Category Archives: U.S.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

White Horse & World War 3: U.K. and Argentina heading for Second Falklands War, major oil find could change the minds of U.S. leaders

Argentine Foreign Minister, Hector Timerman, demanded that the United Kingdom “…refrain from this military escalation that they are carrying out in the South Atlantic with the introduction of the latest generation of warships and warplanes, and dispatching a nuclear submarine with the capacity to unload nuclear weapons.”

While some British officials say the sending of Royal Navy ships to the Falklands (Malvinas) Islands is in response to Argentina’s growing demand to return the islands to Argentine control, other British officials say the move to send warships was planned long ago.

In any case the United Nations is asking the two countries to settle the issue peacefully: “The secretary general expressed concern about the increasingly strong exchanges between the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom on this issue. He expressed the hope that the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom will avoid an escalation of this dispute and resolve differences peacefully and through dialogue.”

In the 1990s. Argentina’s constitution was changed to make retaking of the Malvinas, from the British, a constitutional requirement.

Disputes over who controls the Falklands goes back to the late 1700s, and involves France, Spain and the United States, as well as Argentina and Britain.  This latest dispute is being exacerbated by the fact that oil has been discovered there.

If war were declared, the U.K. would find it a little more difficult to fight, than in the 1982 war, because several major South American countries have indicated they will help Argentina fight the British.

“The recovery of Malvinas Islands on part of Argentina is a fact that joins countries like Peru…It is part of our identity; there is a piece of colonial territory in these islands that still remains in South America.”-Rafael Roncagliolo, Foreign Minister of Peru

“…back Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas and back the UN resolutions calling on the Argentine and British governments to hold talks on the issue…”-Antonio Patriota, Foreign Minister of Brazil

“I’m speaking only for Venezuela, but if it occurs to the British Empire to attack Argentina, Argentina won’t be alone this time.”-Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela

What does the United States have to say about this?  Basically the same thing they said in 1982: “Our position remains the same. This is a problem between two of our partners. We do not want to change our position…”-Roberta Jacobson, Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs

However, a recent huge oil find might change the stance of U.S. leaders.  Because a major U.S. oil company, Anadarko, wants to get involved with the British company that discovered the huge oil field.

Anadarko wants to invest $1.5 billion into the British company Rockhopper: “A deal has been tabled. Anadarko has got approval to do this from the highest levels in the U.S., and they’ve been reassured the British will stand by the islands.”-unnamed British source

Anadarko was involved with British Petroleum and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.  The British media says Anadarko has connections to the Pentagon because it’s current Board of Directors include Kevin Chilton, a former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, and Preston M “Pete” Geren III, who worked in the U.S. Department of Defense for at least ten years.

I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

White Horse & World War 3: Iran says it will reveal Nuclear Achievements in a few days, Israel says it’s ready to take action

“In the nuclear field, major achievements have been made by the Iranian nation in recent years. Today, not only has this nation become nuclear, but it has also succeeded in meeting a large portion of its needs in this field.”-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran

On February 11, 2012, the Iranian President not only praised the nuclear program of Iran, but said that “major nuclear accomplishments” will be revealed in the next few days.

These words will most likely give the warmongers in the United States more ammo in their call for war.

Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said his country is ready: “Israel has a large selection of ways, when the world of international sanctions fails, to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program.”

I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

U.S.

United Police States of America: Video shows rich White cops hunting poor black man in New York

Almost reminiscent of the British killer cops who started riots in poor London suburbs by killing an unarmed father, white New York City cops intentionally stalked a poor black man, and it was caught on video.

Ramarley Graham, 18, died last Thursday after NYPD broke into his grandmother’s home, went upstairs and held his grandmother at gunpoint, in the bathroom, while they shot her unarmed grandson point blank in the chest!

Officially the cops said Graham was running from a drug bust, however the apartment’s security camera video shows Graham calmly walking into the apartment.  Suddenly two cops run from around a corner and start kicking the door.  One cop is trying to conceal his identity with is hat and hoodie.  Witnesses say the cops never identified themselves.  The racists cops had their guns drawn almost from the beginning.

The liar cops also said, just like in the London case last year, that Graham had a gun as well as drugs.  One cop was said to be heard yelling “gun, gun” just before they shot Graham.  Guess what? No gun or drugs were found on Graham, or in his grandmother’s home!!!

Watch a local New York news report, with the security camera video

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Black Horse & What Economic Recovery? South American Economist says current U.S. & European economic experts are “Stupid”! Another reason why Universities are a waste of money!

