pm-9pm is the next CGSSA OC Chapter shoot at Field Time Target and Training in Stanton.
All are welcome, so bring a friend!
Field Time Target and Training is near Beach & Katella in Stanton
http://www.fieldtimetargetandtraining.com/
Pizza:
$5 donation gets you 1 slice of pizza. $10 donation gets you all you can eat pizza! All proceeds go to supporting our monthly shoot.
Safety - If you are acting unsafe you will be educated or asked to leave. Please case and uncase firearms in the shooting booth only and do not transfer uncased firearms between booths. Complete range rules: http://www.fieldtimetargetandtraining.com/range.html
Bring a Government ID! Drivers license, passport, govt ID card, etc.
Age - No shooters under the age of 10 allowed. All shooters that are under 21 must be accompanied by a shooter over 21.
Ammo - If any part of the cartridge attracts a magnet, it is a no-go. No aluminum cased ammo. No Tracers. Staff will be inspecting your ammunition.
Pistols - No Rapid fire, no drawing from holster, and all pistols must be unloaded, locked open and pointed downrange when not in use.
Rifles - All rifles must be checked in at the front counter when you register. They will give you a chamber flag to use for the night. Please remember to give it back before you leave.
Shotguns- Only slugs that are purchased at FTT&T may be used at the range. If you are caught trying to sneak in outside shotgun ammo, you will be asked to leave.
Brass- You can pick up your own brass. Just notify staff that you want to keep your brass and we will try to sweep it into a little pile for you.
Cost - $12 range fee and stay until closing at 9pm!
REMINDER: - Field Time Target & Training has been gracious to allow us to use their facilities at a reduced cost. We will return the courtesy and we will leave the facility better than we found it. That means making sure trash is disposed of (even if its not yours) and accepting responsibility if you damage range equipment.
Calgunner in Training Program.
Where do I start? What are the safety rules? Which gun should I buy?
It is easy to forget how overwhelming the shooting sports can be to a beginner. CGSSA strives to make the sport welcoming, safe (and fun!) for new shooters. The Calgunner in Training Program provides an opportunity for new shooters to come to our CGSSA monthly shoot and attend an orientation seminar lead by certified firearms instructors, followed by hands-on learning in the shooting bay! We provide the instruction, firearm and ammo. (All included for free with your $12 range fee). Space limited to two students, NEW SHOOTERS ONLY!!)
All others at the monthly shoot are welcome to sit in on the classroom portion of CIT at no charge. Please arrive at 6:30pm. The class begins at 6:45pm. No late arrivals will be admitted into the class.
The CIT program is funded entirely by our monthly shoot through donations and our pizza dinners, so eat up! A special thanks to our instructors and Calguns staff who volunteer their time to make events like this so much fun!
Tuesday 2/25/14 @ 6:30pm-9pm is the next CGSSA OC Chapter shoot at Field Time Target and Training in Stanton.
All are welcome, so bring a friend!
Field Time Target and Training is near Beach & Katella in Stanton
http://www.fieldtimetargetandtraining.com/
Pizza:
$5 donation gets you 1 slice of pizza. $10 donation gets you all you can eat pizza! All proceeds go to supporting our monthly shoot.
Safety - If you are acting unsafe you will be educated or asked to leave. Please case and uncase firearms in the shooting booth only and do not transfer uncased firearms between booths. Complete range rules: http://www.fieldtimetargetandtraining.com/range.html
Bring a Government ID! Drivers license, passport, govt ID card, etc.
Age - No shooters under the age of 10 allowed. All shooters that are under 21 must be accompanied by a shooter over 21.
Ammo - If any part of the cartridge attracts a magnet, it is a no-go. No aluminum cased ammo. No Tracers. Staff will be inspecting your ammunition.
Pistols - No Rapid fire, no drawing from holster, and all pistols must be unloaded, locked open and pointed downrange when not in use.
Rifles - All rifles must be checked in at the front counter when you register. They will give you a chamber flag to use for the night. Please remember to give it back before you leave.
Shotguns- Only slugs that are purchased at FTT&T may be used at the range. If you are caught trying to sneak in outside shotgun ammo, you will be asked to leave.
Brass- You can pick up your own brass. Just notify staff that you want to keep your brass and we will try to sweep it into a little pile for you.
Cost - $12 range fee and stay until closing at 9pm!
REMINDER: - Field Time Target & Training has been gracious to allow us to use their facilities at a reduced cost. We will return the courtesy and we will leave the facility better than we found it. That means making sure trash is disposed of (even if its not yours) and accepting responsibility if you damage range equipment.
Calgunner in Training Program.
Where do I start? What are the safety rules? Which gun should I buy?
It is easy to forget how overwhelming the shooting sports can be to a beginner. CGSSA strives to make the sport welcoming, safe (and fun!) for new shooters. The Calgunner in Training Program provides an opportunity for new shooters to come to our CGSSA monthly shoot and attend an orientation seminar lead by certified firearms instructors, followed by hands-on learning in the shooting bay! We provide the instruction, firearm and ammo. (All included for free with your $12 range fee). Space limited to two students, NEW SHOOTERS ONLY!!)
All others at the monthly shoot are welcome to sit in on the classroom portion of CIT at no charge. Please arrive at 6:30pm. The class begins at 6:45pm. No late arrivals will be admitted into the class.
The CIT program is funded entirely by our monthly shoot through donations and our pizza dinners, so eat up! A special thanks to our instructors and Calguns staff who volunteer their time to make events like this so much fun!
Feb 17, 2014 15:43:46 #
15 Reasons Why Your Food Bill Is Going To Start SOARING February 17, 2014 Did you know that the U.S. state that produces the most vegetables is going through the worst drought it has ever experienced and that the size of the total U.S. cattle herd is now the smallest that it has been since 1951? Just the other day, a CBS News article boldly declared that food prices soar as incomes stand still, but the truth is that this is only just the beginning. If the drought that has been devastating farmers and ranchers out west continues, we are going to see prices for meat, fruits and vegetables soar into the stratosphere. Already, the federal government has declared portions of 11 states to be disaster areas, and California farmers are going to leave half a million acres sitting idle this year because of the extremely dry conditions. Sadly, experts are telling us that things are probably going to get worse before they get better (if they ever do). As you will read about below, one expert recently told National Geographic that throughout history it has been quite common for that region of North America to experience severe droughts that last for decades. In fact, one drought actually lasted for about 200 years. So there is the possibility that the drought that has begun in the state of California may not end during your entire lifetime. This drought has gotten so bad that it is starting to get national attention. Barack Obama visited the Fresno region on Friday, and he declared that this is going to be a very challenging situation this year, and frankly, the trend lines are such where its going to be a challenging situation for some time to come. According to NBC News, businesses across the region are shutting down, large numbers of workers are leaving to search for other work, and things are already so bad that it calls to mind the Dust Bowl of the 1930s
In the states Central Valley 40% of all jobs are tied to agriculture production & processing the pain has already trickled down. Businesses across a wide swath of the region have shuttered, casting countless workers adrift in a downturn that calls to mind the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. If you will recall, there have been warnings that Dust Bowl conditions were going to return to the western half of the country for quite some time. Now the mainstream media is finally starting to catch up. And of course these extremely dry conditions are going to severely affect food prices. Here are 15 reasons why your food bill is going to start soaring
#1 2013 was the driest year on record for the state of California, and 2014 has been exceptionally dry so far as well. #2 US Drought Monitor: 91.6 % of the entire state of California is experiencing severe to exceptional drought even as you read this article. #3 According to CNBC, it is being projected that California farmers are going to let half a million acres of farmland sit idle this year #4 Celeste Cantu, Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority GM says this drought could have a cataclysmic impact on food prices. California is one of the largest agricultural regions in the world, the effects of any drought, never mind one that could last for centuries, are huge. About 80% of Californias freshwater supply is used for agriculture. The cost of fruits and vegetables could soar, says Cantu. There will be cataclysmic impacts. #5 Mike Wade, the executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition, believes hardest hit would be such annual row crops as tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, cantaloupes, garlic, peppers & corn. Expect higher prices & reduced selection for almonds, raisins, walnuts and olives. #6 The nation is extremely dependent on the fruits and vegetables grown in California. Just consider what California produces
99% artichokes, 44% asparagus, 67% carrots, 50% bell peppers, 89% cauliflower, 94% broccoli, 95% celery, 90% leaf lettuce, 83% Romaine lettuce, 83% fresh spinach, 33% fresh tomatoes, 86% lemons, 90% avocados, 84% peaches, 88% fresh strawberries, 97% fresh plums, #7 Tim Quinn, the executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies said: There are places in California that if we dont do something about it, tens of thousands of people could turn on their water faucets and nothing would come out. #8 The Sierra Nevada snowpack is only about 15% in 2013-14, this is devastating for Californians when the warmer months arrive
Experts offer dire warnings. The current drought has already eclipsed previous water crises, like the one in 1977, likened to the Great Depression of droughts. #9 The underground aquifers are being drained at a staggering rate
so intense that the ground in parts of the valley is sinking about a foot a year. Once aquifers compress, they can never fill with water again. Its no surprise those who dig the deepest and pump the hardest may survive. #10 California is experiencing its worst drought since record-keeping began in the mid 19th century. B. Lynn Ingram, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California at Berkeley, thinks that California needs to brace itself for a megadroughtone that could last for 200 years or more. #11 Much of the western U.S. has been exceedingly dry for years & this is hurting most farmers & ranchers from Texas to the west coast
The western US drought has been building for more than a decade, according to climatologist Bill Patzert of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ranchers in the West are selling livestock. Farmers from Texas to Oregon, are fallowing in their fields. This is a painful drought. #12 The US cattle herd has been shrinking for 7yrs & it is now the smallest since 1951. But our population has more than doubled since then. #13 Extreme weather is playing havoc with crops all over the planet. Peru, Venezuela & Bolivia experienced rainfall heavy enough to flood fields & rot crops. Volcanic eruptions in Ecuador are killing cattle due to ingesting ash. Australias drought is causing fires the size of US states & affecting cattle and agricultural destruction. Rice production in China drops due to low temperatures. Large parts of the UK are underwater; UK is like a sponge & actually salty water is coming out of the ground & adding to the rivers & lakes. The River Thames is 65 feet higher than normal. #14 Food prices soar as incomes stand still
Prices are up 6.4% since 2011, chicken +18.4%, ground beef +16.8% and bacon +22.8% #15 Median income down 5 years in a row. Americans are cost cutting! California towns are going to die off. Orchards trees lying on their sides. Farm fields to tumbleweeds. Land & cattle for sale, cheap. Workers continue to hang on, but panic is starting to set in
Workers anxious & truckers, diesel providers, packing suppliers and the like are nearing the end of their savings. People are scared, panicked even. Yes, incredibly hard times are coming. The 1930s were dry weather conditions & financial turmoil. Store relatively cheap foods. The US has never faced anything like this during most of our lifetimes. We need to shake people out of their normalcy bias and get them to understand that big changes are coming.
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