The following statements are from Artur Manfred Max-Neef, a Chilean economist, who began teaching economics in the 1960s at Berkeley in California.

“This economy is crazy and poisonous. I am an economist, and I have been fighting against the economy that is taught the way it is being taught and being practiced. I have been fighting it for almost 40 years of my life, because it’s an absurd economy that has nothing to do with real life. It’s all fabrications…”

“We are simply, dramatically stupid. We act systematically against the evidences we have. We know everything that should not be done. There’s nobody that doesn’t know that. Particularly the big politicians know exactly what should not be done. Yet they do it!”

“After what happened since October 2008, I mean, elementally, you would think what? That now they’re going to change. I mean, they see that the model is not working. The model is even poisonous, you know? Dramatically poisonous. And what is the result, and what happened in the last meeting of the European Union? They are more fundamentalist now than before! So, the only thing you know that you can be sure of, that the next crisis is coming, and it will be twice as much as this one. And for that one, there won’t be enough money anymore. So that will be it. And that is the consequence of systematical human stupidity.”

“The university is, for me, the main responsible for this. The university today has become an accomplice of maintaining a world which we don’t want, because if you don’t teach something different to the economists, well, how the hell are you going to change it when they are professionals, you know, working?”

“….it ceases to be a discipline, it ceases to be a science, and it becomes a religion. And that is what economics, neoliberal economics, is today.”

“…economists know nothing about ecosystems. They don’t know nothing about thermodynamics, you know, nothing about biodiversity or anything. I mean, they are totally ignorant in that respect. And I don’t see what harm it would do, you know, to an economist to know that if the beasts would disappear, he would disappear as well, because there wouldn’t be food anymore. But he doesn’t know that, you know, that we depend absolutely from nature. But for these economists we have, nature is a subsystem of the economy. I mean, it’s absolutely crazy!”

Five postulates and one fundamental value for economists in the coming new world:

1: The economy is to serve the people and not the people to serve the economy. 

2: Development is about people and not about objects. 

3: Growth is not the same as development, and development does not necessarily require growth. 

4: No economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services.

5: The economy is a subsystem of a larger finite system, the biosphere, hence permanent growth is impossible.

The fundamental value of the new economy: No economic interest, under no circumstance, can be above the reverence of life.

For more on Max-Neef’s insight into why our economic world is collapsing check out Democracy Now!

…there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3: Iran builds two more attack submarines, will target U.S. aircraft carriers

“…if an ordinary submarine can sit in the Persian Gulf’s bed it would be the worst threat to the enemy. That is one of the U.S. concerns since Iranian submarines are noiseless and can easily evade detection as they are equipped with the sonar evading technology…When the submarine sits on the seabed it can easily target and hit an aircraft carrier traversing in the nearby region.”-Rear Admiral Farhad Amiri

February 9, 2012, Iran announced it has completed two more high tech attack mini submarines, designed to patrol the Persian Gulf.  They claim the submarines are 100% built in Iran.

The Ghadir class mini submarines are small (some say they look like a submarine made by North Korea), and can fire Hoot supercavitating rocket powered torpedoes, which are far too fast for a ship to avoid.  Those torpedoes could be based on the Soviet rocket torpedoes developed during the Cold War.

The latest subs will join at least three other subs that were completed in 2009.  Here’s pics of them.  Iran has not revealed how many of the mini subs they have, but USAToday estimates they have 12 mini subs (and three big Russian designed submarines).

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Red & White Horse: Iran says Western sources behind lies about Iran sending troops to Syria. Russia says Syrian people caught in the middle of game of conquest by the West. Gingrich behind the curve, Western forces already in Syria!

Russian media claim a Chinese newspaper has published an article that says Iran is sending 15,000 troops to Syria.

The Russians asked several Iranian university and media officials about this: “As far as I know there is not and will not be any program to dispatch Iranian military troops to Syria.”- Reza Moghadasi, Mehr News

“Iran has no troops in the country. Iran has never had troops involved in the problems within Syria. Someone in the Chinese media has been receiving information that is completely false.”-Seyed Mohammad Marandi, University of Tehran

But, so far, there has been no comment from Iranian government leaders.

Despite some U.S. Republican pining over covert military action in Syria, an Israeli military intelligence source (called DEBKAfile) a has already confirmed that indeed, Western and Qatari military forces are already in Syria, helping the Free Syrian Army.

Russian government leaders are accusing the U.S. and Europe of using the Syrian people as pawns in their game of world conquest: “This is a global game; this is about geo-political and geo-economic interests and unfortunately countries like Syria are being held hostage for the geo-political and geo-economic interests of Western countries.”-Konstantin Kosachev, State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee

Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other.

I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

Business/Economics, Technology, U.S.

75% reduction in Alzheimer’s, thank Vitamin A

“This is a particularly exciting and rewarding study because of the new science we have discovered and the potential promise of a therapy for Alzheimer’s disease. Our next objective is to ascertain if it acts similarly in humans.”–Gary Landreth, Case Western Reserve University

Research into a cancer drug called Bexarotene is showing promise as a treatment for Alzheimer’s.   Bexarotene is a retinoid, a chemical related to vitamin A.

Researchers used the retinoid on lab mice with laboratory induced Alzheimer’s.  Alzheimer’s is believed to be caused by plaque build up on the brain.  Amazingly when the mice were given Bexarotene, there was an immediate clearing of plaque that lasted for three days.  The result was up to a 75% reduction in plaque.

They hope to test the drug on humans soon.

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? The maker of the world’s first digital camera, Kodak, will make cameras no more

Eastman Kodak, a U.S. pioneer in camera and film production since 1880, and the first company to make a digital camera, will no longer make cameras of any kind.

Kodak went bankrupt in January 2012.  At least 400 employees in New York will lose their jobs.  The company will focus on its lagging printer brand (ranked sixth place in the U.S. market).

Kodak officials say they will still sell cameras, they just won’t be the ones making them.

International, U.S.

2009 Greek study says new strain of H3N2 is drug resistant! U.S. CDC says anti-flu drugs no longer work!

The European Union’s Eurosurveillance published a report in 2009, about Greece’s efforts to combat flu viruses: “Greece is a known crossroads among three continents (Europe, Asia, Africa) through which resistant strains can spread.”

From 2004 to 2008, Greek researchers looked at how the various viruses reacted to available anti-viral drugs.  Anti-viral drugs work mainly by attacking protein cells.  In flu viruses the specific proteins are called “M2”.  However, they are only effective in the early stages of infection.

For those of us who don’t like reliance on petroleum products, some anti-virals (like the now ineffective adamantanes) are based on petroleum hydrocarbons.

The Greek study concluded that current flu viruses have become resistant to most anti-viral drugs, precisely because the drugs were being used so much: “Resistance to M2 inhibitors first appeared following extensive drug use in Asia and the U.S. after the SARS epidemic in 2004. The worldwide spread of these resistant strains occurred through replacement of sensitive with resistant viruses, probably because of other selective advantages of the resistant strains connected to other genes than M2.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention backs the Greek study up. After studying the 2009 flu epidemic in the U.S. the CDC concluded that the viruses are now drug resistant!

 

International, U.S.

Canadian study says Flu shots not effective against new version of H3N2

On January 27, 2012, it was reported that a Canadian study concluded that  outbreaks of H3N2, from 2009 to 2011, could not have been prevented with flu shots!

It also showed that young adults were the best able to fight off H3N2, children and older people are at the most risk.  Also, despite health officials claiming flu shots protect against several types of influenza, the Canadian researchers reported that flu shots do not protect against H3N2/H1N1 related flu viruses!

This new version of H3N2 is a descendant of a long forgotten flu virus:  “Recent analysis has shown that swH3N2 viruses and zoonotic transmissions to humans, including A(H3N2)v, are descendants from a common human influenza virus ancestor, the A/Wuhan/359/1995(H3N2)-like virus [7]. Influenza A/Wuhan/359/1995 has not circulated in humans nor been a component of the trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) since 1998 [this is why flu shots are not effective against H3N2!], when it was replaced by influenza A/Sydney/5/1997(H3N2) [8-10].”

The report was published, on January 24, 2012, in the European Union’s Eurosurveillance online publication concerning infectious diseases.

The following are from the report’s conclusion: “…our results suggest broad susceptibility to swine-origin H3N2 infection in young children, consistent with early epidemiologic features of A(H3N2)v in the U.S.”

“The H3N2 subtype of swine-origin influenza may show a different age-related pattern of risk in the human population compared to the H1N1 subtype…”

“We observed little TIV-induced improvement in cross-reactive antibodies…” Meaning flu shots don’t work.

“Additional studies should explore age-related and vaccine-induced effects…” Meaning this virus is so new that they don’t know how to fight it!